If your DC got L6 maths in Y6, how did they find the transition to Y7? ....

[wotafaff]

DD loved maths at (state) primary, was in the extension group, with a specialist maths teacher, was constantly challenged and stretched, and came out with a very solid Level 6.

She's only been at secondary for 3 weeks, so it's very early days, but while she's being inspired in many of his subjects, the maths is getting her down. She's revisiting topics she did much lower down in primary, and can't quite see the point. The extension tasks aren't challenging her, and she's feeling uninspired. Her friend who went to a different local school is having similar issues.

Is this par for the course for "able" mathematicians in year 7? I'm guessing the Y6 maths teacher had the luxury of going beyond the curriculum, having got her peer group solidly to Level 6. In contrast the Y7 teacher presumably has to stick to the National Curriculum script, much of which DD will be already be very familiar with. To be fair, she is being given extension tasks, but they're in addition to the easier stuff, not instead of it, so the frustration is still there, and while they take a little more thought she's not finding them hugely challenging.

What should my expectations be?

I thin this is fairly normal unfortunately

Mine have been fine, no complaints anyway, 2 DC.

I want to say the school isn't that special as state comps go, but they have a Pony Jumping club and another poncey-like-that club, so maybe I'm wrong. I'm Just so glad DC had a fairly smooth transition to yr7 (so far).

DD found the move to Y7 challenging.

She was used to being top of the class and despite getting a maths scholarship, she was suddenly surrounded by a lot of equally clever students. It's made her work harder to keep her place.

I guess it helped that she was streamed from day 1 at secondary whereas at her primary there was no streaming at all (though a couple of them achieved L6 Maths).

DD was the same, teacher just getting a feel for the class? It does get better.

Well, we're only 3 weeks or so into term, so it may be too early to judge. Mine also got level 6 in maths and they did spend a lot of the autumn term consolidating their maths, but they were set later in the year and their classes move at a good pace for them.

Will your DD's school set? If so, when will this happen?

My level 6 DD has not complained but that really means very little, she mentioned about starting from scratch in French, but no other comments. She's really enjoying all of secondary school so far.

They're already set, but it's a small school so only into 2 groups.

Same OP, DD's thing is maths and she got a 6b in her sats. She was not challenged for the whole of year 7 under a really rubbish teacher and it was frustrating to say the least. I did complain and the head of maths went to observe (felt like a cow putting the teacher through that) and he agreed and she was then slightly more challenged from then.

Now she has a brilliant teacher in year 8 and is much more engaged again.

Keep your expectations high, DD did a nationwide maths competition in the latter part of the year and was second in the school (across 2 year groups) and is now being offered specialist maths lectures at an Oxbridge university in November (aged 13!!) so we are pretty chuffed with the school for entering her...!

I would do what I did again, raise it at parents eve (we did and got a bollocky answer as to how they differentiate) and after that email the head of the dept. do the same and you might see a difference.

My ds is at a grammar school and so far so good.

Sounds familiar, DD1 has just started yr 8 and hasn't yet learned anything 'new' in maths that she didn't do in primary school. Shes in the top set of 4, and most of her set did level 6.
She doesn't seem too unhappy though, she's been given some problem solving type extension work, and did the British and American junior maths challenges. Maths was her favourite subject in primary school, and now it would come much further down the list (behind science, DT, music, geography), but she still quite likes it, and I hope they will cover some new material soon.
I'm not sure how they are allowed to not let the kids progress in yr7 though. Most of them started the year at level 6, then couldn't be assessed as higher than level 6 by the end of the year as the test they did can't score higher than 6, so none of them will have been shown to make progress.

DD was L6a maths. We decided to send her to a highly selective, London day school from her state primary. She is having to hustle to keep up. Kids from state primaries are a minority, and the DC from prep schools are clearly well ahead of their also bright peers from state primaries who came with high L6s.

This makes me think that good private schools are ahead of state schools. It appears to be the case in KS1/2, and I imagine that trend continues through KS3/4. It certainly fits with your DD being bored in class. Our DD isn't "consolidating" at all, instead it's full steam ahead!

It also makes me think that there must be a significant minority of gifted students who are going well beyond A* level in schools that have the capacity to challenge those students.

I'm sorry your DD isn't getting the stimulation she needs. I hope my own DD can hang in there and catch up.

DS2 has just gone into Y8. He went into Y7 with a secure level 6 and finished it a secure level 7, his summer report states his teacher was confident with the level. I think they were set fairly early on in the year. I don't think he found it especially challenging over the year but they didn't spend ages just consolidating.

Dd1 is also having this problem.She's the first to finish the work and sits there twiddling her thumbs for 10 minutes.Although a few girls in the class get the same marks as her she is a lot faster.She has found that several of her friends were awarded level 6's as well.This is an independant girls school in a rural county and is the best we have round here.I'm hoping once they set in Maths she will be stretched fully,as she claims to have had better Maths students in her state primary.

Our DC got top marks for the NVR 11+ paper and got a very comfortable Level 6 in Maths.

They've just gone into Yr 7 at an excellent grammar school. But to my surprise DC is very much kicking their heels in maths. Basically Yr 7 is all about trying to get all pupils to a similar maths level.

However in Yr 8 they are setted for maths and the gifted ones really start to race ahead. I think they have the option to take Maths GCSE a year early, and then go on to take a harder Maths paper?

They also get to try out for the school's maths team which competes at a national level.

Both my DCs were sold Level 6s going into their state comp. They are set for maths after an initial assessment there (the feeder primaries differ enormously in the amount of SATs focus teaching to the test and lots of coaching they have, and thus SATs results alone ave proved unreliable as a guide to setting).

Both ended up in top sets, both set off at a very brisk pace. Both good Level 7s (one 7b, one 7a) at the end of Y7.

I do think it does depend on the size and intake of the school. There are 4 pairs of parallel Maths sets across the year group in Year 7, a single top set, 3 pairs of parallel sets and a small highly nurtured SEN set from Y8 onwards, as far as I remember. The intake is, in general, quite high ability.

In the past, the top set have always done GCSE a year early, then a further Maths GCSE in Year 11. However, with the new GCSE, which is a step up in terms of ciontent and cghallenge, I gather the current Y10s will almost certainly just do the new Maths GCSE in Year 11. Once the school has the measure of that, I suspect further Maths GCSEs for top sets will be back on the cards.

Mine got an L6 in maths too. He's not really commented on the maths so far, apart from saying it's no longer his favourite subject. But I did receive a letter yesterday saying he'd been identified as G&T and inviting me in to discuss their approach to G&T teaching at the school, so hopefully that's a positive step that will mean no coasting for him!

Ds got a very solid L6. Just started Yr8 so I can comment on the whole of hus Yr7.
School had broad brush setting for yr 7, 6 mixed "higher level" classes (at least 1 L5 at SATS) and 4 smaller "lower level" classes (L4 and below at SATS).
Same teaching group for most subjects, no individual setting g within subjects except PE.
So you could have a L5 or L6 in literacy and be in the higher sets but be L4 at maths (or the other way round).

Ds totally coasted in maths last year and it was a bit (lot) of a waste if time.
At his parents evening I was told his grading was as high as it could be (school imposed max), which meant effectively he hadn't progressed.
He was finishing the extra extension work and then being told just to sit and wait till the end of the lesson.

It proved slightly when I raised it at the parents evening, but as that was Feb it was already half way through the year. And tbh I don't know if he just told me it improved so that I wouldn't go in and raise a fuss.

Anyway, he has just started Yr8, and they are set. He says there are 4 others in the class at his level and the work us a lot harder and he is engaged with it again.

If I had last year again I would be going in to discuss the situation a lot earlier.

Have just read the rest of the replies. I forgot that ds also did the junior maths challenge (he said they never got the results?). He then had an invite to the local uni series of Sat morning lectures for yr8s this year. ds' invite is the Cambridge Uni ones but friend is a maths teacher and she ran them for her county and said they are basically the same thing. Hopefully it will be nice for him to have the Oxbridge experience, but that's a postcode lottery.

DD started yr7 with L6 in her SATs, and had steady increases in math NC levels over the 2 yrs to start of yr9. I think yr9 will be more of a treading water nothing-much happening-in-math yr for her than yr7 was. Which is fine by me because she's completing 3 other GCSEs by end of yr10.

DS1 finished Y6 at L6. Y7 math was quite boring for him, it's all stuff he knew already, and teacher didn't even let him answer qustions, as to leave opportunities to other. However, although his teacher didn't challenge him at class, but did give him and a few other able students some extra math questions to do after school. And also he attended the math challenge etc. Once in Y8, math was setted, so it's better.

My DS went to state primary then onto state comprehensive with a strong level 6. They are put into sets in October of year 7. Just gone into year 9 with a strong level 8. Certainly the top sets have been challenged since year 7. Most of his friends in the top set have made the same good progress too.

DS was "only" 5A but already complaining that the maths is things he was doing 2 or 3 years ago. It sounds like the teacher is doing a broad recap of all work covered so hoping it may get better after half term. The schools approach is to put the top third of the year into "higher" level groups so assuming they will start to cover material more quickly.

DS has just started at a SS and is being taught with a good few working at L7 apparently, who are using language he's not familiar with.

I'm guessing they came from private preps and so were taught above L6.

Dd left primary past l6 in maths. She's at a very selective independent so even though they haven't set yet, the least able will be those hot housed to hit a high l5 in maths. So far they seem to be assessing them rather than teaching, but she's still finding it fun because a few of them have been doing old l6-8 papers as assessment/ testing, and when finished get given old gcse textbooks and ukmt stuff to play with. And loving that for the first time ever she has peers in the classroom to compete in a friendly manner with.
English she's able but a solid l6 rather than beyond, and reading a solid l5. She's hardly struggling because the ability is there, but coming from a low ability cohort at primary she is loving getting detailed feedback and improvements, because in a general sense she's on a par with the prep school kids who aren't quite as able but have had the benefit of targeted teaching. So really relishing the fact she isn't one of the best and has a goal and the means to get there.
Languages are all new so again while not bottom of the class, she's loving the extra effort required.
Science kind of follows on from her maths, and always was an interest outside of school, so she's not behind the prep school children.
Her main joy is that lessons are geared towards the fact they are all meant to be bright, and while she did love primary, she never got to actually learn in a group for anything academic. Most of her actual teaching was just her alone learning something new or improvements just for her, and she's never had classmates either to bounce off or try and catch up in any core school lesson before.