Motivation

[2Socks]

Thank you all! We're not planning on doing any GCSE'S early, so no need to worry about that. She's bright, but I don't think she's that bright! DAOGroupie, that wasn't the exact wording, but the essence of the conversation was that she's reading, writing and doing maths to a higher level than would normally be expected, so I don't need to worry... I'm not at all worried, but I couldn't get across that DD's getting bored. It's just concerned me to hear the "don't want to go to school" refrain from her. I hear it every day from DS (even though it's just the getting ready he doesn't like!) But never experienced it from DD. I think as MumTo3Girls says, the other subjects are fun, but not enough to counter the lack of challenge. I've tried to talk about the benefits of review; it helped until we got the results of the 11+, but hasn't been so effective this past week!
I've agreed with DD tonight that she can ignore her reading level and just read anything she wants. I'm not sure what her teacher will say though, but that's a fight I'm prepared to have. I'll have a look at some of the KS3 books... we're both scientists so DD already has a good idea of science, but having some more structure and focus would probably be helpful! Oh, and I've ordered crossword and puzzles books for Christmas and she is currently looking through recipe books so she can give me a shopping list

[dodie102]

Doing GCSE early is VERY much frowned upon these days. There's so many other enrichment opportunities.

For Maths look at:
* https://nrich.maths.org/primary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
* Primary Maths Challenge [too late to enter but past papers are free] https://www.primarymathschallenge.org.uk/downloads" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
* UKMT Junior Maths challenge [open to Primary but aimed at lower Secondary - ask if she can do it] https://www.ukmt.org.uk/competitions/so ... enge-paper" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

STEM festive challenge: https://thestemhub.org.uk/index.php/festive-challenge" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great suggestions here. I’ve had a few students sit GCSEs early and as you say it’s never been a very successful tactic long term!

Perhaps you could also look at it from the teacher’s point of view. Your child is doing very well and they are doing what they can to stretch them. She isn’t the only child in their care. A previous poster said something along the lines of they ‘can’t be bothered’. I very much doubt that’s the case. For that Y6 teacher it might be a real struggle to get everyone secondary ready including some children who are significantly behind and whose long term educational progress may well suffer as a consequence.

It looks like you’ve got some great ideas and there are some cracking suggestions here.

If it’s any consolation my daughter was quite ‘bored’ in Year 6 - I think it’s the nature sometimes of being a big fish in a small pond!

[2Socks]

Doing GCSE early is VERY much frowned upon these days. There's so many other enrichment opportunities.

For Maths look at:
* https://nrich.maths.org/primary" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
* Primary Maths Challenge [too late to enter but past papers are free] https://www.primarymathschallenge.org.uk/downloads" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
* UKMT Junior Maths challenge [open to Primary but aimed at lower Secondary - ask if she can do it] https://www.ukmt.org.uk/competitions/so ... enge-paper" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

STEM festive challenge: https://thestemhub.org.uk/index.php/festive-challenge" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great suggestions here. I’ve had a few students sit GCSEs early and as you say it’s never been a very successful tactic long term!

Perhaps you could also look at it from the teacher’s point of view. Your child is doing very well and they are doing what they can to stretch them. She isn’t the only child in their care. A previous poster said something along the lines of they ‘can’t be bothered’. I very much doubt that’s the case. For that Y6 teacher it might be a real struggle to get everyone secondary ready including some children who are significantly behind and whose long term educational progress may well suffer as a consequence.

It looks like you’ve got some great ideas and there are some cracking suggestions here.

If it’s any consolation my daughter was quite ‘bored’ in Year 6 - I think it’s the nature sometimes of being a big fish in a small pond!

Yes, absolutely understand the teachers position, that's really why I am asking for suggestions here. The school has always been good, so it seems a shame for the last year to be a bit less good (really don't want to say bad, it's most definitely not!) Really understand though that it doesn't all revolve around her. The reading doesn't need the teacher to support/do extra planning/work etc, hence I'm giving her permission to keep reading the books she wants and not worry about working her way through the levels officially.
Guest 55, she really likes the look of the festive challenge. It's really good to know that these initiatives are out there... I'm never quite sure where to look, so we will definitely be coming back to this.
Oh, and she's also reminded me that I need to teach her how to tie a tie

[starcrazy]

Oh, and on the "cleverness" thing, my DD who is now in Year 8 at Pate's was simply relieved to be amongst fellow geeks!!! She told me after about 6 weeks there that she felt that she'd "found her people"

Seriously, she always felt a bit of an outsider at primary and she's SO much happier and confident now.

Absolutely! Once he got over himself my son found the same, it was refreshing for him to be among others who were unashamedly keen to learn.

Would your daughter be interested in learning to code? Python is relatively easy to pick up and although it’s not maths it is logical and in my experience children find it quite satisfying when they realise what can be done even at a basic level.

[loobylou]

Just coming on for empathy really.
We found that most children outgrew year 6 before they got to the end of it. It's a good thing - they're ready to move on - but it's tricky for the teacher to negotiate it.
It must be even harder this year. Our children got to plan Christmas performance, end of year performance (for what felt like forever), spent a lot of time "helping" in reception, did a lot of sport outside... All those things are hard to accomplish when trying to keep distanced etc.
I don't have any "academic" suggestions of things to do at home but it's a good age to get into some of the more complicated board games, discover new books and try other new things eg cooking. Again it was a good time for mine to throw themselves more into their sports/outside school stuff but that is probably harder this year too.

[2Socks]

LoobyLou / StarCrazy Thanks for that, it's really good to hear that others have had the same, it's not something I've heard mentioned so I was completely taken aback. It's been a complete and total U-turn!
From the sound of it DD has been lucky with her classmates; many of them have pushed each other with friendly competition to improve academically and from what I have heard there's a good bunch qualified for grammar. Although, of course, there's those for whom education is obviously not a priority!

[Polgara_Glos]

Slightly aside, but that's interesting. We know of 2 others in DC's class and only one in the other!

[cheltdad]

LoobyLou / StarCrazy Thanks for that, it's really good to hear that others have had the same, it's not something I've heard mentioned so I was completely taken aback. It's been a complete and total U-turn!
From the sound of it DD has been lucky with her classmates; many of them have pushed each other with friendly competition to improve academically and from what I have heard there's a good bunch qualified for grammar. Although, of course, there's those for whom education is obviously not a priority!

Last year our DD was completely fed up with Year 6 before Christmas (a lot of "I'm bored at school", "I'm not learning anything" type comments, getting 95% plus in all the SATS prep etc). We were actually close to pulling her out of school and home tutoring her for the rest of the year because we were worried it was going to put her off school permanently.

To be honest in that respect "Lockdown 1" and her being sent home for months was a Godsend as it got her out of that rut, and we had a great time doing our own learning (in addition to the minimal stuff the school was trying to send home), and we got all the KS3 books and started picking topics out of them to have a go at.

[Guest55]

PLEASE do not look at KS3 topics - do enrichment similar to what I suggested.

[2Socks]

PLEASE do not look at KS3 topics - do enrichment similar to what I suggested.

No worries, but can I ask why they shouldn't do KS3 stuff? Essentially, they have a good understanding of the structure of the atom, working of the organs, entropy, evolution, laws of thermodynamics etc (we love telling them about cool science and their friends come round and ask us to do experiments!) and they have both started learning languages by themselves. We haven't sat down and worked through the KS3 curriculum and that's not the plan... but have we done wrong?! I'm assuming that you have educational expertise... which we don't...we just like sharing cool knowledge with them!

Any advice gratefully received (NB, we have several science degrees behind us, and we're not doing anything unsafe in the experiments, so please don't worry!)