DS8 is in an all gifted third grade class. In math they take a topic pretest, set a goal (like “I’d like to improve my pretest score by 25 points”), list steps to reach that goal, take a post-test and then reflect on whether they reached their goal and why or why not. The packet is sent home and the parent has a place to sign and send back comments. If a student does really well on the pretest they are allowed to work on enrichment math and if enough students do well on the pretest, they skip it and move to the next topic.

DS11 is also in an all gifted class. He’s 2e and math is really hard for him. His class does something similar (minus the goal setting and parent form). I know he has to get 75% to move on from a topic. Otherwise he keeps taking tests on the same topic. And since he needs extra time, it takes a lot of missed recesses to get through a difficult topic.

So I could see how it another student gets an 80 on her first try and DS11 gets an 82 after three attempts where he only got 72s, that would be unfair if there were rankings. But in fifth grade I don’t think they care about rankings so both students would be marked as a 3 which is that they met standards.