Gifted and talented.

[jabed]

Its three O clock in the morning. I have a stinking headache which is why I am up and I would like to get contentious. Do you mind?

With no holds barred, my DS is by any definition gifted and talented. I am a fairly able kind of guy myself and DW is extremely gifted, so no prizes for guessing where he gets it.

The thing is, I have been pondering what I am going to do with him. We currently HE. This is because he is young- He is a late August born and would, were he at school he going into year 2 now. Many a couple of weeks younger would just be going into year 1.
He is gifted as I said, which is another reason for not putting him in school. he has a generally high IQ and academic giftedness and if SW is right he has musical talent.

I don?t want him accelerated. I don?t want him messed with. I want him to be what neither DW nor I were - a child with a childhood. My experience of the local school, which would have been our first choice (and was in fact where we sent him) for his primary years do not deserve him. The teachers cannot deal with gifted children. He does not deserve his peers in that school - disruptive and largely ill socialised with a large percentage at the other end of the spectrum to DS. But there is no other local school.

There is my own school which has a prep but they want to put him a year up.

So, what do you do in that situation? I am at a loss. I have looked at options and got bogged down. We have to make a decision before year 3 as I seriously believe he needs to be in formal education at some point there.

Just a general throw out to see what others would do with such a DS. I reserve the right to get toss potty if people get rude about my DS or my feelings about being middle class etc.
This is my DS not an abstract. Thanks

In the holidays - may not be possible for you as you are abroad so much

Holidays are an issue. We spend around 20/24 weeks a year out of the UK. Most of the summer and every other school holiday including Christmasand Easter. It would prove an issue with state schooling as we wouldn?t be able to go if what I read is correct - that there is some fine for unauthorised absence. We would incur a lot of fines.

Colleger,

Play is exactly what DS did with our local HE families - he found them very much easier and more open-minded playmates than those children from the village he had been at school with, simply a) because they were available in the school day and b) they understood that not everyone goes to school!

Sorry, I meant jabed re Colleger's original suggestion...

OK, so it has to be a private school, or home ed. I think it did anyway, didn't it? Unless you moved to a very rarefied postcode...

Long term, what are you thinking? Do you want him to do the full GCSE/A level shenningans?

I can see HE working for you and long term, assuming that you joined some HE groups and maybe something like cubs. Or something performing arts-y? An orchestra? You would at least be satisfied with the academics side of things, assuming you and your wife are confident with preparing him for whatever qualifications you think he should be going for (and I would be I think, were I HEing).

However, if long term you plan for him to go to school, then perhaps you need to be looking more closely at the prep options.

OP I'm sorry to hear about your DS's severe giftedness problems. If the local state school can't cope with him have you looked further afield in the state sector? If you're looking for a normal childhood then a bit of exposure to children you see as "rough" may be just the ticket. He'll have to interact with these people as an adult, and his social skills may get behind his peers if he's just stretched in certain directions

I'm coming to the conclusion the 'normal childhood' bit isn't really a deal breaker here!

Are most private schools cool with children frequently/routinely missing school?

Long term, what are you thinking? Do you want him to do the full GCSE/A level shenningans?

Whilst I cannot guarantee it, I would like to think I will have retired by then and we will have moved to Canada and he will be schooled there. Certainly in senior ( High ) school

TOSN - jabed is a private school teacher, so I presume that his aim would be for his holidays and those of his DS to coincide.

Jabed, I presume that you've tried this, but have you tried mapping all viable routes from your home to your work and looking at all schools which lie close to those routes? Your LEA will be advising you about schools on the basis of their distance from your home, but if instead you look at schools along your route, would that give you more options?

(Though I do think that state schooling is a red herring here as the holidays rule them out).

I meant to add to my post about skills, by the way, to say that I used that checklist when thinking about activities that weren't necessarily in DS's comfort zone but would develop an essential skill or attitude. Hence the football / rugby / cricket - the teamwork, and the learning to win or lose gracefully, learning something that he was initially bad at with a different adult, and also having some way of keeping fit throughout life, were all addressed through that part of his home education ... so it was worth it even if he wasn't a 'sporty kind of boy' IYSWIM?

Are most private schools cool with children frequently/routinely missing school?

I cannot say about other schools. Where I work they are fine with it. Most of our boarders leave early each term (they get early exeat to use the phrase). We also have kids out for various activities - like roles in plays and films and auditions and we had several missing for the Olympics and trials up to that. No one seemed too concerned.

Of course independents are all different and it may depend on the school. I would need to find that out.

I've just discovered on reading through this thread that I am older than jabed!

Really seeker? I am fifty eight. So you were forty seven or older when you had your youngest DS? (the one not going to grammar school) Thats good going.

Yes, I knows what an exeats are....

I think there are a lot of red herrings in this thread really, and I think your question 'what would you do' was not really sincerely asked at all. You haven't listened to anything that's been said about socialising or opportunities for you to do it - you say your son might benefit from contact with other people, yet you aver that he is not lonely, doesn't and shouldn't spend too much time outside....

I think your attitude to the world at large is worrying, especially when it comes to calling four year old children 'feral' and the like. At best you seem to be teaching your ds that the world's a scary place full of horrid idiots, and at worst I think your misanthropy and fear and general jadedness will rub off on him in the long term.

People move for chidlren's schools all the time. Move near a school for the very bright child whether that be Manchester Grammar or Westminster Underschool or the like. Perhaps that's more important than living in a pretty village with few opportunities. Get a job in one of those types of schools in the top 10 which are full of children like the son here and then may be even there would be a good fee discount too.

Jabed has a history of struggling to find employment, Xenia, so that may not work out.

On the 'loneliness' point, I remember listening in to DS discussing with a friend from his new school what his old school had been like - his friend's mum had asked whether he was unhappy there [I paraphrase slightly, but the gist is right}

"I didn't know that what I was was unhappy at that school until I did school at home and then came here and found what being happy at school was. I just thought it was normal."

Similarly, your DS may not know that he is lobnely as he has nothing to compare it with. Perhaps phrasing the question 'Do you like it more here where you have children calling for you to play with you and you play baseball etc with them, or at home where that doesn't happen but you have your swing and you go horseriging with your mum?2 would give a more indicative answer?

Well people do make sacrifices. My daughter had a friend whose father worked in Africa all through the school days and the mother and 2 children moved to London for the education of the children (originally from South Korea) and that worked well (although I don't imagine the couple got much sex I suppose as they were living in different countries)

OK, so what are the qualities that will allow him to be successful in the Canadian system then? Those are what you need to be developing now, and are of equivalent importance to the academics really.

I work with some Canadian teachers. They are fabulously upbeat and enthusiastic (but then they are canadian teachers who have chosen to travel and ended up in a distinctly challenging school in the UK, so possibly a self selecting adventurous sample).

What they do say though, is that sport was hugely important at their school. For everyone apparently. And outdoors teaching was big when they were training.

And so we are back at scouting

Good point, teacher.

He may have been asked if he is lonely and indeed said no, but does he really know what being lonely means?

I would say that given your circumstances of being out of the country so much your only option is to continue the HE but follow suggestions of teacherwith2kids-especially the ones on socialisation-or get him in at the school that you teach in so that going away isn't an issue.
Hopefully by the time he is about 8 or definitely by 11yrs you will be in one place. You can't have a 'normal' childhood if you are only somewhere for half a year.
I stand by my original needs of benign neglect, friends and mud. I can't think of a better place to start than Beavers-I am glad that so many have suggested it.
He does need chance to make his own friends and spend significant time with them, away from parents-especially as time goes on.

"Well people do make sacrifices. My daughter had a friend whose father worked in Africa all through the school days and the mother and 2 children moved to London for the education of the children (originally from South Korea) and that worked well (although I don't imagine the couple got much sex I suppose as they were living in different countries)"

Never mind the parents having sex- what about the children having a father? How can you possibly say "that worked well"?

Jabed- no it turns out that I am not older than you- but not far off. I feel as if the couple of years is a generation, though! Why won't you respond to the Scouting movement suggestion made by so many people?

On the contrary, those few years are probably the difference which means you understand feminism and don't refer to 'council schools', Seeker.

" I am not sure that is what he needs though. All a bit busy busy. I was just thinking more along the line of people to play with - just as he is now."

The thing is, jabed, that at home he does not have boys calling and asking him to play - and you feel he would benefit from that. F

or some children who are HEd (not all, because some are linked into HE or other social networks from birth, but certainly some like your DS and mine) there is a need as an HEing parent to put a little 'busy busy' effort into socialisation initially to start it off ... and with time (possibly very little time indeed - within a couple of weeks of playing football DS was being called for to join in a kickabout up at the playing fields, and shortly after making ourselves known in the local HE community we had lots of informal meet-ups for DS to play) that will evolve into a much more casual 'no adult input' social life.

I would like first and foremost for my DS to meet with DC's who are like us.

Home-ed then, you're like the many other HErs I know and they all feel that way. Deep down it's more important to them than almost anything else. You want to guarantee being main influence in your child's life & the "values" that they acquire; so be it.

One big reason I send DC to school is because I want them to think different from me, or if they think the same, I want them to get there on their own. I want them to think for themselves. I want them try & reject other ways of thinking (even mine at times, I sure don't have all the answers). I want them to argue with life at least al little, & figure out for themselves how to be. I'll be damned if I end up raising sheep.

I went to a council school, I'm not a feminist and I'm not sure who I'm older or younger than.

Jabed.
I think several people have suggested you continue with H.ed for reasons of missing school due to holidays. Unless you are going to enrol your ds at a school similar to the one you work in.
FWIW I agree about the socialisation, all dcs have a right to play. It is a fundamental part of a childs life.

Lljkk.

"I want them to think different from me, or if they think the same, I want them to get there on their own. I want them to think for themselves. I want them try & reject other ways of thinking (even mine at times, I sure don't have all the answers). I want them to argue with life at least al little, & figure out for themselves how to be. I'll be damned if I end up raising sheep."

These were some of the reasons I decided to H.ed my dd. I didn't want my dd being the same as the other sheep

Could we possibly have no more offensive descriptions of school educated children? Please?