Bright so bored!

[brightstar1]

Or just naughty? Ds2 is 6 in yr 2. V.bright.He was given the yr2 SATS test in YR1 and achieved a level 2A.He had reading age of an 8yr old. His behaviour is becoming increasingly worrying,(too long to go into), But last night ,after seeing the teacher again about him being "naughty" at carpet time.(talking). He said to me in the car that "he is bored,everything in school is boring, and why can't i get harder work to do".D id ask the teacher in Yr1 if she thought he was bored, but she said they always get extra work to do.He says he always finishes everything.What do you think i should do?

Dp and I both felt like this when at school. I could read at age 2 and so struggled when we were being taught "t is for tap" at age 5, but I was too boring to be naughty. I was later moved up a year which did help. Dp was put in remedial reading classes because, given "Peter and Jane" style books, he refused to read at all (he was reading things like The Hobbit at home). He was very naughty, not surprisingly loathed school and was eventually told by his secondary school headmaster to go home and study for GCSEs, as his being at school was a waste of time for both him and his teachers. He now has plenty of qualifications but always had to do them on his own terms - took 5 years to do his degree for instance, taking years out as and when he felt like it.

We have decided to home educate ds. You don't need to be particularly clever or academic to do so. Think of all the things your son learnt from you before he went to school: to walk and talk for starters. I bet you didn't sit down with a programme and say "Now today we are going to learn how to swing our back legs forward so that you will one day learn to walk." Children learn from seeing, talking, doing, exporing. All you need to do is give them the opportunity to learn and follow where their interests take them. The whole world is out there for him to discover.

Tanzie yr dd sounds like mine. However after a lot of thought we have decided to try and get her into a different school for next September. As it's selective she will have to pass an entrance exam (not something I really approve of for yr2 children). However she doesn't seem stressed by the idea at all!
Last year when her reading age was assessed it was apparently off the scale; she was 6.5 and reading at a level more than twice her chronological age. She too complains about being bored; the spellings are "babyish, like little words from a picture book", "we never do proper history" "the maths test wasn't really a test; the teacher called out the questions in order so I just counted on" (number bonds or tables I think).

I had parents' evening (or parent's evening as dd2's teacher wrote). It seems to me that an off-the-wall child like mine needs an equally sparky teacher. Not enough of them out there to deal with the thrills and challenges of bright kids.

I'd love to HE her but it wouldn't fit in with the rest of our lives - would have to farm out the toddler who is very bright and challenging.

She has weaknesses in spelling but is getting frustrated by the in the box thinking of the staff around her. I want to go around giving everyone injections of fun and adventure at the school - it's all too nice and conformist for me.

Spoke to teacher. She agreed that Ds may be getting a bit bored! Will try to extend his work.Has started giving him stickers for completing work. Numeracy teacher gave the class 2 extra sums to do (long multiplication), he was the only one who could do them,got a sticker and was V.happy when he came out. .

DEFFO BRILL

glad to hear the teacher's sympathetic Brightstar - hope things keep improving