Is it stupid to bring a complaint like this?

[var123]

Its not even that i want to complain. I am just beginning to feel that something isn't right and I want reassurance that my son is not being overlooked.

DS is high achieving in maths. He's at an outstanding secondary and everything went very well last year. However, this year (as far as I can tell):-

1. He's only being taught level 7 work this year in class despite getting level 7a last year.
2. I asked the teacher if he would sit a level 8 exam. She didn't reply for a week and then 10 mins before she wrote back to say yes, she emailed DS and some others with an invitation to do 2 hours of level 8 work with her out of class hours.
3. The teacher is taking up to a week to reply to any email I send her. All other teachers reply same day usually and within 48 hours at most.
4. DS won an award last year so i know he's one of the most able mathematicians in the school, yet I learned that he's been excluded from G&T opportunities. It can't be behaviour.
5. the teacher has never given him one of the daily class awards for good work or good behaviour, despite the fact that even she says he does all the work easily and his behaviour is never an issue.
6. The teacher refused to give me a parent's evening appointment. then she took a week (and a reminder email) to send me a one line email which only said "keeping up with work in class well".

Oh, it sounds like he is having to deal with some difficult stuff. Has he access to any support from mentors who have issues similar to his own?

Wow! It's really lovely for all of us with kids in yr8 to hear they are not a priority.

If I was told that by a teacher at my son's school we'd be out of there pretty quick. My son is top set and even within the set there is extension work set for the more able. Indeed both top set and second set take both the 5-7 and 6-8 papers as sometimes there is a bit of movement between the lower part of top and top part of set 2. The curriculum sent out says all sets will be taught eg. X y z and in addition sets 2 and 1 will be taught p and q and set 1 will also be taught r.

Also most children in sets 1-3 at our school easily a achieve a 7 and the 6-8 paper in effects sorts out those with natural ability. If your son is handling the work easily ask whether there is the possibility of extension work to keep him engaged and work his brain.

I don't know whether you are in the state system or the independent system. My son is in an independent school and usually any email enquiries (and we are encouraged to ask questions by email) are answered same day or next even if it is just an acknowledgment that something is being looked into!

I agree with the others go to dept head or year head as teacher seems to be binning you off! Unacceptable!

My personal opinion is that you should contact the ahead of maths, as someone mentioned above, for a fact finding discussion. I don't think it is right for you to feel you're in the dark about this, which you might not have been if the maths teacher had let you see her at parents' evening.

I find it interesting you get people speaking out against selective education, proposing bright children will be well catered for in to sets of comprehensives, then as soon as a parent writes a post worrying about their bright child being let down by their comprehensive school, a load of posters jump on the parent implying they are being unreasonable, expecting too much, their child shouldn't expect any special treatment if their abilities are greater than their peers.

to = top

The answer in (state) primary school was always... your DS is too far ahead. Teach him yourself if you want him to learn anything this year.

We had a lovely year last year, where (the state comprehensive) school seemed to be for teaching all the children. I really hope it wasn't a one off and we'll go back to the contradictory simultaneously held attitudes of do-it-yourself but don't-do-it-yourself-because-that's-our-job.

DS2 is yet to get to secondary school. He's even better than DS1 at maths. God help me if the secondary school really does expect him to tread water through his teenage years like the primary did since he turned 6! Ds1 is a sweet, good-natured boy but DS2 is a little more difficult to keep from boredom.

I find it interesting you get people speaking out against selective education, proposing bright children will be well catered for in to sets of comprehensives, then as soon as a parent writes a post worrying about their bright child being let down by their comprehensive school, a load of posters jump on the parent implying they are being unreasonable, expecting too much, their child shouldn't expect any special treatment if their abilities are greater than their peers.

Children can be catered for well within the Comprehensive system. Although this does not mean they always are. There are problems implicit within the Grammar system also. Not least, is that not all children reach a peak (in terms of their attainment compared to peers) at age 11.

So Y8 is not exactly a priority.

Cannot quite believe some of the comments here.

Y8 may not exactly be a priority to you or other teachers noble but the OP's son IS her priority and if she has concerns about his learning she has the absolute right to raise them and be afforded the courtesy of an answer. Email is surely a better method of enquiry than repeat phone call's to the school.

As parents we're encouraged to work in partnership with school and the vast majority of us do. The contemptuous disregard of a parent who is worried that her child is going to coast for a year does nothing for this 'relationship'.

Yes teachers have a huge workload and currently there are many changes to deal with. Yes they are busily dealing with post mock and pre public exam stuff. However children in non exam public exam years should also be priority otherwise we as parents will start to believe that for schools, it is all about the league tables.

And NC may well have been scrapped but pretty much every school is still using them to report progress to students and parents - I have a y7 and teachers were referring to his end of ks3 target in these terms - a target some 2 1/2 years hence! So it is entirely reasonable for the OP to be asking if her level 7a student will be sitting L8 papers.

noble your "fuck knows" response and "go look it up yourself" stance is frankly insulting. Hope to goodness you're not teaching at my DC school.

The thing is you sound very interested in levels when actually widening their knowledge can be better and more interesting for them.

My dd1 is very good at maths, she was beyond level 8 part way through year 8, as were others in her group (comprehensive). We've found that the best teachers are not the ones that finish the topic and run onto the next, but the ones who take the topic they've done and let that group use it with it projects and practicals. They get more understanding and are able to apply it in different circumstances and problems.

A child can do the work to achieve level 8 may well not be as good as a child who has only done the work to level 7, but has done widening work which will enable them to understand the topic thoroughly and hence be able to cope much better with the next stage up in that topic.

What I think you'd be better asking for is good extenstion work rather than him needing level 8 work necessarily. Ask what they give him when he finishes his work correctly. If what they give is more of the same, then that needs addressing. If what they give is using that topic to investigate further, then you should be very pleased.

I am not disputing that there are fantastic comprehensive schools which cater for their outstandingly bright students. But what's a parent to do when they find their child's school is not like that? I'm rolling my eyes at the posters who jump down the OP's throat and imply she's being too big for her boots if she challenges the school. A good HoD shouldn't feel aggrieved by a parent asking these questions.

A good HoD shouldn't feel aggrieved by a parent asking these questions.

I agree here entirely, couldhave.

Gosh, notinaminute I'm sorry that you didn't like my suggestion that the OP try to get the teacher to ring her rather than go around the houses with email, nor my suggestion that she or the school make use of the UKMT mentoring materials for enrichment rather than accelerating through the curriculum in a manner that could cause problems next year.

By the way, every year group can't be a priority because that would make none of them a priority.

When your DC get into exam classes I'm sure they'll benefit from the extra effort and focus that they get.

I'd like to address the points about levels and extension work.

Ds has an upcoming exam. It will be the only time that he will be measured this year and his target is 8C. If he doesn't get 8C, then how is he going to feel, especially if he appears to have made no progress since last year? I am concerned about this because there are self-esteem issues (already described).

Secondly, extension work always gets touted as the answer. It sounds great, but what is it in practice? The children are still learning basic maths skills here. There isn't really much true extension work to be had. Its not like you can take it in a truly different direction. What "extension work" usually boils down to is practising previously learned skills using more steps. So, its just more interesting repetition.

I am not in favour of DS doing a GSCE early, so i do see the problem. But i do get tired of hearing about "extension work". Clearly I have seen quite a lot of it over the years and it seems like a way to tread water most of the time.

Agreed with those who are saying why focus on levels? As a mathematician you'll know how limited the curriculum is. There is so much more to maths than in the gcse syllabus.
Ask the teacher whether they are doing the ukmt junior challenge in April, he should enjoy that. It may well be worth having a chat with her, but don't approach it from the point of view of demanding steaming ahead in the curriculum, instead go in with an open mind.

Yes, I could try to ring the teacher. well actually, I'd have to email her and ask for an appointment when I might ring her (which could be a problem giving her ability to promptly reply.

Maybe that's the next step, but I am wondering if its worth it because clearly the teacher does not wish to engage with me and attempt to get her to respond to emails have not been a success thus far. You can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink, as they say.

People ask what i want. I want her to take notice of my son, treat him fairly. Will forcing her to talk to me help or hinder that?

If you explain to him that he has hit the ceiling on the test and he can't possibly score any more, it's the test not him, will he not be ok with that? The tests are not an important measure at all.

It is perfectly possible to extend them without repeating basic maths skills. I seem to be saying this on a few threads at the moment, but have a look at the ukmt website. Even the British maths olympiad uses little more maths than that used in gcse and it's bloody hard.

Sometimes you need to engage the Head of Department, or the Year Group leader if a teacher is being uncommunicative.

Level 8c is his target for the end of Year 8; he's not actually expected to reach it in his upcoming exam, is he?
If he's been set those targets, it sounds like they are actually planning to cover the level 8 curriculum with him at some point during the year?
Is your fear of him failing based on not having covered it to date??

Floggingmolly - pretty much he is. Its only 1 sublevel up.
I've had a quick scan of past papers and it looks like he's got three things to learn:-
more complex simultaneous eqns
adding powers
something else that I can't remember off the top of my head!

OP I think you are right to be on the case.
Unfortunately I have seen in state schools that indeed year 8s are lowest priority]. They rank behind Y11 - exam year, Y10 - will be exam year next year, Y7 - newbies, Y9 - will be making GSCE options. In prep schools they ARE the exam year (Common Entrance) and so have top priority. Big difference.

You would be better off asking the teacher to ring you at X time after school than say that you will ring the teacher. It's not easy for teachers to hang around phones waiting for incoming calls, especially as you can't usually ring them directly and will have to go through reception. Much easier for a teacher to find a phone and ring you.

If the teacher does keep evading you then I would go to the HOD because it would be starting to get weird.

Can your DS ask her directly what paper he will be sitting? It's a bit weird that they are sitting their end of year exam in Feb.

G&T: I was using the govt top 10% definition. In real world english, I don't think he's either gifted nor talented, just very able (as you say). However, the same would apply to the vast majority of the other children in the G&T programs around the country too.

He already knows the work he gets in class and finds it quite straightforward. Hence the reason the teacher said he is having no problems (or whatever her phrase was). Its all stuff that he was able to do last year. I asked him this evening and he said he has learned a couple of new things this year, but that's it. And yes, he's finding it boring (but he's not so precocious as to make a fuss which is why, I suspect, the teacher has no interest him.)

He puts very little weight on his achievements and focuses on the things he struggles to do adequately.

I wonder if maybe instead of worrying about his fantastic maths, it would be better to devote your energy to finding ways to boost his confidence in other areas. So that he knows that adequate is fine for most things and that he can do a good job at other things. This might help him a lot more than pushing a threshold he's already very high performing on.

or maybe what I do is pretty good? That would be constantly strive to boost his confidence and do what's best for him including but not limited to thinking about his academic, emotional and social development.

so what are you going about his social & emotional development (that has nothing to do with his great math skills)?