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Original poster

Ruth Lawrence kids

41 replies

ggglimpopo · 07/09/2006 11:56

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OP posts:
southeastastra · 07/09/2006 11:57

blimey poor thing, can't she talk to him.

Beetroot · 07/09/2006 12:02

oh dear. I are they French or English and moved over?

Can you get dd to talk to him? or invite him round?

Piffle · 07/09/2006 12:09

Crikey that is extreme
Upping years is huge decision - we decided against it for ds due to the social implications.

Even the G+T kids some of who are working years above ie: ds 12 is doing GCSE maths for example stay in their own year groups and classes.
It is one thing finishing school and to be so wonderfully intelligent but what will it bring him. Esp if he goes straight on to Uxbridge etc.
He will be isolated for another decade.

edam · 07/09/2006 12:11

LOL at genius child going to Uxbridge. To see what the end of a tube line looks like, perhaps?

Original poster
ggglimpopo · 07/09/2006 12:12

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Beetroot · 07/09/2006 12:12

pmsl at uxbridge

Twiglett · 07/09/2006 12:12

@ uxbridge

Original poster
ggglimpopo · 07/09/2006 12:13

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Beetroot · 07/09/2006 12:13

I would do as Piff says..

Piffle · 07/09/2006 12:14

PMSL Freudian slip

Original poster
ggglimpopo · 07/09/2006 12:14

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Piffle · 07/09/2006 12:16

ggg I suppose the problem would be, that he would simply be bored rigid in a class of his own age...
I am not sure you can hothouse that kind of prodigious ability - it's a bit of a conundrum
If it was me I'd give him 3 years off school and travel the worls with him and then plonk him back in his own year or the year above and go from there

Piffle · 07/09/2006 12:16

worls WTF is wrong with me today
WORLD

Lilymaid · 07/09/2006 12:18

DS1 had one exceptionally bright boy (only advanced one year though) all through his senior school (which is one of the top schools in country academically). In the leavers book they put together at the end of U6 he wrote that he was now learning that academic studies weren't the only thing in life and that he intended to loosen up a bit now he was going to Cambridge (not Uxbridge). I hope he has been able to do that. To put an 11 year old in a Sixth Form is sheer madness, the boy will have all sorts of emotional/developmental problems.

Beetroot · 07/09/2006 12:18

me too piff..

Beetroot · 07/09/2006 12:19

not sure what my other kids would think though!

Original poster
ggglimpopo · 07/09/2006 12:27

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CJinSussex · 08/09/2006 15:38

I did some of my O levels (showing my age) at 13 & 14 but except for a few private tutorials I stayed in my year groups and arsed about a lot - I wasn't actually very academic and skipped going to University because I preferred to get drunk on expensive gin (I obviously misunderstood the term G&T?) and not the dodgy half pints of bitter that was all my student friends could afford. I don't think I have a G&T child but if one suprises me and has lessons with older kids I'll make sure they do swimming, football, ballet, whatever, with their own age.

Original poster
ggglimpopo · 08/09/2006 15:42

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DominiConnor · 08/09/2006 15:46

Although putting an 11 year old in a 6th form is not exactly idea, I wonder if it is madness ?

He's quite possibly not going to be happy with the other 11yos either, so it may be the lesser of two evils.
CJinSussex is bang on the money that just because a G&T studies with older kids, doesn't mean he can't play with his own age.

beckybrastraps · 08/09/2006 15:59

I wonder if he would do the whole burping, fighting and fighting over football cards thing if he WAS in a class with children of his own age? He was playing with his calculator, not reading a comic. Some chidren are just nerdy. And I don't mean that perjoratively. I was a bit of a nerd myself. What worries me is what happens next. I really think that if you go to university before you're ready to indulge in all the extracurricular activities then you are missing out. I once read of a boy who accelerated through school, finished two years early and then went abroad, at first with his parents and then with host families. I thought it was a great idea. He whizzed through school, became fluent in two more languages, then went to university when he was old enough to enjoy it.

CarolinaMoon · 08/09/2006 16:12

not wanting to pigeon-hole the poor lad, but would he not be happier hanging out with a school-wide chess group or similar than with your foxy dd? People with similar interests, not necessarily the same age?

Is he good at all subjects?

CarolinaMoon · 08/09/2006 16:13

There was a 14yo at my college, and he lived in (unlike Ruth Lawrence, who lived with her dad).

It really didn't work out very well.

figroll · 09/09/2006 11:50

I must be a bit naive, but who is Ruth Lawrence?

CJinSussex · 09/09/2006 14:16

Ruth Lawrence was a child maths genius who went up to Oxford at age 11 (?) and did her Pure Maths degree in 2 years with her pushy dad right behind her. Then she did physics degree and went to lecture at Harvard. She's now a Professor at an Israel university.

So now you know.