Bottom set in English

[Awcw1234]

Just looking for some advice.

My daughter has just started Y8. She is dyslexic but just about managed to meet expectations in her SATs (well almost… scaled score of 99) with the support of a private dyslexia tutor. In Y7, English wasn’t set but in Y8 there are 4 x set ones, 5 x set twos and 4 x set threes (large school).

My daughter has been put in one of the set 3 classes. I have been in touch with the Head of English as I was unsure as to why she has been placed in this set. She is exceptionally well behaved (not a single bad lesson score in Y7) and she has scored average in all her assessment, hit her targets and nothing has been raised to me as a concern.

Naturally, I have concerns about set 3 such as behavioural issues and her not reaching her full potential due to the content being taught. I have however been reassured that all pupils follow the same curriculum and she will be challenged.

The Head of English feels like set 3 is the correct class for my daughter. She will be able to get more support as there are only 16 children in the class. Apparently she has been placed in a class with calm children who although are chatty at times, are keen to do well.

She has suggested giving it a two week trial to see how she gets on. She is happy to move up her to set 2 but unfortunately due to timetable clashes, the only class she can be moved to has 28 children with lots of children with challenging behaviour.

My concern is the that by staying in the bottom sets, she will struggle to get out of them and she won’t be pushed to meet her full potential (I’m not expecting miracles but I would like her to score at least a 4!).

What would you do? 😟

Would you say what kids in the bottom set are capable of achieving 4/5 at GCSE?

She won’t be able to answer that!!

Just wait a little longer than day…. 1!

I would wait for parents evening and then have a chat about grades

You have advised the Op “not to trust the professionals” and that the head teacher will lie to the Op.

if you think this about your children’s teachers… you should be home educating

It's tricky because with a SAS of 99, she's not weak as such, but middle sets can be more disrupted because they're bigger. I would suggest just keeping an eye on her progress where she is. Motivated pupils can do fine in bottom sets as long as there is some challenge.

Remember, you don't have the overview of the whole year, and numerical data is just one aspect of a bigger picture, performance-wise.

In my old school I had a couple of pupils in set 9/10 do so. Last year, in my current school, a handful in set 3/3 did (nearly all girls).

Oh gosh, what did I miss there?

I did not say the head teacher will lie to the OP. You made that up.

Saying you won’t necessarily get a completely honest answer from a school does not automatically mean I’m accusing the school of lying. That’s a very narrow of looking at it.

It’s perfectly possible to ask a direct question about your child’s performance or potential and still not be given the full picture. What you see as a genuine problem might be minimised as the concerns of an over anxious parent. Relevant information might be conveniently left out. Or, perhaps because it makes life easier, you might simply be told what you want to hear. There are a host of other reasons why you might walk away from that conversation without the information you actually need.

Education is as political as any other workplace. People protect themselves, their colleagues and their schools, and saving face or trying to avoid unwanted scrutiny can sometimes be the order of the day.

Good teachers are leaving education in droves because it’s such a brilliantly run system, aren’t they? None of those leaving are complaining about the many obstacles that stop them from focusing on teaching or providing the support they want to give to students are they? The Government is reforming the SEN system because it is working so well...

It's not all teachers, which is why a good subject specific teacher with a broad teaching toolkit can work wonders.

Is your world always so one/zero?

Bottom set classes can and do achieve 4/5 grades. My bottom 11s last year ranged from a 2 (v low attendance) to a 6. This year I had a really low ability set of lovely kids with a wealth of SEND and target grades of 1-3. Three of those got a 4 - so it is possible and the paper is not tiered so the possibility is there.

Just to get the thread back on track!

Give it a two week trial.

A lot will depend on your daughter, and the teacher. I've worked with lots of girls in the bottom set who have thrived- they're in an environment where they feel confident, I can spend more time with them individually closing gaps and I can hand on heart say ive never had low expectations. The curriculum is also usually the same and there aren't tiered papers at gcse, so no cap on what they can achieve.

Lots of these girls have gone on to pass- with B/C grades and now 4/5. My latest student with dyslexia got a 5 in lang and a 6 in lit. It's one of my great joys as a teacher.

If this isn't the case for your daughter, talk to the school and find a solution 😊

Ps. If there are any errors I'm blaming typing one handed whilst my baby sleeps 🤣

That’s really not wht bottom sets should be about-and from what you’ve been told -not what this one is about.

What an unhelpful comment from the dyslexia tutor, and an insult to English teachers. As secondary schools are measured partly on Progress 8, any teacher setting pupils up to fail would be engaging in sabotage, a career-limiting move.

She's just started Year 8. This isn't Y10.

She's been put into the nice little class with the teacher that's got the job of giving kids that need a bit more input, a bit more differentiation and slightly different methods to be confident, develop strategies and get them at their potential long before GCSEs are on the horizon.

Moreover, if there are 3 sets (for example) you have to name them something - a,b,c,x,y,z,1,2,3 - that does not mean that they are top, middle, bottom in all cases, as mixed ability classes throughout also have to be given names.

With a KS2 Reading Score of 99, 4-5 is the minimum aimed for (although it's actually based upon the average of Reading and Maths) - getting 6-7 would be great and if it looks like a possibility after up to two years in a lovely little class, there is no reason for it not to be encouraged (it's more beneficial for progress measures to get above the government expected progress, so anybody saying she wouldn't even be taught the curriculum that makes that possible is absolutely wrong).

It's possible that the answer won't be 'entirely honest' as it's generally frowned on to say 'FFS, she's in the best class with the teacher who is practically a magician, it's only Y8 and you really wouldn't want her in a class of 33 with some of those who are more able on paper but their behaviour is fucking atrocious and the grief I had doing the class allocations as other teachers tried to get kids they didn't want to teach into that lovely class above your lovely kid was unreal. And now you're complaining about it?'

Why do messages keep getting deleted before I get chance to see them? 😂

Bullshit.

And your experience is?

How very unprofessional!
Most parents would be grateful to have a struggling child in a class of 16. And yes, your DD is struggling, she didn't actually meet the expected level in her SATs. The English Dept will have considered the progress that every student in the year group made and decided who would benefit most from the smaller class.
When did the tutor last work in DD's school?

Do you genuinely not think she”ll do well in the allocated set or are you smarting because a DC of yours has been bottom- setted and you were in the top sets at school?

This happened to my son, who has dyslexia

came out with a 6 in Language and a 7 in English Lit (having never read a book by himself, but they read the list with them)

we still marvel at that to this day 😄 it was SOOO not on the cards

He got a lot of extra help in the bottom set. Schools really often put effort in to get the kids who are on the cusp of failing, safely into a pass. I would say they put more effort getting kids from 2and 3s to 4 and 5s than getting kids with 6s to 8s iyswim some then even overshoot the target

if the school is a decent school I would trust them on this

j

It’s a bigger picture.
Op she can get a grade 4 pass privately through a tutor.
She can get a grade 4 pass at college.

The grade is not as important as being happy and thriving at school.
Does she have other interests that will motivate her towards a careers? Is she confident in herself. I know it’s a rat race at the moment but some of the biggest successes in the long game are those that just know what they want and are able to go after it. GCSE English at 16 us small fry even though it’s all consuming currently.

That's a really nasty comment to make

If she has a scaled score of not quite 100 she’ll have a target of a 4 or maybe a 5 depending on how optimistic the leadership team are.

class teachers have no say whatsoever in targets.

depending on her cohort (so the other kids who have gone into the school) she’d be middle or bottom set on that scaled score. Lots of schools do year 7 in mixed ability to help with settling from primary and then set.

the sets are usually based on end of year exams.

most schools throw quite a lot of resources at the lower end and honestly a small well behaved class of 16 where she is towards the top sounds a lot better than a badly behaved group of 25 where she is towards the bottom ability wise.

I have nothing to offer here other than to say I was in all bottom sets at school 😳 not because I’m thick, far from it actually, I just needed support to understand the work. Now I’m an adult I’ve discovered I’m autistic and that was the issue. Reading this thread makes me feel abit ashamed about being in the bottom sets