Would you encourage Year 10 daughter to move to top English set?

[SereneFinch]

DD is at the end of Year 10. Her English teacher was impressed (his words) with her mock result and has suggested she move up to the top set. They obviously work at a higher level and it will stretch her to achieve a better grade in a subject that she wants to do for A level. Her mock result was two grades higher than some of the kids in the top set so she is definitely capable.

However, she doesn’t want to move. She loves her English teacher and classmates (which is presumably a factor in why she is doing so well). The teachers of the top set (job share) she had before when she was lower down the school and didn’t enjoy their style so much. She is also a bit self conscious and I know will hate to be the ‘new’ kid in the top set.

I’ve said to her that I would encourage her to move but it is her decision. DH and the English teacher think she needs to be persuaded to move.

What would you do??

This is obviously just conjecture on my part but TBH, it sounds like they want to re-set quite extensively before y11. It’s quite a common practice. Either the head of department has already made the decisions, or they have told the set two teacher to find x number of students to move up because they need to move y students down.

The mistake was presenting it to DD as a choice. It may be that the teacher expected her to jump at the chance and her reluctance has merely exposed the fact that it was a fait accompli. If I’m right then it was unfair to put additional pressure on her to capitulate.

Thanks for this - it’s insightful and I think very likely what’s happened.

By way of reassurance, @SereneFinch, one of my children was in exactly the same situation. They did benefit from moving up and the stretch that came with that, even though they missed their middle set teacher with whom they had clicked.

I did encourage them to embrace the change and it was actually helpful further down the line, during the A levels years, when they experienced some teacher changes and took those in their stride (and changes in line manager more recently!).