OK....so what should I do now?

[KatyMac]

I think my DD is quite bright. Several friends of ours (2 of which are teachers) think she is bright. One of her class teachers thinks she is bright. And now the problem.....one of her class teacher doesn't.

She is bored at school, she doesn't really want to attend, she is being subtly bullied.

Do I go in and make a fuss (risk being labelled an over achieving mother)
Do I wait until next year (same teacher, same class, same work)
Do I suggested she is assessed for the gifted and talented programme
Do I arrange extra tuition for her (out of school) so that she can streach herself in areas that interest her

Whilst I don't think being bullied is connected to being bright; I feel she might be happier if either the work she does was more enjoyable or the bullying stopped.

May be she is strugling at school because of the bullying, maybe she only shows her true colours at home. Is she geting picked on because she is bright?
i wouldnt wait until next year, ask for her to be assessed. Have you thought about moving schools?

I am a bit of a pushy mum - not that she's the best just that she trys hard

Her work at school is (according to Both teachers) really good/great

They are failing her on the bullying tho'

Changing schools could be difficult

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i would just let her expand her own knowledge at home but tell her teacher that you feel she is capable of more than they;re offering her. You could ask to speak to their SENCO coordinator about assessment too.

My dd was put on the gifted register quite early on but still they failed to give extra work. Also i think some decisions to come down to the individual teacher. EG, dd's teacher last year put dd down quite a lot and praised and "bigged up" another 2 girls who were also bright. They were each top in English, Maths and Science (my dd being science). At the end of year awards, dd clearly should have got the science award but she gave it to someone else but gave the English and Maths to the two other girls. DD was v upset as she knew she deserved the award. She is now top in science at her new school and stands to get an award this year.

Sorry she's 7
She does Brownies,swimming twice a week, ballet, ballroom gym and piano ( tho' I've suggested that she gives 2 or 3 up). She is starting Violin in Sept at school

We are doing a scrapbook together to help her with her body image

From my maths teacher friend she is well within the criteria for the GandT in Maths, but she can't comment on english/science etc - but your right she'd probably get virtually nothing out of it

why do you think she would get nothing out of it? if she has a full ed psych they will not onlyy come out with an IQ score, but also assessments of reading ages, maths ages etc and more importantly information about HOW she learns which is the key to getting her motivated at school. it isn't just about providing more work - often it is about getting her to do less (because if she is v bright the repetitive aspect of schoolwork which less bright children need to learn will just be boring and demotivating her). So it will be a mixture of compressing the work she does at her class level, and then giving her some replacement work which stretches her and interests her.

Seven is a classic age for v bright children to get demotivated and drop behind in class. I think you should force the issue a bit - at least get your school senco to sit in on her and assess her informally and see if she recommends an ed psych report.

Can you guess I'm going through this with my 7 yo dd as well?! I want her to be handled a bit better than I was, where they said "yes she has an IQ of 170, lets push her up 2 years and see what happens" and THAT was THAT! Not v helpful.

I ended up doing o level maths work (not exam) at 10 then when I started senior school spent 3 yrs bored rigid and had given up by 4th yr

I don't want her pushed to do Y4 work now

I guess I need to talk to her teacher ( the one who doesn't say she is bright) to see if it's real or just me pushing her to suceed

you have to balance it though. I can understand that you don't want to be pushy (and I am the opposite of pushy, the school has driven all of this in our situation) but equally there is no point her being bored out of her brain and completely turned off school as a pointless waste of time at the age of 7.
And if your school can't deal with her, consider moving her to one that will. Question them a lot about how they deal with bright children to meet your concerns and don't let them get away with platitudes. Schools vary enormously in how well they deal with bright children, if her current one doesn't then look for one that does....

ps all the reports show that parent led recommendations of giftedness are about 70% accurate whereas teacher-led recommendations are about 30% accurate. And also that children with parents who were very bright as children are much more likely to be correctly identified by those parents. Teachers (as opposed to sencos) are bad at identifying bright children - they usually nominate the ones that work hard and get good grades and not the extremely bright ones who often don't see the point of writing down answers that they consider completely obvious...
I've been reading the books that were thrust at me by our SENCO on thursday you can see! Heavy holiday reading...

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Well i hope I've struck a blow for her popularity withher teacher by starting the gym (he's very sports orientated)

She was off school today (v bad cough) and was doing some craft with my 2yo's. My assistant (who was supervising) said (very hesitantly) that her art work wasn't much better than the younge childrens - she really is cr*p at art and at presenting her work (I was too)

So it might be worth making a bit of a fuss

agree with PPH about looking for a school that will help to encourage her skills too. Dd now in year 7 and in top set for all subjects but maths she struggled with a little in the top set because most of the feeeder schools to her school are high achievers so top set working at year 9 stuff and dd came from a school who didnt push. She has just achieved 6b - her target score in maths though

Like the murderous maths website btw - I think I will look intobuying the books

I agree how easy it is to get bored. We went in to school a few times when dd was doing very easy work in y4 to "discuss" things with the teacher. The problem with my dd is that she has got very stubborn. Now has new temp teacher she really dislikes and who doesn't stretch her. She's bored - I'm worried how she'll click back into hard work at grammar school next year. As far as I can see (and I'm a teacher who has worked there as well as teaching my 3 at home for a while) they do hardly anything exciting, challenging or uplifting at school at the moment. They are all so bored. As for GandT the provision round here is for extra sessions on Sat at local university. Dd didn't see why she should trundle 25 miles each way on a Sat to do extra work. I agree with her.

Change schools - they are clearly not interested where she is and the negative class teacher probably has you down as a pushy parent.

Getting extra tuition won't help her boredom at school, may even increase it.

Waiting till next year could just make her frustrated as well as bored and turn her off school even more.

Gifted and talented programme will take time for the assessment and then even longer for the outcome.

Find a school that is interested in bright kids - this one is obviously not.

How do you tell if a school is "interested" in bright kids?

What infuriates me most about schools is that the bright kids are failed and all the energy seems to go into helping the less bright kids. Surely everyone has the right to be stretched and helped to fulfill their potential.

A school that is interested in bright kids takes parents concerns seriously and tries to challenge/stretch the clever ones as well as those that struggle.

A school that is not interested in bright kids does not take parents concerns seriously, dumbs down all lessons to the lowest common denominator, and gives all kids the same, very easy, work to do, to ensure that even those at the bottom of the class can do it - regardless of the rest of the class.

You will not change the school, their approach or the teachers in it.

Look for one more in tune with your views.................

Well I had a long chat with the teacher and TA last Thursday....and basically they feel she is neither over stretched or bored and there don't seem to be any bullying going on - they have suggested that she would rather be at home than at school

I discussed that with her that evening I said "how wonderful and exciting it would be wih her at home all summer as we could C/M together and she can play with the babies etc" she said"Mum, I don't want to upset you....but....school is more fun than home" so much for that idea

I got her report today -
Rebellious phases
Her work is erratic
Not showing any enthusasm
Lacks motivation

Why the hell didn't he say anything about this last week

Oh Katymac, sounds like you have a job on your hands with that school....any teacher who had anything about them, would surely have discussed this with you last week, as you were discussing the concerns of your child with them....I second what everyone else on here has said, I'd change her school, vote with your feet. It seems to be the only thing worth doing.

If I accept that she isn't particularily bright (just fairly bright) she still isn't happy at school and this is (obviously in my opinion) causing problems (the exact problems I have warned the school about since reception)

I can't change her school now as there is so little left of the school year (I don't even have time to look at other schools)

Never mind loosing her friends and the fact that I run the afterschhol club (but that's all about me not her)

katymac, there is still time to look at other schools. give them a ring tomorrow & arrange to go & have a chat & see what they can offer your dd. september is by far the best time for a move as far as kids are concerned & you dont know until you try.
ive just changed both my dds school for september & will be driving 40 minutes each way until we move house it could take 6 months or more in the current market but the new school is 10 times better than dds current one so im willing to make the sacrifice.
good luck.

Just spoken to my Auntie (who is a primary head in a london school) she says that it seems to be a problem with personel social development rather than acadmeically.

She says i should make an appt to see him and ask if they told me about the report on Thurs last week and I just didn't "hear"

Also that maybe she is brighter and needs more (or more acuratly different) teaching/learning

I also spoke to someone who used to hear her read and she says that DD was very frightened of makeing mistakes and would rather not answer than make a mistake

My Auntie says I shouldn't change schools but should make a written complaint letter asking for additional help with my DD and see what happens

I'm a bit gobsmaked by it all atm

Now we are discussing an educational psychologist to see if they can throw any light on the situation

But a friend says we mustn't as we might be unhappy with the results - I'm really confused now