What is exceptional for reception entry?

[bedubabe]

This is mere curiosity at this stage as my DS is extremely young and his level of 'gifted' at the moment is being able to point to a duck in a book :)

However, I'm interested in knowing what people consider to be beyond the boundries of normality for reception entry. Obviously, kids develop at very different paces but any teacher's going to think a 4 year-old who can do calculus is pretty impressive.

I'm guessing, for example, a free-reader would be pretty rare as would be a child who understands fractions? Where would everyone draw the line between 'quite a bright kid' and 'wow'?

The reason I'm interested is that I live overseas and competition for primary school places is stupidly intense. Personally, if I was a school able to pick and choose as they like I wouldn't want the 'wow' kid as they would place extra pressure on teachers and resouces (and I wouldn't blame them!).

[DrSeuss]

As a teacher, I would say interpersonal skills are more use to a child of four than maths, as well as an ability to listen, ability to share, follow instructions and a general willingness to learn. I can teach a kid like that all they need to know in a fairly short time. If they can't listen, can't interact with others and don't follow simple instructions it's pretty hard to teach them much. I teach 11-16 and encounter some there who haven't mastered this! An understanding that actions have consequences is good too.

[KATTT]

You literally go 'wow'.

They point to the ducks on the page and without apparently counting say '7 ducks'.

[claireybear82]

i reckon if they could drive themselves to school that would be margainly impressive at that age

[rabbitstew]

claireybear82 - would be more than marginally impressive, as they would have to be incredibly tall to manage it, or driving a modified car (unless a push-along counts...). I would challenge them to show me their birth certificate.

[rabbitstew]

oh, and driving licence.

[Pantofino]

Why are you asking exactly? Do they "pick" students on certain criteria where you are? Sounds a bit strange to me.

[belledechocchipcookie]

It has to be the top 10% of the intake doesn't it? This will change from school to school.

My son could read very well (Roald Dahl etc), do basic addition/subtraction, knew all about plant growth/science. His vocab was excellent. He was behind with his social skills though as he used to spend too much time talking to the nursery nurses then playing.

[bedubabe]

Thanks. Interesting view points. As I've said don't have any real reason for thinking it would be an issue, I'm just curious. I suppose it's also pretty much impossible at 4 to tell whether a child is exceptional compared to just being an early developer/having a pushy mum.

Interesting comment about languages - bi/trilingual kids are pretty normal here. My son's nursery is in French and we speak English at home so I would expect him to be fluent in two languages come reception but I wouldn't think that had much to do with intellegence, just exposure.

Agree social skills are most important but exceptional social skills couldn't ever be a negative for a school surely! I'd much rather my son be well rounded than a genius btw.

They interview for reception here. I'm just curious whether a kid could come across as too bright and if so what that would be!

They interview kids for reception here

[belledechocchipcookie]

ds had an 'interview'. He just had a chat with the head and she whisked him off to do a small maths/reading/spelling test which he aced. They look at what a child should know at this age and use it as a bench mark rather then looking out for something extraordinary. You can normally tell from a conversation how bright a child is; if they are able to use appropriate grammar and have a high level of understanding and general knowledge.

[OracleOfDelphinium]

DS at four was a free reader; his vocabulary was astounding; his spelling ditto; he understood about angles and details of engineering that I've never known or cared about. His prep school did indeed say 'wow', and correspondingly tailored work to suit him. However, he was (and is) rubbish at getting on with people (he would only talk to adults for most of his first two years at school), and it turns out that he has Aspergers. He still wows people with his mind, though: his school does NFER tests at the start of every year, and his scores are always allegedly impossible.

Fortunately my other children are not 'exceptional'. Exceptional is very, very, very hard work.

[belledechocchipcookie]

It is Oracle. It's a double edged sword, especially when you have to sit and talk to them about why no one wants to be their friend I find this horrible.

[OracleOfDelphinium]

Oh yes, I don't enjoy that one either.

[DrSeuss]

I'm with Squidgy on this one. Do you really want an exceptional but obnoxious child who can't share, only thinks about themselves and insists on doing everything their way? i've taught a few that were like that and they have very few friends among pupils or staff.

[OracleOfDelphinium]

Squidgy, that sounds fab - but what would you do about the super-bright ones who aren't so good socially? I wouldn't necessarily equate 'exceptional' with 'obnoxious', DrS - but it is definitely something that schools need to accommodate.

[DrSeuss]

sorry, didn't mean to cause offence but if you'd ever met some of my in-laws you would know what I mean. Oxford grads with the personality and social skills of a Atila the Hun!

[triballeader]

Trying to set up the sale of my house with a local estate agent so he had enough money to buy the Flying Scotsman- he also entered school with a formal statement having broken CAHMs and a few Ed Psych's.
Social skills of a thrown brick.

Sadly my son in primary school tended to use his intelligence in a way that would make a criminal genius proud. Thankfully at 14 he is starting to settle down in the G&T stream with extras thrown in.

[bedubabe]

Squidgy - not sure about reading as that often depends on how much is done at home. I'm really talking about natural exposure - I know plenty of young kids with one or two (non-English) languages spoken at home and then go to English speaking nursery. I agree with your point of wow if there's no natural exposure.

I suppose the general gist is that it would probably only be an issue if social skills weren't developed well ie if the child would have issues getting along with peers. Anything else is likely to be put down to a pushy mum or just an early developer.

Just to say again, I don't partic want ds to be a child genius. It'd be nice if he was quite bright and therefore not held back academically from his dream job. I've known too many depressed geniuses who just don't get other people to dream of that for my son. Still he is/will be what he is and I'll love and support him regardless.

[peachygirl]

I've not posted on this bit before but I occasionally lurk.
This is very interesting to me as we have been told DD1 is very bright, Nursery have told us she will probably finish the EYFS before she leaves nursery, and the primary schools I visited and spoke to about this, in regards to what they offered brighter pupils, were impressed with it.

"an ability to listen, ability to share, follow instructions and a general willingness to learn" I do think she has these qualities. She has just spent a day in school with me I work with SEN MLD children. She is four in Feb and and was able to turn take and answer questions with lots fo different children. Thankfully she wasn't too phased by the bizarre behaviour! She also has a great memory.

I on the whole tend to downplay it all especially talking about it as I'm a teacher and I don't want to be tainted as the parent who is always going on about their bright child.

[blackeyedsusan]

I suppose that you should approach this question from the other way, ie what is bright but not unusual. Personally I find that more helpful when I am tempted in wild flights of fantasy to think that dc is a bit clever.

Thinking about the stuff we used to do in Reception for example, knowing all 44 common phonemes and the old list of 45 reception words at the start of reception is not that unusual and would put a child only up to a year ahead of average as you would expect most to achieve this during the reception year and not leave it til the last second! Spelling of cvc words and some common words I wouldn't think of as unusual either.

Some simple adding and taking away in the childs head wouldn't be that unusual either, along with counting to 100, adding one more or less to 20.

I suppose it would also depend on whether the child was just 4 or nearly 5 at the start of reception.

It depends too on how much the parent/nursery have done with them too and to some extent the socio-economic class of the schools catchment area.

What do other people think is bright but not that unusual?

[StartingAfresh]

You ask your 3 yr old to count seven out of the 10 blocks on the table into your hand, and instead, they remove three and slide the remaining 7 towards you before running off.

They also type out their name and other words on a keyboard transfering the capital letters to lowercase before you every knew they could read.

That'll be my ds btw!