Top 2%, very superior, average school....now what?

[neverknowinglyunderdressed]

Looking for advice...I have DTS aged 7, P3 (Scottish system) who were disruptive, fidgety daydreamers at school. I suspected they were highly intelligent so when called in to meet the Head and the class teacher to discuss 'behaviour issues' I tried to steer the discussion towards enrichment rather than discipline, successfully, I think. School then informed me that they had been placed on 'Accelerated learners program''. Kids have now settled down in class which could be to do with AL or could be coincidental.

I wanted to know for sure so I bit the bullet and coughed up the money to have one tested by an Ed Psych, turns out I was right (about one of them at least).
Felt better for about for a millisecond, now feel dazed.

Does anyone know anything about the AL program, how do I check up on it? Do I share the Ed Psychs report with the school? Do I need to look into a different school, ie. independent or will AL suffice for now?

Current school is small (80 kids) shared Head, composit classes and in the last inspection it was noted that it struggles to stretch more able pupils. New teacher (graded Excellent) has now been put in charge of AL so think they are trying to address it.

Concerned that at this school they may just coast along, not working to their optimal level, although I've no real basis for this belief. Equally, I don't necessarily buy into the fact that all private schools are better and successfully get the best out of bright kids.

dd2 was assessed at 5 by ed psych. she came out iq of 142 and in the vs range pretty much across the board.

she's only ever been in state schools tbh.

dd1 was assessed as 137 iirc (not sure - it was done through school) and they put her on their regional gifted thang, probably similar to what your school has done. it's not that big of a deal. she's bright, but not exceptional.

ds1... well... i dunno really. every teacher he's ever had has commented on how bright he is. but he does spend most of his time gazing into space, so no-one really bothers to give him any extension work - he's not disruptive you see. yet out of the three he's the one people say 'gifted' and point at. his current teacher thinks he's a bit like einstein and one day will do something fantastic for the world. i take this as shorthand for 'but i can't stimulate him, so that's my excuse for not bothering') he's never been tested. presumably because someone would then have to do something...

they all manage well in state. (well, ds is there, anyway)

your school have recognised they are bright, and are treating them accordingly. they are no longer disruptive. additionally, it has been noted that g&t pupils were not being stretched, and the school has implemented a new policy to ensure they are. what's not to like?

i'm not sure why you want to move them? as someone else said, it's just like being top of a double-entry?

that said - ds isn't really motivated by school, and periodically wonders about home ed. there's also a place called the green learning academy local-ish which i wondered about...

but if they are happy, and catered for, why would you move them?

MWITA I suppose the theory is that if a bright child is not stimulated it can turn them off to learning, lead to misbehaviour (now or in the future) and result in not achieving their potential.

If your DS1's teacher is not able to stimulate him and he is just 'physically there' do you consider him to be 'happy and well catered for'?

Hi Madwoman...we home edded our ds1 for a number of years[off and on].

I requested appointment with AL teacher and school have come back and said they want meet to include Head and class teacher too. So much for the low key approach! Still I suppose it shows they are interested.

well, he's happy. and easily able to meet any and all objectives which are deemed appropriate for his age. so, in theory he's catered for.

(aware i sound a bit cynical btw ) i go through phases where i'm a little more pro-active, honest. he's been well catered for in other schools. extremely well catered for. just this one is a bit meh really. (and for the first time he's been alongside a fairly badly behaved cohort, which has been a bit of an eye opener. it think it was the first week of term when he got an in-school suspension for getting involved in a fight - having never been anywhere near so much as a row, before) we are actually moving in the summer in any case - so he will be starting a completely new school in a totally different area, (we are visiting next week, so will be discussing how they cater for more able kids). here there are no options for school, except he.

for the op though - the child/ren clearly are being catered for. so there would be no benefit to be gained by moving them. (other than a bit of ego stroking )

dooby - i've thought about it on and off. this next move should be our last, so i'm going to see how he goes with the new place. it's a very different environment - mountain town with a huge sporty/ outdoors ethos. i'll give it six months and then evaluate, i think. in some ways i think home ed would suit him very well - he likes to be the one deciding what is interesting and if he gets fired up about something there's no stopping him. (he just won the science fair with an experiment about displacement - i had to literally drag him to bed as he just wanted to carry on reading and learning)

he's a funny chap. you open his report card and he's got a whole row of 'sats' and 'improving' on his work habits and personal growth (and you think 'oh dear' given that his sisters have a neat page of 'vg' and 'exc') but flip the page to the grades and it's gleaming 'a's all the way. but they still call me in and say 'oh, he didn't hand anything in today - he had only drawn a line in two hours during literacy. is everything ok at home?' they seem to forget the difficulty they have getting him to do any work when they give out the grades though - so impossible really to tell what's going on.

they tried to get him statemented at 3 in the nursery he was at (because he was so bright and they wanted to get some specialist advice) but the lea turned them down because he was so young (i didn't know anything about it until the year after). his first school was very good. this one (as i said) not so much. they identified dd1 as more able in the first week, and asked for my permission to test her (and then didn't do anything about it for 14 mos, until i asked what the results were).

anyway, apols op.
hope your meeting is a success. it sounds as though school are on board anyway. they should easily be able to meet the dc's needs in setting.

oh, and they also won't recognise dd2 as officially gifted/ able (as in register her for the regional stats) because, despite the fact she has an iq of 142, she has really poor fine motor skills (she has cp) and so her handwriting doesn't conform to the 'two grades ahead across the board' rule. she uses a keyboard for lengthy writing assignments. apparently this isn't good enough.

weirdos.

Move out of rural Scotland? I think your mind is already made up that this school won't do the job.

I was labeled EG as a child (IQ > 160, what percentile is that?) moved to a different supposedly superior school (dedicated program), I became a miserable bullied underachiever at the new school. Would have been so much better to leave me at the first, deprived-intake inner city school where I thrived previously.

DD seems quite bright... She is at the most average profile school you could imagine, she is thriving academically. But she does have lots of ExC opps around here.

Accepted criteria (across national boundaries) for gifted ed.

Top 5% - mildly gifted - need enrichment materials and teaching

Top 2% - highly gifted - need accelerated programs (just as lowest 2% do)

Top .1 - profoundly gifted.

Not taking gifted educations seriously is both detrimental to the individual child and society. In the US the high school drop out rate is as high for gifted kids as it is for those in Special Needs. Do we want this in the UK?

Do we want this in the UK?
We've already got it in the UK.

There is nothing, nothing in the fabric of our state primary education to identify, recognise, encourage and cater for these children. We leave it to teachers (whom we then actively encourage to focus their attention everywhere else except on our most intelligent kids).

G&T noises made by successive governments didn't translate into any significant change in provision for gifted children. That miniscule allocation of the SEN budget that went towards G&T was largely used up in the talk shops. In a previous thread on here I calculated that the amount spent per gifted child was something like a couple of pounds a year (if that).

In their chasing of SATS scores, league table positions etc., schools have a huge incentive to focus on children at the bottom and middle of the class at the expense of the top 10-20% (of ability). In fact they have a disincentive to continue educating the more intelligent children who are already at level 3A anytime in year 2 (KS1) and 5A anytime in year 6 (KS2) - the ridiculously low "ceilings" which are attainable, IMO, by at least 50% of children. By imposing these ceilings we are telling schools that they will not get credit for their brightest pupils being properly catered for and that their best strategic option is to slow these kids down to derive maximum PR and financial benefit for the school.

Not taking gifted educations seriously is both detrimental to the individual child and society.
I agree, but that's not a view shared by those in charge of our education.

Ok... percentages are only helpful if you know what your comparing your child with! So, if the formal IQ assessment (which must be administered by a specialist psych who has a strong knowledge and understanding of gifted kids) comes back you with a few IQ scores of verbal and non verbal in various domains - that information justs tells you know your child did compared to other children of the same age who were assessed on the same assessment tool! It does not compare them to whole population. There are some loose stats for that though. You should also get a % score of how the child did compare to peers doing the same test. i.e. better than 98%. Formal IQ tests are measure of potential only and depending on how your child felt about the test and the rapport they had with the psych will affect the results. ALL IQ TESTS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL!
You can't compare IQ scores or percentages from one test against another. They 'measure' different thing and are loaded differently. The SB-5 is different from the WISC-4 and 98% on one is not the same as 98% on the other.

Now, I only know this information because the whole assessment thing confused the hell out of me, so 20+ books later, a few IQ tests and lots of questions to a few different childhood psych who adminster the test has helped me sort it all out. But, I am still learning and learning...

Some of the best advice i got, was 'If the child is happy to go to school and relatively happy with what happens at school - most of the battle is already won!' I thought this statement from the psych odd at first, UNTIL i realised most of the EG to PG kids were having major emotional issues with schooling. I felt and still feel extremely lucky that my EG child actually enjoys school (well at the moment anyway).

I highly doubt many staff at schools have the appropriate formal trainging in gifted ed to effectively help HG children. Some through life long experience and their own attitude to the idea that every child is indeed different and learn at different rates and in different way - have automaticlly differentiated the cirriculum to cater for the various styles of all children.

Its like the old school style, in some countries, small clases, where students started school when they were mentally ready and chronological age had nothing to do with it. One teacher, 10-15 kids, all ages, all working on different things, all working at their own level, all trying to achieve their own personal best, all playing together! Inclusive but a celebration of children as individuals. Why children are in school 'factories' is quite alarming.

Basically, the professionals withing the gifted industry will tell parents of EG and PG kids that school just won't cut it. Reality is they gobble up learning so fast that they can chew through the whole primary school cirriculum in 18 months - 2 years - IF it was taught to them at a self learning pace, no rote, no repitition, no waiting for 20 other student to catch up. They would happily sail through it.

Keep the love of learning alive, encourage your child to ask many questions, answer questions with questions. Encourage them to think out the answer themselves. And don't listen to teacher's who claim to have worked with many gifted children just like your child etc. The truth is, if you have a EG+ child ( one who score about 145+ on the SB-5 assesment and on that assessment has potential greater than 99.9% of peers tested on SAME tool)then reality is the teacher will probaly NEVER come across of these children in their career. These kids are found in 1 in 1000 to 1 in 10,000 children. so even a teacher teaching 30 kids each year for 30 years - will not normally come across one. SO if you hear ' i have taught many children like your child' then you know that is BS and within that comment tells you all you need to know. That teacher does not know enought about gifted kids and their needs to cater correctly for them. Having said that and before any teachers out there bite my head off, its not a difficult topic to learn about and i suspect all passionate teacher are capable of understanding gifted kids needs, its just ther schooling system does not give enought teachers the chance to attent personal development course on gifted ed and nor do the school support teachers to help them in differentiating the cirriculum for these kids. Remember one teacher - many children - usually zero support from the school. Its a difficult job! and Yep this EG- PG kids can be, lets put it nicely 'INTENSE'! I can say that - because i have one and yes, he does my head in daily! Imagine the teacher dealing with it.

Really its a fault of the mass producing education system, not passionate teachers.

OK, bet you have all had enough of me.

In fact they have a disincentive to continue educating the more intelligent children who are already at level 3A anytime in year 2 (KS1) and 5A anytime in year 6 (KS2) - the ridiculously low "ceilings" which are attainable, IMO, by at least 50% of children.

There are no ceilings in teacher assessment. And what are the disincentives? There are materials to assess children at level 4 in Y2 and level 6 in Y6 - they have only become available recently, but it has always been possible to assess children as such.

Feenie, got a league table that shows L4 scores in in KS1 or L6 scores in KS2? Or any reason why a school should assess a child at L4? I didn't say they can't, just that they are better off not doing it. If they assess him/her at L3A they've get the same recognition and there's a bonus - they don't need to work as hard with that kid for the next four years to show "progress".

There are materials to assess children at level 4 in Y2 and level 6 in Y6
That is hilarious. :) This is how that translates: "Teachers, you are free to assess children at L4 at KS1 if you really, really want (make sure you don't go assesssing them at L5, FFS!). Please note though that we don't care if you do or don't and if you do then please consider
"1. you're just putting pressure on your colleagues in later years to show progress with that child and

1. you can benefit the school by spending that time elsewhere e.g. improving the scores of the children who are going to drag our SATS results down."

There are materials to assess children at level 4 in Y2
Why just L4? So even the unofficial scores (which schools don't get credit for) have a limit?!

I highly doubt many staff at schools have the appropriate formal trainging in gifted ed to effectively help HG children.
Forget HG, forget any G. Most can't even provide adequately for half-intelligent children! Maybe the teachers here can tell me of even a half-day session they've attended in the last 10 years on catering for gifted children.

Reality is they gobble up learning so fast that they can chew through the whole primary school cirriculum in 18 months - 2 years - IF it was taught to them at a self learning pace, no rote, no repitition, no waiting for 20 other student to catch up. They would happily sail through it.
I agree and have experienced it myself with my DS who was tested by the school (on us demanding it!) at L5A in Y2. These chidlren could complete the entire seven years of primary school in the first couple of years like a stroll in the park ... and thoroughly enjoy it.

The one area where we may disagree is what percentage of children are capable of this. I don't believe this ability is limited to the top 1-2%. In ideal conditions - forget school, forget 30 kids to the class, forget budget constraints - in ideal conditions at least 10-20% of children could do this. The capability is there. There's nothing like school to suppress it.

Feenie, got a league table that shows L4 scores in in KS1 or L6 scores in KS2?

I went to get it, and will admit to being surprised that the scores are at 0% - they must be less than 1% then. They aren't really 0% - we typically submit a couple of level 6 TAs each year out of 30 - but it does surprise me that it doesn't reach even 1% nationally.

There are materials to assess children at level 4 in Y2 and level 6 in Y6
Not sharing your hilarity on this, sorry. It translates to me as extra support for exceptional children who work at level 4 in Y2 and level 6 in Y6 - and this is exceptional, but not infrequent. The message to me is that a child working beyond this, such as your ds, needs extra support beyond that which a school could normally provide - if I ever came across a child as gifted as your ds, I think we should be getting the local high schools and even the university involved, just as we would any other need that came outside our experience.

I also suspect we may disagree on the percentage of children capable of achieving level 5 in 2 years - my school and I would be delighted to encounter any child as high achieving as your ds, and would make sure that there were no barriers to making the most progress they possibly could, but I do believe a child like him is truly, truly exceptional. The most gifted child I've ever taught in 20 years achieved level 6s across the board, but was nowhere near ready for level 7. He won a scholarship to an excellent local secondary school and went to Oxford to study English - but he couldn't have achieved a 5a in Y2, and I can promise you he was never ever held back at any stage because of other children. I don't recognise that description of teaching in any of my colleagues or schools that I know.

Can't have come in that recently because I and a few other children (at my bog standard state primary, destined for bog-standard comprehensive where we all did perfectly well) took an extra paper that wentp to level 6 when we did our SATs in the mid 90s.

You're right - level 6 papers were available up until 2002. But level 6 teacher assessment has always been possible.

They don't need a chess club to play chess - there are two of them already! All you need is for someone to teach them the basics i.e. rules and notation, then you can leave them to it.

To be clear - you sat level 6 test materials, which discontinued in 2002, Trillian, and materials to assist teacher assessment at level 6 have recently become available.

So they discontinued it without a replacement? That's odd.

I'm not sure how it actually benefits the child to be assessed at a higher level anyway - does anything actually happen? Especially since you take those tests when you are about to move schools.

That's true, Trillian, but test results and teacher assessment have always had 50/50 weighting, and you could always teacher assess at level 6.

The assessment, test or teacher assessment, informs next steps. Children who are teacher/test assessed as level 5a are taught the level 6 curriculum, regardless of when that happens. So when you ask 'does anything happen' - it's the same as any other assessment, in that children continue to be taught at their level.

my school and I would be delighted to encounter any child as high achieving as your ds, and would make sure that there were no barriers to making the most progress they possibly could, but I do believe a child like him is truly, truly exceptional.
I genuinely believe that DS isn't exceptional (and I'm not saying this simply to be coy). My DS simply had the opportunities when he was younger to explore his interest and he had a dad who had the time, patience and expertise to encourage him. I know at least half a dozen kids who have a maths ability higher than his (though they didn't have his opportunities). I find it absolutely, stunningly, incredibly amazing that teachers who come across a lot more kids than I do don't see that.

But then an OFSTED outstanding school didn't see it my DS till the end of year two when DW and I met with the head and asked them politely to get their fingers out. It's then that they tested him with a KS2 paper and realised what he could do. Un-freaking-believable! How can you cater for an L5A pupil with L6 work when you've only ever tested him to a 3A?

My DS isn't the only one I've worked with. I've tutored other kids as far back as when I was a teenager and I know what even an average child can achieve. I'm confident that if I'm given any 4 yr old in the top 20% of ability and I could do whatever work with them I wanted for 30 minutes 2-3 times a week that child would absolutely adore maths and be an L5 by the end of Y2. No, there'd be no homework, no rote learning - I'm not a teacher. It would simply be fun and games all the way. Further, they'd have abilities not convered in the curriculum like being able to manipulate large numbers in their head, perform complex calculations mentally that most teachers would need a calculator for etc.

my school and I would be delighted to encounter any child as high achieving as your ds, and would make sure that there were no barriers to making the most progress they possibly could,
Your school has already had hundreds of children with his "ability" and it's a failure of the system that they aren't as "high achieving" as my DS.

I'm not sure how it actually benefits the child to be assessed at a higher level anyway - does anything actually happen?
A good teacher wouldn't need to put a child through SATS to know where they are. You've got to appreciate the reason why the state requires children to be assessed. It's not so much to benefit children as it is to monitor whether teachers are doing any work. :(

Brumby, I get what you are saying about different IQ scores, but these tests have been normed to cover, as closely as possible, the full spectrum of abilities (I do say this in a loose sense, as certainly all testing is imperfect and I would never claim that testing proves actual ability, but is just one source of potential ability assessment). However, although WISC scores differ from other standard IQ tests, adjustments are made accordingly. For instance it is recognized that a WISC score of 130, is equal to other IQ test scores of 132. This is where I like percentiles. Both of these scores are recognized as 98% percentile of the general population in the US. Whilst a variety of tests are used, we are lucky enough to have experts that dissect the tests and make these comparisons. The percentages I mentioned were those internationally recognized after these considerations. I'm sorry that I did not make that clear in my initial post.

If a child gets to Level5 at the end of y2 age.... am I right to think they'd be at Level 7 at end of y5, and able to get a good mark on GCSEs by end of y8.

Why is this a good thing? Won't they be bored off their pants for next 3 years unless they go to college? How many children would be up for attending college 3 years early, and mixing with the other 80% much older but otherwise not so academically able? Is there an argument for letting the bright children bumble along with their natural peer group?

Also, what happens if they're bright (that top 20%) in say science and maths, but not English? Should they stay down doing remedial English and no more maths until the conventional point to go to College, or do they go to College & feel constantly inadequate at English?

I can understand people who are home-edding doing the GCSEs early ("get them out of the way so we can concentrate on more interesting things"), but when the govt. has to plan for a mass education programme (state schools), I don't see how it's practical or maybe even supportive to encourage such asynchronous progression.

How do UK private schools handle it?

In terms of true genius in an academic field, it seems to me it is advantageous to have been written off as a trouble making idiot at school... giving you time to pursue your own interests in your own way.

I was interested by thisandthat's comment that the high school drop out rate in the US was as high for gifted kids as it is for those with Special Needs. I thought the US was THE centre of the universe for going out of its way to identify gifted children and cater for them? Is this what's putting them off?

I suppose that is why I'm suspicious of the school, I agree with DAL that I see investment and support for the bottom 10% but none of that for the top 10% who are just expected to get on with it. With league table and school assessments as they are, I cant see how a school is incentivised to stretch or accelerate the top 10% at all. Perhaps that is why UK education is 20th on a world scale this year, below among others, Poland.

I am called in time and again to discuss my child's inattention, figety-ness and disruptiveness. Its me (not the teacher) who suggests he/they might be gifted (although I know enough never to use the G word). And probably will be me who will have to push and cajole the school to deliver.

Chess against each other - who would have thought it? They are not too good on competitive games together. Always ends in tears. Playing against computer better!

Forgot to add, have just found out that class teacher has taken to saying 'Zip it Zebedee' to my child. Am thinking this is not appropriate?