gifted kids v's teachers

[samantha1978]

what on earth are you supposed to do if you find that you have a gifted child and a hostile teacher? my son is officially four years ahead last year in reception we had a fantastic teacher who understood him and was prepared to cope.
this year his class is split between a very good teacher and one that seems to take offence at his brightness she even said that she would not put up his reading level because..he might run out of books... i will admit that he is not easy to teach but the lack of support is getting on my nerves and he's getting bored and disruptive what do you do?

Offer to supply more books appropriate for him? Though you'd have thought he could borrow some from older years.

Maybe you should have a meeting with the good teacher to work out what to do on such issues.

I'm so sorry that you have already run into this problem :( We have had some teachers who understood ds1 better than others but none that were actively threatened. If he is having behavioral problems because of this then I think you really need to have a meeting at the school. I am in the US and it is very different over here, so not sure how applicable any advice I have might be. But one year ds1 went to reading in a class two years ahead and then did other things with his peers in his "regular" class. That could be an option if the school is willing to try it.

samantha can I ask what kind of school he's in?

you'll get used to it, tbh.
both dd2 and ds1 had very high ability in some areas in yr r, so the school catered for them as above (most schools just access other year groups resources, esp books). this is a little more difficult in an infant only school, but usually some arrangement can be made to access curriculum materials from a nearby junior school. they were between 7 and 10 years ahead, but only in small areas - mostly they just get on and follow the same curriculum with some extension work.

we have had the odd teacher who doesn't believe in extension, and so gets them to teach instead (actually, there are quite a few teachers who seme to take this approach) but tbh we let it go - it's only a year, and they aren't going to suddenly forget how to read or whatever. plenty of access to external stuff if that's what they want - zip into a bookshop or library every now and again and see what floats their boat.

some schools and teachers are better at differentiation than others.

if he's getting bored and disruptive, they will do something. honestly. but even bright kids need to learn that can be bored without being disruptive. it isn't a great lesson, but one of life's many challenges. far better if he was adequately challenged, but also important to learn that causing a disruption is not a suitable way to get your needs met.

why do you think he's not 'easy to teach'? kids who are good readers are often very easy to teach... and good readers are not that unusual?

You don't help by describing this teacher as hostile. You presumably have only seen your child - she will have seen many children. If your child is in a state school, then there will be other children in the class who have just as much right to her attention as yours does.

Who said he was 'officially 4 years ahead?' He is little fgs, let him learn at his poce as opposed to hothousing him too soon.

My ds hated Oxford Reading Tree, was bored brainless with it, whilst reading much more 'advanced' books at home. The problem with bright kids is that they won't demonstrate what they can do in order to get the boxes ticked, and that can create problems. There is no point setting a child a piece of work at GCSE level when in Year 8 about the pneumatics of how a meander forms, when they won't even show that they know what a meander is. It may well be the same problem here.

The teacher wants the best result for each child in her class, but will not respond well to being called hostile, any more than I would. She knows her job, either let her get on with it or work with her, but don't put her back up.

MWITA - I used to get some of the brighter kids to teach things to the weaker ones. It helped me judge their level of understanding and grasp of the subject (you only really know it well if you are teaching it), to correct any misconceptions, and to help the weaker ones.

I sympathise; my son had the same problem. Regardless of numerical estimates etc, I suggest you try dropping all that and just asking if he can bring a book from home - can be a library book, of course - instead of the Reading Tree - say you are worried that he is bored. She may well feel he has to learn some tickbox skills from the tree, so you need to be willing to negotiate. I would NEVER go in saying he is years ahead... I'd say instead that he is reading such-and-such and really enjoying it, and could he read that instead of Biff, Kipper etc.?

It's always best to keep quiet if your dc has been identified as gifted. It really raises the hackles of everyone else. My dd was identified as such by the school but I learnt to keep quiet about it. A 4 year old with an advanced reading ability is not so special. My dd was like that but the other kids caught up eventually. The problem was more that my dd had a difficult time socially and making friends was hard for her. Swings and roundabouts.

Beer, though if he's stuck with her, why not keep her sweet? Your advice on the reading diary seems excellent! But IME you cannot reform a bad teacher, or make one understand about giftedness.

scary - i don't mind them using the kids to teach per se, but it's a bit frustrating when it's the only differentiation technique they bother with, backed up by 'well, we don't want them getting ahead'... the kids love it, though.

although my total bugbear this year is the child that was assessed as 7 years ahead in all areas of literacy who doesn't qualify as more able because she can't write with a pencil, and needs a laptop. (she has cp). so appropriate differentiation in that instance apparently means being forced to spend hours struggling with a pencil and paper to cope up with legible words in isolation - instead of being able to actually keep up with your peers and use your brain. again - it's important that she uses a pencil and does some exercises, but not to the exclusion of her continued education. with the best will in the world, she's not going to be a calligrapher because of her brain damage.

this too shall pass. (although dh nearly had a coronary when he saw her report card and that she'd been marked down for handwriting )

Scary, I think your post is quite rude. OP isn't going to say that to the teacher's face, she just found her hostile and is saying it here.

Who says she has hothoused her ds? Presumably her use of the word 'officially' means the four years ahead is something concrete from school.

Sieglinde - re tickbox skills - is it right that a dc is held back across the board in a subject because there are say 1 or 2 boxes to be ticked? So say, they needed to improve expression in their reading so the teacher kept them on a much lower level book than they could otherwise read? Wouldn't it be better to move them on but find other ways to work on expression or mix different levels to work on different things.

mumoverbored, of course. Just form my experinece, some teachers won't do it....

Why don't you make an appt with the G&T co-ordinator. Every school has one.

mumoverbored, of course. Just from my experience, some teachers won't do it....

I was told "just because she's bright in a small school like this doesn't mean she'll be bright anywhere else" by a teacher who was happy to let DD1 sit at the back of the class during every Maths lesson with nothing to do because she'd answered the questions as they were being written on the board.
Dd2 at the same school wasn't allowed to move up a reading level as "the rest of the books are for the juniors and she'll run out if she reads them now". (class teacher in that case was fab and let us "sneak in"books from home, but the next year teacher put DD back into the reading scheme where she'd stepped out of it two terms previously.
Not surprisingly we pulled her out to HE
IME some teachers don't like bright/gifted DC but I've never understood why- surely you'd get a real spark from working with them?

I admit I don't know much about reading levels but surely to goodness if a child is reading four years ahead they would be a free reader?! Or am I optimistic?

I entered reception as a free reader - I don't know, maybe back then (1991) there wasn't so much bureaucracy regulation, but I was just given whatever books I wanted to read - some I chose at home, others the teacher borrowed from her older DD. I just sat out of phonics lessons and read by myself.

Isn't that a viable option these days?

Teachers get a real spark from working with all children I get as much of a buzz from the struggler who does their best as the most able who is working at a higher level.
IShallWearMidnight i think the teacher was trying to say (nicely) that a big fish in a small pond looks impressive but put it into a big pond with bigger fish ...
The whole G&T label thing was a complete farce the top 10% in one school could well be at the same level as the bottom 10% in another school.
Far better to challenge all children

mrsz - what he was actually trying to say was that he didn't like her, the social issues she was having were due to her boasting about being clever (which she didn't realise was the case till secondary school as she'd been pretty much ignored academically for a couple of years) and that I was a pushy mum who didn't know what I was talking about. He did change his tune when he was told she'd been accepted into NAGTY, was being fasttracked through GCSE and is currently one of the best mathematicians in her (bloody massive ) school - apparently he's " so proud of the part he played in getting her there".
In the interests of fairness the current schools we use are great with brighter kids, work is differentiated properly and so on, we just had a horrible experience at one school with some of the staff.

samantha1978 from what you said I am assuming the class is a job share, if thats the case the two teachers should be working to the same targets for each child whatever their ability. My son was in the same position, does your son have targets that he is supposed to achieve for reading? If you speak to the nice teacher only and tell her what the other says that could be a problem.
I would ask to speak to both of them and say that you are worried that your child is becoming disruptive because they are bored and try to work out with them the best plan. Suggest that your child bring in books from home. My son did, ultimately it is a year you just have to get through and hope the next year is better. Some teachers are just not capable of handling a mixed ability group very well even if they don't like to admit it and its the brighter children who tend to get left. Especially if they are only ahead in one area like reading.

Your child is going to be at this school a while probably and you don't want to get a label as a difficult parent, as they tend to take even less notice of you.

Can't your child bring books from home if he finds the school library too limiting?
My DDs both did this as they were early readers and the school was fine with it.
They viewed reception as a place to have fun and play with friends. The school did have an enrichment program for bright pupils which helped greatly.

Mumoverbored - you would be surprised what comes out in communication with parents. She states that there is a very good teacher and a hostile one. She doesn't explain what makes her think that one is hostile - which is a pretty strong term to use about someone. It could be that the 'very good teacher' is nodding and smiling and the 'hostile' one is saying actually, the child is bright but not gifted, ie: not falling in with what the OP wants because she has the best interest of the child at heart.

She hasn't come back to explain the 'officially' part either, or why she thinks the teacher is hostile.

The other point to remember is that a reading age doesn't correlate to an emotional age. My ds had a reading age of 14 at 8. That didn't mean he was ready emotionally to read what your average 14 year old reads.

that's a really important point - dd2's reading age etc was assessed as 12 at 5, there was no way i'd be letting her read early teen subject matter in yr r! (pita actually) i actually did speak to the teacher about which jac wilson books were available, as i felt some of them on the free readers shelf contained themes that were too mature for the children accessing them.

actually... i did that in pre-school too. as they sent home quite an adult themed riddle book about haunting...

do the job share teachershave non-contact time for a proper handover each week?

Ok, this will be Unpopular, but I find the idea of restricting books by 'age-appropriate' subject matter incomprehensible.

My son read Homer at 7 and my dd read Jane Eyre at 10. Both read Jacqueline Wilson much earlier. (Not boasting about GT or ability - not interested in it, and they would both read picture books happily at same age/s). Also they saw films rated 15 if I'd seen them first. DD adored The Three Incestuous Sisters by Audrey Nifenegger because of thier long flowing hair. I think this ok because a. kids only take what they understand from things and b. doubt if books are anyway as influential as 'whore-dressing' fashion culture. DD still loves the Narnia books and fairytales, and my son is still good for a Bartimaius reread at 16. Just let them roam...