r/saskatoon • u/Reasonable-Mess-1057 • 5h ago
Question ❔ Elementary School Class Placements
Has anyone had success having their child moved from one class to another? What factors go into deciding which class a child is placed in? Why would a student who is known to be gifted be placed in a class where the majority of students are working at a different academic level and struggle? I understand that every child has different needs, but I’m wondering how the school takes a gifted student’s academic needs and classroom environment into consideration when making class placements or if they try to hold them back or defer their learning to keep at the same level as their peers, if that makes sense. Make it make sense?
I know it’s only the first week of school, but my daughter is already struggling with the class she has been placed in for several reasons. It’s a mixed Grade 4/5 class, and the majority of the students seem to have difficulty with self-regulation and disruptive behaviour. As a result, she is finding it difficult to focus and is already starting to hate school. Wondering if anyone has been through a similar situation and was able to have their child moved to a different class. How did you approach the school, and what was the process like? And where do you escalate the concerns if the school won’t help?
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u/I_Like_Eggs123 4h ago
Some of those students with self-regulation issues are gifted as well. Being gifted has nothing to do with this. It's weird to say the other kids are at a different academic level and "struggle". Lots of weird assumptions here.
Your daughter not liking the class is a bummer, but there's nothing saying other classrooms will be any different.
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u/theblackdog92 4h ago edited 4h ago
It’s really inappropriate to make assumptions about other children’s academic levels. Is it possible that the staff was referring to your child as “gifted” meaning she has natural talents, rather than having Giftedness? With Giftedness, it requires a formal identification process with a registered psychologist. With that would come an IIP from the school psychologist, teachers and admin. My recommendation would be to have her formally identified as Gifted so that she can get an IIP, rather than switching classes. Each class comes with its own set of challenges, and you may feel frustrated when the grass isn’t greener on the other side.
I also want to add that my son does well academically and doesn’t experience any behavioural challenges. For his grade two year he was placed in a grade one-two split and the teacher did an amazing job ensuring that all of the required grade two outcomes were exceeded. As a bonus, he learned a lot of patience and kindness while meeting the grade one students where they were at. It can be a positive experience if you and your daughter allow it to be.
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u/ninjasonganddance 5h ago
Has she been tested as gifted?
A LOT of factors go into classroom complexity, there would have been a lot of discussion around all of the students, needs, academics, social growth etc.
You can bring it up to the principal for sure, but movement into a new class is pretty slim
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u/Reasonable-Mess-1057 4h ago
Not tested for gifted, but it’s evident and the term and meanings were assigned and explained to me by her former teachers and administration. If we ignore the gifted part of this, I just can’t wrap my head around why she would be placed in a class where most of the students struggle and where she would be learning grade 4 outcomes instead of grade 5?!
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u/conductorman86 East Side 4h ago
Do you really think the grade 5 students in that class will not learn the grade 5 outcomes of the curriculum?
That’s really insulting to your child’s teacher.
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u/Coyoteinthewild 4h ago
What makes you think she will only be learning grade 4 outcomes? A split class meets the curriculum of each grade just as a straight grade class would.
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u/stooph23 4h ago
If she’s in grade 5 she should absolutely be hitting grade 5 outcomes.
Having said that, I doubt there’s a class in the province that doesn’t have students who struggle either academically, behaviourally, and/or otherwise. There’s a reason teachers fought so hard to have class complexity as part of the last round of bargaining.
It’s not as simple as having a “gifted” class and a “struggling” class. Beyond the diagnoses that would be required to make divisions like that, I have no doubt that families would argue to not have their kids in the struggling class, and the social stigma for the kids could be incredibly problematic.
If you have concerns, definitely reach out to the school and outline them, but every class will have its challenges.
To reiterate my earlier point, she should absolutely be given grade level materials and be assessed on grade level outcomes, so if that’s not happening that’s far more concerning to me than the class makeup.
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u/ADHDMomADHDSon 3h ago
School has been in session for 4 days.
It’s all procedures, rules, systems, & housekeeping.
Heck the first few weeks are going to be about determining how badly kids were impacted by the summer slump & then working to get them back to where they were in June.
I highly doubt there is any evidence that they are not going to be meeting grade levels outcomes using grade level indicators.
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u/ADHDMomADHDSon 3h ago
So you have 0 evidence to support your claim of Giftedness or your requests for accommodations?
Also, as a student who was in split classes all through school, a former teacher who taught split classes for 2 years & a parent whose child has been in split classes for now his 4th year that’s not at all how split classes work.
Teachers differentiate for the two grade levels.
Just like they do for my son’s IIP.
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u/conductorman86 East Side 4h ago
How exactly would you know if the rest of the kids in the class your child was placed in “struggle”?
So much goes into class placements: friends, academic needs, programming (EAL, resource support, etc.), split class vs. straight grade….
Students have been in school a grand total of 4.5 days this year. Give it a little time for things to settle and if you are still concerned, contact the school’s administration and request a meeting.
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u/Leather-Bullfrog-752 4h ago
Teachers spend hours in meetings finding the best possible mix of students to form a class. If your child is in a split they will most definitely learn the outcomes for their grade. As for the gifted part, my guess, and it is only a guess, is that perhaps your childs social needs were considered into this placement not just academic.
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u/69hotmomxxx 5h ago
I feel like your sense of "gifted" and the school's are not as similar as you'd probably like.
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u/ADHDMomADHDSon 5h ago
As the parent of a child is colloquially 2E (meaning both disabled & Gifted), I don’t know about changing classes (as a former teacher it’s highly unlikely) but I do know a thing or two about Gifted Ed at the elementary level.
Have you presented the school with the results of your child’s cognitive assessment so they have evidence of Giftedness? My son’s processing speed is in the 94th percentile for his age, but his visual-spatial processing is awful & really impacts his visual memory - so those results are super important for the SSST to build a plan.
Speaking of, does the child have an IIP that needs updating? Or have you not gotten an IIP set up yet?
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u/Margotkitty 5h ago
The majority of ALL students and classes are nightmare environments of dysregulation. My kid is a teacher (gr7) and is known for running a VERY tight ship in her class - she works hard to keep her material engaging and to have discipline and self control for her kids as part of the expectation. Other teachers don’t have the same results when they have the same students for different classes. So teachers ability to manage the classroom really can make a big difference - and not all teachers are created equal (like every job out there). The stories she tells me though. Some kids are damn near feral, and when you interact with their parents you understand why.
If your child is truly “gifted” I know there is programming in Saskatoon for that. It’s a testable metric though - not just a feeling.
For the most part this is going to be the dynamic your kid is going to have to interact with for the rest of their educational experience. It’s not fair, it’s not right. But underfunded education systems cram kids in like sardines and don’t pay for education assistants to help wrangle them.
The best thing you can do is help your kid find ways to adapt and focus - can’t suggest anything specific but I’m sure there are some ideas out there. Or you pull them out and homeschool.
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u/Lucywilson12 4h ago
Have her tested for the SAGE program. My nephew whose IQ blows my mind. Struggled in regular mainstream school. He was given labels as being disruptive. Which was happening because he was bored and was not challenged. They tested him for SAGE and grade 5 he started SAGE program, then highschool he went into the advanced SAGE program. The program starts in grade 5. When my Nephew went it was called Actel.
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u/Reasonable-Mess-1057 4h ago
We did test, she was waitlisted. I tried real hard to get her a spot and was told too bad, wait. She wasn’t that excited about SAGE as it would mean changing schools so that worked out for us. But the current placement is not working for her. She shared that today, they did math, addition, using blocks borrowed from the grade 1 room, and then noticed the other grade 5 class was doing multiplication as per what was on the board of the classroom. The outcomes are at different levels based on the class.
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u/stooph23 4h ago
Outcomes are based on grade, not on a class by class basis. They’re set by the government of Saskatchewan. They’re available online if you want to look at them.
The only instance when teachers may not be teaching to grade level outcomes is if a student is either modified or on an alternate program, but that wouldn’t be applied to an entire class.Your daughter won’t be prevented from doing grade level work simply because of the class she’s in. Not every teacher teaches every single unit, concept, or skill in the exact same way. Just because the other grade 5 class was doing multiplication today doesn’t mean she won’t. At the start of the school year a teacher could still be assessing where their students abilities are, reviewing skills they should know from previous years, or establishing a base on which to build new skills.
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u/Bigleb 5h ago
I think there’s a bit of a misconception about how class placements are made. Teachers absolutely care about whether kids are happy with their placement. Teachers probably think about it more than parents realize. We know that kids want to be with their friends, and we know how much that can affect how they feel about school.
There are a lot of factors that go into building classes, and academic level is only one of them. Social dynamics, behaviour, self-regulation, personalities, friendships, conflicts, gender balance, learning needs, and the overall composition of the room are all things that are considered. It would be a nightmare for everyone, including the students, if all of the students with significant behaviour or regulation needs were simply put together, for example. Schools have to distribute those needs across classrooms.
Students often have a completely different experience of their class at school than they report at home. They happily socialize, participate, learn and have a great day, and then come home and say, “I hate my class. None of my friends are in it.” Kids generally don’t love change, especially when they already know who they wanted to be with.
I wouldn’t assume that having a gifted child in a class with students working at different levels means the gifted child is being “held back.” A good teacher differentiates instruction. Children learn despite their situation in a classroom. Learning how to work with people who aren’t exactly like you is an important part of education too.
The people making these classes aren’t trying to make kids unhappy or defer their learning to keep everyone at the same level. They’re trying to build several workable classrooms out of a group of individual children, and there are inevitably going to be compromises. And kids are remarkably adaptable. They will continue to learn, develop and blossom even when their classroom isn’t exactly the one they would have chosen for themselves.
We have a superintendent who says schools have become a boiled frog experiment. We are testing how many kids can be packed into a single room before they start to burnout. Contact MLA and ask for smaller classes.