Why aren't there schools for G and T children?

[DiracGirl]

After being told that our my nephew's abilities out stripped those of his class mates my sister began to panic.
There was no way she could afford the fees of an independent school and we don't live in the kind of place that offers a choice in state school.
Many, and there are many, of the independent schools in the area offer little in the way of help and none of them provide grants to 5 year olds.
This angers me.
Why isn't there...something!
These children are our future scientists, doctors, inventors and, well, anything they want really.
It's about time the government realised, these children have special needs too. They deserve a right to a standard of education comparable with their intelligence.
If you put a child with the classic idea of special needs in a class of "ordinary" children and ignored them there would be outrage. So why is it acceptable to waste the talents of the gifted?
Should a child with intelligence greater than that of his or her peers be left to rot in a dull stupor whilst the rest catch up??
I've spent hours trawling the Internet. ISC, Mensa, direct gov, the lot. All I can find is a poor child gets a nod of appreciation for making the government stats look good at exam time and not much else.
I know there are those of you who scoff and say "a bright child will do well anywhere!" but is that the best we can offer...do well???
How about getting the best from them? Or helping them grow to THEIR full potential? Challanging them?
Is it so much to ask?
Enrichment classes? A few hours to feel segregated? To be labelled a swat, geek or freak?
I say give them an a place they can be given the education they need, with like minded children and well trained staff that can cope.
There are a few gifted children in my family and I'm sure I'll be having the same rant in a 2 years when DS is in the same position, although I have planned for this contingency and have looked into independent schooling (13 years on value baked beans) but I only have one child, my sister has three. I don't need to show you the maths to explain a lottery win is in order.

Children who are classified as "G&T" at an early age are often better off home educated because they then do not have to be compared with others - they can access whatever info they want or need at their own level without someone wanting them to do age-related NC stuff - which is a nonsense in any case.

People do not learn linearly and the NC is predicated on all DC of a specific age being within a set range of skill and knowledge in all areas. A DC who does not have English as a first language may have difficulty accessing the curriculum, but that does not mean that they are stupid - they may be understand quantum mechanics at 9 in their mother tongue but the school system would not help them to operate at that level until they "caught up" in English.

I'm not suggesting that it is not important for a DC living here to learn the language but not knowing it at 5 does not mean that they are not intelligent. Similarly, not being able to read aloud (because of a hearing impariment) does not mean that a DC cannot read - it simpoly means that the system is not testing what it says it is testing.

Finally, it is almost impossible to work out why someone identified as advanced at 8 does not fulfill that promise. One reason given anecdotally (by parents and DC themselves) is because they deliberately dumbed down to fit in or were depressed by their needs not being met. In fact, MNers often post that a teacher has said that a DC must simply "wait until the rest catch up" - is this good enough? It may be sufficient that some DC stop seeing the point in trying (just as some at the struggling end of the scale do, because they see themselves as failures by 6).

Can I just add once again that the correlation intelligent = existential angst applies to some children, not to all.

The only one in our family that I would say is into existential angst and worrying about the ills of the world at too young an age is ds, who is about average intelligence (bottom to lower sets at school, struggles with fairly basic mathematical concepts). I think the world is scary to him precisely because he doesn't understand everything he hears. And because he has not got the cheerful self-centredness of some very bright individuals.

Dd, who is easily the brightest member of this family, is far too busy having fun and planning her brilliant future to worry about the larger perspective. (she does suffer from depression, but that is about her own poor health, nothing to do with having an old head on young shoulders). She is way brighter than ds, but she is also far more shallow, far more focused on what she wants to get out of life and what she can bring to it.

So you can't extrapolate from one child to another.

The most interesting thing to me has been to see how the really bright children in secondary are not necessarily the children you would have thought of as being really bright in toddler group or infants. Some have plateaued and now just seem ordinary when you talk to them, others have suddenly shot up. Just like the tall ones are not always the ones who were tall in Reception.

My correlation was more that an intelligent child who was held back in school (i.e. felt that they were spending large chunks of the week marking time) might become depressed and give up, not believing that there would ever be anything different.

Lots of factors would be involved in this outcome - the school and specific teachers, the family and its ability to support the child and add appropriate activities outside school.

If the education system were arranged by ability rather than age (not so easy administratively), then we might not get so many "failures" at either end of the scale. I'm thinking of "district learning centres" where you can go to take a course you're interested in, at a suitable level and no-one bothers if you are 8 or 15.

I really wish that our 'good-at-cuts' government would scrap G&T and everything associated with it. It has led to a situation where swathes of parents have wrongly convinced themselves that their reasonably bright offspring are tortured/unsupported geniuses. It has created an unreasonably large and unmanageable sense of entitlement within education. It must be a thankless and pointless system for all interest groups given that the majority of G&Ts trend at around average in the long-run.

jackstarb the most significant research paper quoted was a meta-analysis in Early Childhood Research Quarterly by Juan Kim and Hoi K Suen 'Predicting Children's Academic Achievement from Early Assessment Scores: A validity Generalisation Study" in 2003, the paper showing that early social skills don't predict long term success came from another meta analysis by Greg Duncan et al "School Readiness and Later Acheivement" in Developmental Psychology in 2007.

I don't have academic library privileges anymore so haven't read the research, and you never know it might say something different from the book I read, but they back their opinion up by lots of research including some interesting neurological studies about how children's brains develop (lots still going even in the teens).

sorry about the expression used, swallowed, was just having a bad day, watching ds

of course he is not "into it" in the sense of doing it on purpose because he likes being depressed; it's just so frustrating to watch

I don't know how much in the way of statistics there is to support the idea that more highly intelligent people get depressed; I have heard doctors say that this is not their experience, though it's something everybody believes.

It is possible that when somebody very intelligent is depressed or anxious, you are more likely to think about their brightness and associate it with their depressive tendencies, whereas if somebody of average intelligence is depressed/anxious you don't say "ah, that's because they are of average intelligence".

My own limited experience as a university teacher (meet a no of students with diagnosed mental health issues every year) suggests that some the very gifted students suffer, but that there is no correlation: the vast majority of disability reports concern students I would describe as very average- I suppose because there is more of them.

In my own family, we have all inherited a tendency to anxiety and depression, both those of us who are bright and those of us who are less bright. On the whole, the brighter members of the family tend to recover more quickly, perhaps because they have more to distract them. We are also less prone to worrying about the existential questions: I think because we are so driven by our own thing.

Ime it doesn't take a lot of intelligence for a young child to start worrying about existential questions or the state of the world; they all talk about the news in the playground. Ds doesn't need a lot of talent to hear these things and worry about them.

EVERY state school of the eleven I visited looking for my child had some support for the brighter pupils within the ECM scheme-small group intervention aimed at their level. Many, although not all teachers, also thought sensibly about multi-level provision. It's changed a lot from the days i faked being thick to stay in remedial class because that was the only chance of attention (everyone to average might be the philosophy then).

It's also noticable from studying and working in several 'elite;' universities that many key academic skills are also social skills-courage, independence, resilience to criticism and an ability to persuade others-and are not necessraily best taught by tellign kids they are ace and putting them somewhere special.

As to independent schooling, I won a scholarship at 16. During one unusually frank converstaion the Deputy described kids like me as involved in a mutually expolitative relationship-I get to do six a-levels not three, and when I got into Cambridge that advertsiing dragged in others and paid for my scholarship. The levels of academic competition were much lower than the state school I left, even if the resources were better.

I think I was probably genuinely 'gifted' (in that even my PhD was seen as 'exceptional), but I did OK even under the old system. Wish i'd been going to state primary now rather than then....

I work in a state secondary school.

Some of our students got into Oxford.

FFS

Sorry to shatter your illusions but G and T is pretty widespread - so it doesn't really mean that much.

Also it often can mean no more than X child is slightly better than the rest of a thick class at Maths etc.

That's not to say that some children are NOT G and T - just that it's not a measure for finding them.

swallowedfly, I fully understand what you are saying: merely pointing out that you don't need to be gifted to know quite a lot about the scary things of the world and worry about them by the time you reach school age- the same anxieties can manifest in a child of average intelligence: the information is all out there and no child is completely sheltered these days

ds is certainly not bright: struggles with fairly basic mathematical concepts and reads with great reluctance, finds it difficult to understand his science- but he still hears the same talk in the playground as the very brightest children, there is always someone who is allowed to watch the news and relays it to the rest

you would have to be of very low intelligence not to understand that there are wars going on and that people get killed in war- whether you worry about it imo is more about your emotional sensitivity than about your intelligence

ds was so sensitive that he used to find it unbearable to even hear stories where family members argued- doesn't make him bright

I'm a 'graduate from a top university' (in fact I got the top degree possible from one of the two considered most tops). One of the reasons I originally left primary teaching was because I was expected to be magically able to teach the 'bright', and struggled massively because it this background made me so painfully aware of the distinction between 'getting an Oxford 2.1 or 1st' and being 'gifted', and made it impossible for me to meet expectations from parents and learners who did not. I was much better at working with the less highly achieving but enthusiastic, but it's only with the ECM agenda and my own maturity that I've been able to recognise this, have it recognised, and seek an enjoyable route back into teaching. Best teacher I had at primary school had a B.Ed from an ex-Poly.

High-achieving kids are people. Some suffer depression as a result of their worries, some are happy; some work hard and independently, others need constant challenge and reinforcement; some push themselves and learn form exceeding their limits, others are destroyed by failure. They respond to different teachers according to this and to a teacher's awareness of their needs. The last thing anyone should be seeking to do for a high achieving, yet alone a truly gifted learner at five is to prescribe a model for development or teaching based on that alone. You don't need special schools, special types of teaching or teachers, just an awareness of this.

Couldn't agree more with Figcake and QueenCatherine - the idea that the state system is 'worse' and bright children will do 'worse' there is condescending and dangerous - it isn't just that a bright child will do well anywhere, it is that children all need to mix together and learn that there are different types and levels of other people in society to achieve their best.

Actually if he appears gifted and talented in a class of slightly less bright children (not that there is any reason to expect that that would be the case just because he is at a state school but simply becuase it seems to be implied that that is the case) that situation in itself may actually very likely be what is causing him to appear 'gifted' and may well be what is motivating him to work hard and achieve highly, as children like to 'win' and be doing best. He may thrive much better in that environment than as one of many in another class.

PLUS he is only FIVE!! May be below average in the long run! Plus bright children given encouragement and nurturing at home do similarly well regardless of their schooling. Plus 'g+t' is incredibly narrow and labelling children on the basis of one very specific attribute. Plus having parents rich enough to send you to private school simply doesn't make you any cleverer! I was at state school at that age and thrived because of a thirst to learn and a stimulating school atmosphere and learned loads socially too, then moved to private and did equally well there, but certainly was not surrounded by particularly bright bunnies - I was the only one in my year to go to Oxbridge - this idea of cleverer students all somehow gravitating to private schools is a myth perpetuated by the disproportionate successes of very high profile schools like Eton and St Paul's.

I would say, pace Betelguese, that the majority of parents probably wouldn't rush off to an EdPsych just because their 5yo was top of his class (as described in the OP): they would wait to see how far ahead he was, if this was a sign of outstanding intelligence or just that he happened to be an early developer, and particularly if it was actually causing him any problems.

Not all parents feel incapable of judging this for themselves or to help provide their children with a suitable education without specialist help.

I would certainly get help, though, if I thought a child of mine was unhappy.