Teachers don't understand him...

[vrooom]

Sorry for the long message to follow, any advice welcome.

DS1, just turned six but in yr2, is exceptionally bright, gifted if you like. We know this by the amazing conversations we have with him, the conclusions he draws and things he has done early. Eg he was completely independent on the computer, starting it up, inputting password, double clicking to start the web browser and clicking on bookmarks to open up cbeebies aged 2 and 3 months. He was never taught, just caught him at it one morning at 4 am...

However, he only shows his ability in things he is interested in. When reading the NAGC comparision, gifted vs bright, he meets none of the bright criteria and pretty much all the gifted ones. I.e. he is a bit of a difficult child, wants to always make up new rules, always inventing things and lives in his own world.

Anywhere he goes where he has a lot of one on one attention, eg summer playscheme, the teachers/coaches/leaders always make a point of how bright he is. They seek me out to talk about the conversations they have had and how we must nurture his talents. They don't do this to anyone else. His violin teacher of two weeks, a mature lady who has clicked with him, hit the nail on the head when she said that she has never taught anyone like him before. With most children you teach them from 1 to 100, with DS1 you teach him 1, then 78, then 23 etc and hope that 2, 3 and 4 fit themselves in somewhere along the way. You can only teach him what he wants to learn.

School teachers don't understand this. I tried having a meeting with his teacher last week, but clearly didn't get the message across. His year 1 teacher admitted a huge problem in motivating him. What he needs is problem solving. Give him something interesting to solve and he will complete work for children way older. If you give him simple or uninspired work to do he switches off and says he does't know the answer. At school he gets away with it.

My concern is that he keeps switching off at school and is unmotivated and unhappy. He always says the only thing he likes about school is playtime.

Any advice? Anyone found themselves in a similar situation? I don't want to be the "pushy mum" which is how I fell like I come across to the teachers. I just want him stimulated at school and for them to understand that he is different.

OP, can you please reply to my previous post,please?

But from what you have said, in school assessments, your son is not like you. He is not performing to get top marks, he is coming out as average or slightly above average.

The teachers do have go on what they actually observe him doing. They can't just take the word of mum.

You say you want him to be happy at school? Surely part of that is to help and encourage him to settle down and do the work as asked. If he is bright then surely he can figure out that by doing the work asked in class he is more likely to get the chance or opportunity to do some more challenging work as well.

If he doesn't fill in those Y2 gaps now, whilst in y2, he may miss out on some building blocks along the way. He needs to be learning when in class.

Unless you can find a very small school where there is a lot of one to one opportunity the teacher will never be able to put his abilities at the level you put them at, unless he performs in school assessments.

but you already said he won't do the work so the gaps aren't being filled

Profoundly gifted children are a constant challenge - for parents, teachers, siblings, peers, you name it. Some teachers will be great with him and some not. With ds1 we moved almost 400 miles to put him in a school that would meet his needs and challenge him properly. If moving schools is not an option you have to keep working to advocate for him. The NAGC is a great resource, I'm glad you have already checked into it. You may also wind up HE but I would personally only do that as a last resort. Socialization is difficult for many children like this and exposure to other kids can help.

Feel free to talk to me off-board about this if you like. The G&T section of MN is typically not as supportive as the rest.

Starlight, that's really unpleasant and harsh. I am trying to gently suggest something that might be frightening to the OP (who presumably is a real person with a real child otherwise we are all wasting our time) while pointing out it does not mean that the child is a lesser person or not intelligent. My own son is on the spectrum, bright, difficult, loves to learn, but is hard to teach. I recognise a lot of what she is saying. But I also remember how appalling painful it was that anyone would suggest my amazing, brilliant child had a 'defect'.

we have considered sen, such as autistic spectrum, although he would probably be borderline. We have just though that he is young and taken the wait and see approach, although time is running out a little now. Don't know how to go about getting it diagnosed though and don't want to feel a fool if he is not.

I have "different" children. I have ds who is gifted mathematically who always worked in maths with students three or four years older than himself. Who beat the whole school in a maths challenge in yr7 and then used his talents for exploiting every flaw in the school's systems and causing chaos much to his teachers' and my despair. He's 21 now a senior advisor in local government managing a team of graduates.
I have a ds who will sit A levels in a couple of years but can't cross the road or run a bath or make a sandwich.
I have dd the computer whizz who is bright and adoreable and also autistic.
Have you looked at Aspergers Syndrome only lots of what you write rings bells with me.

at this thread

DS2 could work the pc before he was 2. And the printer too - ner ner.

I better go tell his teachers that he's G&T at pick up.

Sorry OP, he sounds like (and not popular to do on MN but going to generalise wildly here) a lot of boys, though I am basing my conclusions only on my own experience of my 2 sons, who have a very different approach to learning than DD.

DS1 is 'bright' but lazy with it. Didn't read until he was 7/8 then devoured whole books ahead of his age. Top sets and good grades with minimum effort but not G&T.

DS2 is an awkward drawers, if something interests him he learns. If not, he doesn't and it is a battle to get him to do work.

DD is a swot (already at the tender age of 4)

I don't think that you can label your DS as gifted and agree with whoever said it is not a good idea to undermine the school in front of him.

I think you have to stop thinking of him as gifted, and no-one understands him and think about how to fill in some of the gaps.
If mainstream school doesn't suit, then think of the alternatives, but you have to think about how real life will affect him if you adapt that to him, rather than vice versa. to a certain degree he does have to fit into society
hope I am making sense.
TBH, the general tone of your posts suggests that there is a lot of pandering going on. The teachers are the professionals, you know him inside out, but presumably you are not a professional teacher? you're his mum, so you see him differently, he will always be amazing to you.

vroom - if you suspect SEN/SN then ask to speak to the class teacher and/or the SENCO. See if they have noticed things too and ask them what steps to take next.

Go and talk to the teacher and the SENCO and ask them what they think. How do they find teaching him. Do they think he is bright. Do they think he might be on the spectrum. There are pros and cons to a diagnosis, but it will mean they will be more likely to tailor the curriculum to his needs. How does he find noisy and busy environments? You say he thrives 1-1?

thanks for all the posts, I am struggling to keep up with them all so please be patient with me

Was at this before I re read about you suspecting autism vrooom.

Starlight, I think it is important that people realise that autistic does not have to mean useless or stupid. That humanity owes a lot to autism and the autistic way of thinking. I think if people had spoken to me of autistic achievement instead of stuffing awful NAS leaflets full of depressing stuff about autistics having no sense of humour and much worse, it would have been a far less painful process for me. If the OP's son is on the spectrum, he is obviously doing very well to cope with playschemes and violin lessons. My son couldn't at that age (and is still very borderline, despite being academically able)

Cross-posted there Starlight.

cold comfort

Absolutely thrives 1 to 1, doesn't like noisy environments. In yr 1 complained of headaches and that the other children are too noisy. Not that he isn't noisy as well. We thought that maybe we should wait a couple of weeks as he has just started in yr 2 as has a new teacher and she won't have been able to get to know every child yet. Then maybe ask her again how she feel.

I would forget the computer thing. DS1 who is 11, severely learning disabled, less language than a 2 year old (one word and doesn't have sentence level comprehension) is a complete whizz on a computer. He uses it to find cbeebies, he goes through sequences of You Tube videos to find a particular video to pause in a particular place to make requests (e.g will pause at one particular petrol station to ask us to take him there) - heaven help us when you tube change their search results - and uses google maps in the same sort of ways - will find places he last saw when he was 2 and come and fetch me to show me.

What I'm saying is that that sort of intelligence is all well and good (and ds1 is a genius in some ways - he has a visual memory, or ability to process visual information or something of that sort that far surpasses my abilities) but it's not much use if you can't communicate, or actually can't learn under direction (one of ds1's biggest problems - a huge resistance to being taught anything).

Do come over to SN maybe. I think the most important thing is to look at support for him to allow him to learn in classroom, once he can do that then worry about attainment (the two should tie together anyway).

I was just wondering what the 'gaps' in his maths are? You're saying he won't need them for more advanced maths, but I'm struggling to think what they could be if this is really true?

Your description of him really reminds me of my brother. He'd switch off in just the same way if he wasn't interested (and I think it's fair to say all children prefer to work when they're interested!).

thought I should clarify that teachers do say he is very bright, just that when we see their assessments he clearly has only shown half of his knowledge. He does do some work at school, as little as he will get away with. Becuase we see how bright he is we expect a lot of him, so when I say it is ok, it is usually a lot more than ok compared to the average child. For example, he is reading chapter books and comprehends them.

He also does have a great sense of humour, it is however different from other peoples. Don't know if it is his age or something else. Does someone on the spectrum have a sense of humour that is different or is it usually lacking?

I think that would be a good idea. He may find school tricky as classrooms (even really good ones) can be overwhelming for some children. My son is clever, but very uneven in his abilities. He is, I suspect, hard to teach. The other day the teacher was trying to show the kids something on the whiteboard, and my son was asking technical questions about beams of light and how it all worked. Interesting stuff, and luckily his teacher was willing and able to answer him, but it would have held up the lesson so a little of that stuff goes a long way in a class of nearly 30. It is hard - you want to encourage an inquiring mind, but they do have to fit in to some degree at school. Your son seems to be succeeding better than mine tbh.

littlereddragon

eg timestables, or hasn't memorised all addition facts. However, understands complex concepts very well and will work out the addition or multiplication required to do the work at a higher level.

coldcomfort

technical questions like that sound exactly like my son. He then remembers what he is told and goes on to teach others. Remember him giving his cousin a lesson in gravity aged 5. Beautiful explanation but way out of her understanding. She is an absolutely normal child slightly older than him.