What do you love about being a gran?

My eldest DGD aged 9 ringing me last week to tell me she has been moved to "the second cleverest table" in her class...

Seeing two of my grandchildren become wonderful parents.
Getting chatty e-mails and Facebook messages about their jobs, studies, romances, travels.

Nice for you Mamie but I'm a bit taken aback that the concept of 'second cleverest table' exists in a modern primary school!

It may not be labelled as such, or referred to by the teacher, but children are aware of differences in "cleverness" as much as of ability to kick a football straight or draw a recognisable tree.

em - it doesn't matter what the school does, the children will always suss out the intellectual pecking order, and if the children are allowed to choose their own seats they tend to befriend children with the same interests. However, I do agree that setting should not be quite so obvious and children can excel in one area and have problems in another.
One of my daughter's is severely dyslexic and in the 1970's this was not fully recognised so she was put in a remedial class. She was bored to tears and entertained herself by arguing with the teachers.
The 1944 Education Act talked of 'parity of esteem' but it has never existed in practice and the grammar schools always got more resources than the secondary modern or technical colleges.

I think the implication is that children in the class are seated according to ability - something I found quite unacceptable in my rooms. By being flexible a teacher will allow children to move around according to the activity as well as the abilities. They can work with one group for maths, a different group for craft activities and yet another for reading/ language work. That way they are every bit as aware of strengths as they are of 'weaknesses'. The seating arrangement under discussion simply indicated to me an element of rigidity.

No I don't think it is about rigidity and it certainly isn't the school who talk about "clever" tables, sorry I think I assumed people would realise that that was childspeak. Actually she is a child who is very average and has struggled quite a bit with maths and spelling, but the teacher has recognised that she has a passion for writing and loves the topic she is doing this term. I imagine they have moved her on to the table to give her a boost and allow her to blossom a bit with some children who will stretch her intellectually. Good teaching, good differentiation in my book.
My fault for not making it clear.

Although my grand-daugher in New Zealand benefited from the system, I was a bit surprised to find that in such an egalitarian country she had been put in the 'GATE' - gifted and talented - group. She went to a summer camp and had more advanced tuition in Maths. Surprisingly she said there had been no adverse reaction from children not in the group.
I suppose my unease arises from the implication that children not in the group are not gifted and talented.

I understand Mamie but can't help feeling that there is some implication within the classroom that 'clever' children sit at certain tables. If however it is within a flexible context, I'd have less of a problem with it. I just hope that, with subsequent moves, your GD doesn't feel she is being demoted.

I think you will find that pretty much all primary classrooms have ability groups now, especially for maths and literacy. One very common thing used to be to group the children for maths with shape names with increasing number of sides so circles, triangles, squares, dodecahedrons (sp?) will be the clue. It is harder when they are mammals, planets, flowers or birds of course. You get used to teachers saying things like "my buttercups are my bottom group"!

My point is that ability groups can be organised flexibly and in such a way that the idea of top groups or bottom groups are no longer significant to pupils. I say this not as a doting gran but as a recently-retired primary teacher with many years of experience (admittedly in the Scottish system).

I think that most children are pretty well aware of which ability group they are in Em, no matter how you wrap it up (and I was a school inspector visiting hundreds of classrooms a year).
Of course the other thing is that these children will sit the 11+ in eighteen months time and will be sorted by ability for all to see. My DGD won't be doing it though - she would go to grammar school over my daughter's dead body!

mamie why not grammar school?

I reiterate. Flexibility within ability grouping should mean that children are a comfortable in different groupings for different reasons and different activities. I also reiterate that I worked in the Scottish system - so no SATs, no 11plus, no grammar schools, no rigid targets. More flexibility and more focus on individual pupils.

My daughter went to one and she hated it. She was never in the top set and always felt that she was made to feel second-rate. The teaching wasn't great and the results weren't what they should have been. She got reasonable, but not exceptional A levels and went to a polytechnic turned university. She then got a first degree, followed by two Masters degrees and is now a senior civil servant. Our son went to the boys' grammar school next door and says that he doesn't have a single happy memory of the place. I was a teacher then, not an inspector, and if I had known then what I know now I would have moved house to be in catchment for one of the very good comprehensives outside the town. I think people think that grammar schools are automatically good, but actually some do underachieve.
Sorry to have gone off thread!

Both my briother and I were very unhappy at grammar school - mine was elitist and I coped by truanting. My grandson now goes to a grammar school and is already showing signs that he is unhappy there. Grammar schools may be fine for most children, but so are comps.