G +T at secondary school - selection etc

[Piffle]

Gifted and Talented not Gin and Tonic.
Ds is in yr 7 grammar, had always been on G+T since starting school and for maths is on GCSE level which he loves
Thing is the G+T letters went out yesterdya to two other pupils
Now before anyone tells me I have my head so far up my arse/am pushy parent etc...
Ds did slip in literacy, this is a common failing yr 6 primary literacy strategy for gitsted children, it comes out as boredom and teachers here get complacents as the kids have already done the 11+ and the grmamar will boof them up a bit
TBH they have.
Now for maths CAT's (cognative abilties tests ) done late last year - age standardised
ds scored 99% (highest poss for feb born) for maths and 94% for English
he teachers have just told me that he has been left out because there are others who try harder.
To be fair ds finds it pretty easy and really enjoys it - he is diligent and does his work happily.
I am really pissed off, as I thought G+T should not exclude kids who do well because they just do
Do I need a reality check?

Piffle, your ds is not alone in having such specific ideas about his future. Dd1 is now 10 and for the past year has taken to announcing to anyone who will listen that she's going to read veterinary medicine at Cambridge, or failing that, at Edinburgh. More recently the plan has changed -- someone told her about the army 6th form college at Welbeck, and she now wants to go there, and then go on to read robotics at university on an army scholarship!

I usually try to make vague but encouraging noises -- it is hard, though, to steer a middle course between being pushy on the one hand and seeming to dismiss their ambitions on the other.

No he is not keen on medicine he says, he is keen on applied mathematics, economics
He wants to be PM apparently but Chancellor of the Excheq first
Much easier when he was 3 and wanted to drive a train or a bus.
For outside activities he is a guitar player of some skill, he does martial arts, drama and dance. His natural father is a professional musician, his dp is a dance teacher, my dp is a physics graduate so think we covered all areas in the breeding schedule (pmsl - sorry that just came out)
Also I did post yeaterdya basically explainin that him not getting in the G+T scheme was an oversight by the school who overlooked him as he was off school with broken arm when children were being assessed for it.
He is down for the next induction in April apparently two fo his teachers expressed some surprise at the kids included and ds and one or two others like him who were overlooked due. it is the schools first time on the G+T thing so they were unsure about criteria for selection.
So alls well that ends wel
Famously in our family dp's aunt was an A* from a crap schoo, in Sth Yorks but was a science prodigy, cello player with orchestra and up to teacher standard at tap and ballet.
She got turned down for Oxford, once they learned her father was a miner. She knows a lass from Surrey who got in with lesser marks...

I assume everythign can and will change for him, he has such a wide breadth of ability that he could do anything he wanted, I'm leaving a lot of it down to him tbh. He was born a very "old" soul....
thanks for all the fabulous comments from people - it has been really lovely xxxxxxxxx

Dp's aunt went to Durham double degreed in science, PHD married another student who is now a fellow at Nottingham, she had 2 kids -quit after being made redundant from large science corporation after developing some drugs and opened a dance school
Shes very happy

Piffle re the 'miner' comment. I really isn't so much like that nowerdays. I went to Oxfor 25 years ago. As Baka will agree I went to one of the 'snootoest' collages, in spite of having gone to a state comp.

This honestly happened to me at interview. They asked why I had chosen the collage and added, 'Don't worry, it isn't to find out if your Grandfather came here'. I was very left wing at the rime and proudly told them, 'my grandfather couldn't have come here, he was working down the mine at age 12'. And they accepted me!

they were obviously looking for cocky little shits that day!

Would echo what Baka has said about getting in, it can be a lottery. And there are loads of places that run better courses. The LSE for economics for one!

Provision is very patchy. Although we live in a beautiful area we are in the bottom 4% of culturally deprived areas - apparently. It's not easy to get your children to art museums when there aren't any decent ones less than an hour away, no theatre programmes locally, nearest library rubbish and 9 miles away etc. Yes I can enrich my children's education but many others round here don't have the time, resources or transport to do so. Our children miss out on trips because of the amount of time they take up and the cost of transport - even swimming costs nearly £30 a term for the coach and a whole afternoon is used up for about half an hour in the pool.

I suspect you live somewhere near me (if not somewhere very like it). Transport costs are a problem for rural LEA's (a major, major major problem- and is one reason why SN provision is often so bad in rural areas). Despite the difficulties it is far easier for a parent to meet a bright child's needs out of school than a child with SN- ands that's even truer in the sticks. In an ideal world every child would be working to their own individual curriculum, but resorces are limited unfortunately, and if the basic educational needs of a significant minority aren't being met, you can't start with added extras. Any funding you get for enrichment has to be targetted to groups where it will make the most difference. The legal obligation on LEA's is to provide a "suitable" education for each child, suitable, not unfortunately, the best.

I guess thats something I'll face with dd when she hits school, although to be fair we're rural (lincs) and provision for her SN so far has been a revelation, cerainly miles better than when we lived in the "nice" Hants/Surrey border a year ago.
We did move for this express purpose, I think now looking back , we were fortunate to be able to do so.
The argument is not so much about Oxbridge more that opportunities that exist are accessible and that entry criteria is transparent. And that equal import is given to each end and the middle of the achievement spectrum.
The children that got selected first are already rubbing ds's nose in it at school as well as a couple of other likely G+T kids.
Swings and roundabouts hey ho!

What does the programme actually provide though?The whole thing sounds a nightmare and hassle if its causing this much grief at 11 for a bunch of kids who are all going to be very intelligent, and probably have very little to choose between them. Now remind me it's the labour party who are anti selection???? (I'm a fan of grammer schools - but this whole G and T progamme- selection that is causing social grief within an already selective school- sounds ridiculous).

The school already admitted they handled it badly, they should have informed the parents not the children to be honest and they now know that.
G+T what does it offer, well million dollar question I think
Maybe some sumemr schools, some extension work and stuff, support network and forums and advice through nagty...
I'm not sure really
I suppose the selection within a selective schol is a fair comment, to what end indeed.
Well no doubt will find out when ds enters the heady world of this organisation in April.
I will of course report back to the MN command and control centre with my findings

Extension work is often useless to be honest. Schools are always tied to having to pass exams, and although GCSE's may not be very taxing to the bright, there are still hoops (coursework!) to jump through.

Anyway found this on a browse. Should be enough to put him off Oxford!

And G and T is meaningless in that all schools should have the yop 5% in the G and T scheme. there are schools where the top 5% will bearly get 5 A* to C grades and will be quite stretched by the GCSE syslbus, and not need extending, enriching.

All this is true, at this stage ds will be sitting the gcse maths paper a year early, then doing statistics the next year or vice versa.
His maths teacher said him and 4-5 other pupils could actually pass the exam now to BUT that it would displace the rest of the schooling. Extemsion work must consist of enriching the substance or pool of knowledge they already have as like it has been pointed out, accelerating them through a curriculum will only cause problems later on.
Widening rather than lengthening their skills maybe?

I was under the impression that G & T meant sort of sideways learing

like if they are learning about plants in biology -- a G & T would maybe learn the latin names and the more detailed knowledge of photosynthesis etc etc, over and above the reg children

DH's dad worked for the council cleaning the sewers, and he got into Oxford 20-odd years ago, so they weren't being too snooty that day. And when I was at Cambridge (around the same time), there were also lots of people from what my mum would call 'very ordinary' backgrounds.

Though definitely agree there are better courses in some subjects elsewhere - I read modern languages and one of the Russian dons famously said "We're not here to teach them the language".

Oh, and good for your son, Piffle, for having a clear ambition, even if it changes over the next few years...

piffle, I'd love it if you did report back on what the G+T programme offers at your ds's school.

Yep RT kanga-that's the theory- but you are an (overworked) teacher- you are assessed on your ability to get kids through exams- what do you do- spend your time worrying about extending kids who will get A's anyway? Providing an interesting extended curriculum takes quite a lot of work. martianbishop will be able to give more details about how much support teachers get for doing the extra. In practice though one of the main criticisms levelled at the g and t programme is that it provides more of the same work, rather than extension. Probably because its a hlaf baked political idea that hasn't been thought through properly, and is in place to appease middle class parents.

Locally an outside agency provides extra work for G and T english students, on a Saturday. These are children from very, very poor backgrounds though- and as martianbishop says may not be on for As in class). Its a (IMO) wise use of resources though as you have a chance of introducing the idea to these kids that's its ok to work, and they can still have friends if they do. It's got to be making a bigger difference than targetting the very few who have supportive parents anyway.

Piffle, my ds is in yr 8 at a comp boys school and mid yr 7 we were told he was G&T. 9 boys from 180 in year were selected. we were given a few leaflets and NAGTY details and that was it. he does nothing at school different from any of the other boys. He got the place due to CATs tests and something else - it was never explained. He has done a Maths day through NAGTY which we had to pay a lot for. (It's the first time he's ever been in a maths lesson in secondary school where the kids listened and worked rather than messing around.) I have to say he has none of your ds's drive or ambition. The only reason he likes maths is because he can do it easily and quickly. His english is nowhere near the same level. He wouldn't know what Oxford or Cambridge are. Don't worry about G&T - no doubt the gov will have dropped it in 2 yrs time anyway. Your ds will do whatever he wants to with or without it. I appreciate you're hurt that he was left out of something he should have got - my ds never made the footie team and that made us sad, but that's life and it's sometimes fair, often not...

How much assistance do we get for extending agle children? None.

Actually that isn't quite true. At ks3 we have more advanced work sheets (yawn) for the more able kids. TBH I seldom use them, and prefer to use more open ended tasks which the more able can run with....for example on a poster activity on 'Noise' and 'Sound' the more able boy in the class did his posted and then calculated the speed at which the sound of Krakatoa moved round the earth!

My more able kids at KS4 get sideways extension but more often I give them the A level treatment of the sunbject...but this is driven by their interest in the 'real' answer as oppsed to the GCSE version. I am keen to make the more able integrate all the sciences, so to explain why you get hot when you exercise, based on what is happening at a microscopic level in the muscles, linking Physics and biligy (and chemistry)

I also do lots of cross curricular stuff for the more able, make them write science haikus, researc Pavlov when we do the reflex arc etc.

But I get no assistance for any of this at all, most of it is off the cuff stuff that I just know.

My dd seems to be very able, at least at the moment, who knows what will happen in the future. I am far more keen that she can work with her peers and do lots of out of school activities like brownis, music and karate. From what I have seen of the most able kids, the best (and nicest and most well integrated) have lots of hobbies to keep them stimulated.

MB when ds was 7 he was assessed by an ed psych a friend of his dads, informally might I add - I'd never have pushed for it tbh
He was off the IQ scale in some tests.
When his teachers pointed out how well he was doing in school, they advised us to give him lots of hobbies, so he took up guitar, judo and stagecoach acting. He has done several productions and dance performances in London (my exp and his gf are in the music dance scene there a lot)
I've always felt since this info 5 yrs ago that somehow I have to perform to a level for him so as not to let him down.
The school did mention that much of the G+T scheme is done outside of school hours.
He is doing chinese mandarin after school already with view to intensive course aided by the school in China in July
I mean the opportunities he gets are enormous - We did move exclusively for this grammar and it was the right choice for him.
I would have had no worries about the school extending him normally as it happens, but the original issue I had was about how they selected the pupils for G+T, that was my problem
this has been a really interesting thread though

Ps MB sounds like the kids you teach are lucky

Yes, mb you do sound fab. (I've said that before I think? - fawning fan alert)

piffle, the ed psych who saw ds said he had one basic principle for extension work: it should be about "issues that don't have answers" - so that the child gets to think around an idea instead of leaping to a solution (or getting frustrated because he or she can't leap to a solution). My ds is very keen on solutions, so he finds maths a breeze but isn't nearly as happy with more discursive subjects.

Trying to think up "issues that don't have answers" is quite tricky - I started a thread on it once here. A good example is an Edward de Bono exercise (I think): to ask each child in a class to invent "a machine that would stop a cat and a dog from fighting". Of course, that's for children younger than yours, hence why I'd like to know what's offered for yours!

Also agree with mb about the importance of integration, & not only out of school - the best thing ds's teacher has done this year is make him do his work in a pair (with lots of different partners) - advantages too many to count.

I like that, only issue we have here is that ds is so bloody arrghh that I do not even understand the questions
He plays mensa type questions on you at 7am
If I there are 5 bananas and you take 2 how many have you got
Everyone say 3
but of course its 2 as not how many you have left...
sometimes I could cheerfully strangle him - he is a diehard pedant as well
Ahhh the joys of ability

oh, mb, when you pop back in to this thread, as I am sure you will ...

When was fluoride first discovered? - ds would like to know.

I had a search but could only find info (per periodic table) about the discovery of fluorine, which is I guess something related but I don't know how?

ta a lot

Fluorides are naturally occuring compounds found in some rocks or minerals

They are made from a highly reactive element called fluorine

1st used in toothpaste & water in 1960's iirc

Because fluorine is soooooooo reactive it is very difficult to make from fluorides

fluorine itself is very toxic but fluorides are safe in small amounts