Anyone had their child skip the final year of primary and go straight into secondary?

[Miaou]

Just had parents' evening. Dd1 is in P6, so another 18m to go in primary school. She has already completed the reading/writing/comprehension part of the curriculum and from what I can gather she has almost finished the maths. A few people have asked if we would consider sending her to high school a year early, including a teacher at that school.

The school she is at just now is great, but it's clear that they are scratching their heads as to how to keep up with her. In their own words, they've "never taught anyone like her." Anyone done this?

I went from P5 to P7 (Scotland) and it was the best thing that ever happened to me in school. If she's academically ready for the Big School, send her there - another year of boredom and frustration at primary will do no good at all, and may be seriously counterproductive.

We've heard it from lots of people who've had it done to them. My take is from the opposite side: I was not moved up and there was no streaming in my primary school. Instead, my parents tried to stretch me at home by teaching me foreign languages and providing me with lots of books on all different subjects. At school the teacher would sometimes use me as an inofficial TA (very useful training for a career in teaching!) and sometimes I was allowed to bring in a book of my own. A lot of the time I was mildly bored at school, but it didn't seem a major issue because I had this wonderfully stimulating world of books and learning and interesting discussions at home; I never felt cross with anyone or tempted to misbehave. I was so stimulated the rest of the time that school gave a welcome opportunity for relaxation. Don't worry- I did learn to listen with one ear and did go on to do the full academic programme including the PhD.
What I did lack was social skills, so I am glad I got the time to develop those at school- I enjoyed university so much because I went there when I was ready.

Another jumper here - I skipped a year when I was 8 and never caught it up. I was an April birthday too so a full 18 months or more younger than some in my year. I didn't take a gap year so started university not long after I turned 17. I don't regret it, because anything that gave me a year less of school overall has to be good, but that sums it up really - it was very much a matter of making the best of a bad job for me. And to be honest, work-wise, it was academically mildly interesting for a few weeks and then I was bored again - it's a bit depressing, but I think it's probably true that if skipping a single year will really make a difference, it's probably not worth the cost in other ways; and if she's so far ahead that the improvement won't last long, she's going to have a tough time anyway. (Perhaps worth adding that my case was further complicated by chronic health problems which were badly handled by the school and further exacerbated the social 'weirdness' issues.)

Having said that, cory's story above is fascinating and very encouraging - I'm sure this is ideally how it should be done. I worked obsessively on my own projects at home, without, it sounds, as much structured support and discussion as cory received, but without being prevented from doing so either - though I would have loved to be able to talk to someone (anyone!) about the things I was thinking about and working on. Even so, I found school immensely frustrating and miserable most of the time - it just seemed like such an incredible waste of time, when I knew how fast I could learn on my own. But having read and thought a lot about it since, I think this sense of 'wasting time' is quite unusual even in very bright children, and was partly the result of circumstances for me (for instance serious family illness which meant I was aware, sadly, even when I was very small that we don't necessarily have very long), combined with a kind of intensity that is natural to me. If you can stretch your daughter at home in such a way that she can enjoy school on its own terms, as cory did, I think that's ideal; but I don't think you should assume that academic happiness and social happiness are completely distinct either - for me, at least, being bored makes me miserable, not just bored - and therefore destroys any chance of social happiness too, however promising the environment in other ways. (It works the other way too though - my capacity to be made happy and excited by my work is almost completely independent of any other emotional experience I may be having, so that at least is the advantage of being such a freak!)

I was put up a year ahead from infants to juniors, so it was a bit different, but it was awful for me.

I lost contact with all my peers, crashed a new class where I knew no-one and was considered an outsider and was seen as an egghead.

I soon realised doing well at school did me no favours, so I stopped trying.

Left school at 16 with a handful of qualifications and little self confidence.

I did benefit from the harder school work, but I'm not sure it was worth it!

I agree with the people who say it's up to the teachers to stimulate your child academically. Your emphasis has to be on her emotional/social well being.

Hope this helps a bit!

Squilly, I think I disagree. I think it's the parent's job to stimulate their children academically. Of course, school might be, and often is, a good way of fulfilling this obligation, but if school (or a school) wasn't working well, it would be the parents' duty to do something about it. Wouldn't it?