Is this a general rule or did she make it up?

[ihateryansworld]

We are having difficulties with my daughters teacher. We feel she is being ignored as she is a quiet child and many of the others in the class are big personality loud children.

I wrote 2 weeks ago asking for a meeting to discuss DD and teacher only came back to me on Wednesday offering a meet today.

We went along and asked where she would place dd in the class. She looked appalled and said she was not allowed to give that information. We asked was she in top part or lower part of class and again wouldn't tell us. I said judging by her reading books she must be in lower part she again said she wouldn't be drawn on that!!!

Is this normal? Do teachers not seriously give out this information. FYI Dd is 8 yrs old.

Thanks x

I wonder if your daughter doesn't have a hearing impairment, op. It's worth a thought.

The teacher couldn't give the precise information you wanted; next time, just go in friendly and casual and ask your questions - rephrased.

Why do you care so much about her reading group? If she can read to a higher level at home, then just buy/borrow harder books.

I'm not really sure that the reading level is the actual problem. You seem to actually have an issue with the teacher

The attainment of the class is, quite frankly, none of your business
I completely, 100% reject this as a principle. I think it's very shortsighted. Eventually, it'll become v relevant at KS3 & KS4 - so why not at KS1 & 2?

We'll have to agree to differ on that one.

Why, as a parent, do you need to know the attainment of the class at KS3?

What difference does it make to your child?

And, as a parent, I only knew my child’s class’s attainment in Y2 and Y6 because reporting it is a statutory requirement.

At Y1, Y3, Y4, Y5, Y7 and Y8 I had no idea. And it didn’t matter in the slightest.

OP you may get more information if you ask the teacher more open questions about reading in the class (and indeed school policy). What reading happens in class? How often? How is it structured? What extra support is there for DD if she is struggling?

In Y3 our children start whole class reading which is a fully planned, taught, assessed lesson with evidence in books rather than home reading records. The only children that are heard to read individually are those with SEN (in reading/English).

You may feel you can support your DD more if you understand the school/teachers approach.

I said judging by her reading books she must be in lower part she again said she wouldn't be drawn on that!!!

It would be far more useful to you to ask what colour book bands the school would be expect her year to be reading by now.

I completely, 100% reject this as a principle. I think it's very shortsighted. Eventually, it'll become v relevant at KS3 & KS4 - so why not at KS1 & 2?
It's not relevant at all, unless a parent wants to do that thing where they can talk about how much better their child is than their peers.

At KS3 the attainment of the class isn't relevant to a child making progress. They need to know their strengths and continue to work on weaknesses.
At KS4 the attainment of the class is also irrelevant. Same principle applies at KS3.

GCSE exams are assigned grades based on a national bell curve and are norm referenced. Anyone trying to compare within their child's class is wasting their time. I've seen things shared on teaching forums where people have shared what their "top set" have done and their "top set" would be middle ability in my school.

The only thing that would be useful is to have an awareness of if they are in line with age related expectations at primary or at secondary whether they are making appropriate progress based on their entry point.

Hear, hear LolaSmiles.

This year, my highest attainers are more akin to what would have been my middle attainers last year.
My low attainers last year would have fit nicely with my middle attainers this year.
This year I have a lot of children with additional needs. Where a child comes into that ranking is completely irrelevant as the cohort changes year on year.

I appreciate now that I don't need to know her place in the class.

However, the teacher would not disclose anything about her ability in relation to any benchmark, be that her class peers or indeed preset goals for her age. Instead she was defensive. It seemed she knew very little about my DD. Now maybe this is wrong and I get that there are many other kids in the class. But given she knew we had the meeting I feel she should have had something to help me understand where we are.

Being at the top of a low ability class or at the bottom of a high ability class is a measure of nothing. The measure is against Age Related Expectations. Is she on track for where she should be? Reading levels should be treated the same way. They are not related to any measurable level.

I don't think it's unreasonable for the OP to have been given some indication of where her child is in relation to national norms. She has acknowledged several times that she maybe expressed herself wrongly initially by asking where in the class her dd was, but it doesn't sound as if the teacher gave any useful information at all that could help the parents at home.
I rarely say this, and am a teacher myself, but it could just possibly be that this teacher is a bit crap? It does happen, after all. She should have the measure of her class by now, particularly children who appear to be struggling, as it seems the OP's dd might well be.
I would want to know what intervention strategies have been put in place to help, and what she suggests you can do at home to support.

I'm also astonished that the school reports don't show where she is related to ARE! I can't imagine a school/teacher that can't tell a parent how their child is doing - does sound a bit crap!

If the teacher won't tell you how she's doing (you've already said you're not interested in the rest of the class, so that's fine), then I would ask for the school policy on this, or speak to the phase leader.

I've never worked somewhere where we couldn't tell parents how the kids were doing! It's bonkers!