IQ in children

[BaskeyJill]

My friend is a teacher and made a comment the other day that made me wonder. She thinks that she can identify which children in her year 4 class could go on to be doctors, solicitors, vets etc and which children would never be capable of achieving the grades needed.

My pfb DS is 7 and has just started year 3. When I look at him I assume he could be anything he wants to be. At the moment he is slightly below average (he is an August birth) but I think he is still so little! He has another 11 years of school until he does his A Levels and I am a bit that my friend thinks he isn't ever going to achieve the 'higher' tier jobs.

At Uni we were given to understand that average IQ was 100, and that a standard deviation was 15, so anything below about 55 would make you almost vegetal. I don’t believe for one second that anyone reputable has measured your IQ as 30, that’s a ridiculous score.

But even if you are smart what does it guarantee? I went to one of if not the best grammar school in the country, Oxbridge, law contract etc. Packed it all into to work in a gift shop cause the stress was literally not worth it in my eyes.

Your teacher friend’s comment is backed up by research. Quite a lot of studies have shown that academic performance at age 7 is well correlated with adult academic performance and career status.

Children born late in the school year have a tendency to catch up a bit. But realistically, a kid who is below average at 7 is quite unlikely to be achieving significantly above average (as you’d need to to become a doctor, etc.) by adulthood. It’s not that it never happens, but it isn’t that likely.