Is year 3 too early to predict grammar success or failure?

[Ambivalent]

.... has potential, I mean! Haven't given up yet!

[mystery]

No really don't give up. You can make so much difference one to one with maths.

[push-pull-mum]

at parents eve today asked whether he was thought grammar potential, and was told no - because of maths. Not surprised, as they judge on results in front of them, but I still think he has potential

(I did a little edit for you there on the 'has' )

Grrr to your school. Some schools really don't like the 11 plus and can be very off putting. If your 11 plus has 2 English papers and a VR as well as a Maths and there's no weighting of scores then there's really a limit to how far an average Maths score can drag him (and I refuse to believe that a bright child can't be bumped up to an 'average' Maths score with a bit of one to one help - so much of it is just practice)

Here is a link to a Colyton 11 plus discussion from last year - hope it helps.http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/forum/ ... 4&start=30

Going off now to get a life - honest.

[Looking for help]

I seem to recall at least one of mine that passed the 11+ having an absolutely awful y3, where no improvement was made at all. She just didn't seem to get anywhere, and was probably y5 before things started to get better. Maths was her poor subject too, and when they did those (easy) timed mental maths tests from a tape (probably don't do them like that nowadays) , she used to cry and get very low marks. Her teacher in y3 wrote her off as being fidgety and not listening etc, and then she had a really poor temporary teacher in y4 to cover maternity leave or something, and I really thought she wouldn't have a chance at the 11+. However she turned it all around in y5, and passed the test. My other who didn't pass never had any problems at all and improved leaps and bounds every year, and was a dead cert. So you never know, sometimes and with hindsight, it is probably better to have known there was a problem that you could work to sort out, rather than blindly assuming all is well and then ending up disappointed.

Good luck, and don't give up

[Thingsbehindthesun]

at parents eve today asked whether he was thought grammar potential, and was told no - because of maths. Not surprised, as they judge on results in front of them, but I still think he had potential

Try to ignore your childs teacher.children develop at different rates and they are still very young right now.maths IS something that can always be improved,but it just needs some more time.

[scarlett]

Don't worry...I was constantly told DS1 wouldn't pass, right up to the week before.When we found out he had passed ( which I knew he would ) I sent DH to the school to find out his scores and the HT said she couldn't believe how well he had done so of course I was worried he wouldn't cope at grammar but in the year which has passed since he has continued to come on in leaps and bounds .I'm not even going to ask for an opinion for DS2..we're going for it !!!

[fatbananas]

Teacher's comments in writing off a child such as this make me so angry- it may be too early to predict grammar success, but it is certainly too early to predict grammar failure!

It touches a raw nerve with me and I hope you can draw some comfort from our own experience- our DC seemed very bright out of school, constantly fascinated by the world around him, articuate, reading extensively etc. but the teachers constantly listed him as average (sorry- the PC term "at the expected level for his age") - and treated him as such with low expectations. I felt he had been labelled for good.

. If you need confirmation maybe even consider having him assessed to get a picture of his true potential.

Ambivalent, you will find lots of posters on here who were told something similar and whose DC then proceeded to do very well at 11+. Similarly, you will find posters on here whose children ticked all the boxes, scored highly in SATS but just had a bad day when it came to the 11+ exam.

You will know your DC better than anyone and you will know what he is capable of achieving. He is still v young and there's still time to help boost his maths skills. He's clearly perfectly competent, just needs a bit of 1 to 1. My DS did much better this year in maths than last year and I'm sure that's partly because we've started doing 'a page a day' (well, most days!).

I've just scrolled down to realise that lots of people have posted since I started! Think I need a bit of one-to-one with my typing skills

[mystery]

Interesting Kit. I saw a situation potentially like yours, but not quite so extreme, brewing and fought it for a whole half a school year with the school. It seems to have paid off for more than one of my children. (And even if they are saying different things just to humour me, it's better for the child to see there are high than low expectations)

It is extra interesting because a lot of teachers will tell you that it is not of interest or use to them to know the IQ of a child, and in teacher assessment they are trained to look for consistent performance. Many then seem to equate this to ability, which of course it isn't, it's just consistency in applying the skills they have been taught and learned.

Many teachers would dismiss a one-off high score in a test as wrong because it is better than the day to day assessment they do. In my mind, if you do better in a test than you normally do on a day to day basis, unless the test or its marking is badly flawed, or the child cheated in some way, the one-off better performance shows the child's capabilities even if on a day to day basis they don't normally do that well.

[Thingsbehindthesun]

I did forget but I thought I would post this aswell!

At parents evening my year 6 daughters teacher mentioned a fellow student,in the same class that started a very weak level 3 but left with a 5, and she stressed the importance of confidence and repetition,with maths.

[Belinda]

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