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.

I have my doubts about that statistic, would like to see a good source for it.

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?

But that's what happens in a test driven culture. Most schools now rely on careful, considered and continuous teacher assessment, so this scenario wouldn't happen - however, there are still a few schools obsessed with testing, unfortunately.

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.
I don't agree with you - I am considered to be an outstanding teacher, I work incredibly hard and genuinely strive to ensure every child in my care flourishes and thrives and achieves the best that they possibly can - I have very high expectations. 'Any 4 yr old in the top 20% of ability' adoring Maths? No problem. But all of them to level 5? Not possible. And if you still insist that it is, then why not be a teacher? Genuine question. Clearly, you are a very gifted one, and I would say you are actually doing children a disservice by not entering the profession. Good teachers already teach in the way you describe, btw - but I assume you are making the fun and games point to show that it isn't simply by rote learning you would use to achieve these aims.

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.

Not true. I'm not a 'system', you see, and individual, caring teachers don't generally put ceilings on children's learning - ever.

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.
And there, unfortunately, I have to agree with you.

hum... looking into this.
16% of US pupils drop out of high school (general teenage population).
Somewhere between 4 & 25% of Gifted students drop out of high school.
The range is so big because of the lack of consensus on what is "Gifted".
But 14-18% are most typical estimates for the Gifted Drop out Rate.
The Renzulli & Park paper reckons that family & personal reasons are usually the main reason for gifted pupils, just as it is for the overall drop out rates.
Special Education student drop out rates cited as 28%... almost double the overall population average, and definitely higher than most of the drop out rates for Gifted pupils.

So... I think my doubts were right :).
Even if Gifted rates are too high, they are not dropping out due to lack of academic stimulation, but for the typical sorts of reasons many others drop out, too.

My (very bright) niece is one of the Gifted Dropout Statistics, :(. Very unstable background. Not convinced that education could do anything for her.

FWIW nkud here's a copy of an essay I wrote about accelerated learning (minus the lovely diagrams ):

Accelerated Learning
Accelerated learning speeds up and enhances learning by actively involving the whole person, using physical activity, creativity, music, images, colour, and other methods. . It is based on Gardner ?s theory of multiple intelligences (1983). Goleman (1995) further linked multiple intelligence theory to emotional intelligence which focuses on the individual's capacity to deal effectively with others and evaluates traits and abilities such as self-awareness and empathy. Emotional intelligence is important within accelerated learning.
Accelerated learning requires the following conditions:
Positive Learning Environment
The learning environment should be positive (physically, emotionally and socially) and stimulating. The learner must feel safe and secure within the environment (i.e. physiological needs must be met) and must enjoy what he is doing. A child?s self-esteem must be built so he wants to learn. Clear and ambitious targets needs to be set.
Total Learner Involvement
The learner must be actively involved and needs to take responsibility for his own learning. Learners should understand how they learn (metacognition), and should develop the New 3Rs - Resourcefulness, Resilience and Responsibility.

Collaboration Among Learners
Learners need to collaborate together. Learning should be a social experience, not an isolated experience. Collaboration will develop emotional intelligence as children learn to listen to each other and empathise with each others? feelings.

Variety That Appeals To All Learning Styles
People learn best when they have a rich variety of learning options that allows them to use all their senses and exercise their preferred learning style.

Contextual Learning
Learning in context provides a framework for facts and skills to be absorbed. The best learning comes from doing the work itself in a repeated process of "real-life" activities, collaborative feedback, reflection and evaluation.

Accelerated Learning enables the student to learn according to his own learning preferences no matter how he is being taught. Here are the eight Intelligences:

Linguistic Intelligence
The ability to read, write and communicate with words.
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
The ability to reason and calculate, to think things through in a logical, systematic manner.
Visual-Spatial Intelligence
The ability to think in pictures and to visualise the outcome.
Musical Intelligence
The ability to keep a rhythm, to compose music, to sing well, to play instruments and to understand and appreciate music..
Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
The ability to use your body skilfully to solve problems, and to present ideas and emotions.
Interpersonal (Social) Intelligence
The ability to to co-operate and collaborate with others, to relate to other people, and to display empathy and understanding.
Intrapersonal Intelligence
The ability to be self-analytical and to reflect and evaluate one?s own behaviour.

Naturalist Intelligence
The ability to recognize flora and fauna, and to make other observations about the natural world.

Traditionally, academic subjects have been taught in ways that largely involve two intelligences?linguistic and logical-mathematical.

Accelerated learning encourages the use of multiple and emotional intelligences to enrich the whole society.

Feenie, my point about DS's ability being discovered in Y2 only when they put him to a KS2 wasn't making a point about tests, it was showing annoyance that the only way I could prove to the school what DS could do was by insisting they put him to a KS2 test (because even the most pathetic teacher / school can understand a KS2 test).

And if you still insist that it is, then why not be a teacher? Genuine question.
Why not be a teacher!? You've got to be kidding me! I'd love to teach, but becoming a teacher is the least efficient way of doing it. No offence and all that, but in our state schools teachers are 50% adminstrators and paperwork fillers, 20% social workers, 10% baby sitters. You have to work to fixed curriculums (because the system doesn't trust schools to "just impart the right skills"), you have to work with what you're given (even those kids who don't want to learn and whose parents may not want them to learn either!), you have to teach certain things at certain times in fixed time slots (irresepective of your pupils' subject needs), stop when the bell goes (when you've just captured their interest and they are raring to keep going).... I could fill several pages. Teaching? If you enjoy doing something there's no point in taking the fun out of it first.

Also, I'm a man which makes me, by default and till proven otherwise, a paedophile. I've got better things to do with my life, thank you.

There is one other reason why I wouldn't want to be a "professional" teacher. John Taylor Gotto in "Dumbing Us Down ..." puts it nicely:
"Professional teaching tends to another serious error: It makes things that are inherently easy to learn, like reading, writing, and arithmetic, seem difficult by insisting they be taught through pedagogical procedures."

When I was a teenager I coached children. Mostly for free (though I did get some nice home baked cakes, fresh vegetables, free range eggs etc., out of it). I'll do it again when I retire, but I'll go to Kenya or Nepal or somewhere first.

I am considered to be an outstanding teacher, I work incredibly hard and genuinely strive to ensure every child in my care flourishes and thrives and achieves the best that they possibly can - I have very high expectations. 'Any 4 yr old in the top 20% of ability' adoring Maths? No problem. But all of them to level 5? Not possible.
Even as an outstanding teacher you can't do that within the state school environment. But are those children capable of meeting that expectation? I have not the slightest doubt. As a young adult I owned a school in the third world where there was no state imposed curriculum, no targets, no rules, no CRB, no Health and Safety, no teacher unions. There was no requirement that I employed only those teachers who had certain qualifications. Heck, I could advertise a "females only" position or "non-graduates only" or "do not apply if you're pregnant"! I could employ staff based 100% on what I considered best for the kids. The kids. The #1 and only priority. Not the LA, not the unions, not the DfE. I know that's a strange concept ;) We were a selective school and took the top 20-30% of children. I know what can be done with them.

Great post, eggsit, thanks.

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?

Good point.

You've explained well the other excuse schools fall back on for not catering properly for gifted children. What they're saying is this: "If we teach them to their full ability now they won't have anything to learn next year so we'll slow the delivery down to fit it with our targets and the pre-determined maximum rate of progress that we've set out. Trust us, that's a good thing."

I don't see how it's practical or maybe even supportive to encourage such asynchronous progression.

lljkk, it's not easy in a class of 30. We decided on removing our DCs from the state system because no state school is ever going to be able to provide what DS needs - even remotely - or what my other two children need (both, like him, in the top 20% of ability and top 1% of achievement). My grouse was not the budgetary and practical limitations in state schools which I appreciate and sympathise with, but the mindset and the attitudes and the anti-intelligence agenda that forms a perfidious backbone to a morally corrupt, politically motivated, inefficient system that is damaging our nation's children.

No offence and all that, but in our state schools teachers are 50% adminstrators and paperwork fillers, 20% social workers, 10% baby sitters. You have to work to fixed curriculums (because the system doesn't trust schools to "just impart the right skills")
Not really. And it kind of blows your argument, because you said you could get any brightish 4 year old (paraphrasing) to level 5 by Y2 - so you would have to teach level 5 content. Go back to the NC (which is the only statutory document) and it isn't so prescriptive - the National Strategy was, but was never statutory.

you have to work with what you're given (even those kids who don't want to learn and whose parents may not want them to learn either!)
Indeed. It's a challenge!

you have to teach certain things at certain times in fixed time slots (irresepective of your pupils' subject needs)
Increasingly less so in today's creative curriculum climate - lots of schools go wherever children's interests take them.

stop when the bell goes (when you've just captured their interest and they are raring to keep going) So what - you can keep going afterwards.

Teaching? If you enjoy doing something there's no point in taking the fun out of it first.
I still find it fun!

Also, I'm a man which makes me, by default and till proven otherwise, a paedophile. Oh come on, that's beyond ridiculous.

I've got better things to do with my life, thank you. Sure - like posting on education threads about how much better you could do the job, but without substantiating how this is possible?

FWIW, my dd's teacher (in a state school) is clearly very able to stretch and push my dd to achieve her full potential - I'm amazed at the progress she had made in one year, and see no attempts to hold her back, regardless of the gap between dd and her peers. There is no question of her being bored...

I think you should give the school a chance. I have two very bright childen (as a former gifted child myself, wonder when it wore off?!) and they are at state school as I have no money for private. In the main, they are well catered for, not completely, but my dd1 has had an excellent teacher this year who really is good at differentiation (e.g. giving killer spellings to the bright ones). They are going far too slowly with my youngest, but I have just done reading/maths extension stuff at home, like signing them up to fun websites, nothing heavy.

The things I do think they may get at a good private school is much better after-school clubs to extend them a bit all round (currently I pay for this type of stuff, but no chess clubs near us either) and also more children like them, being the clear top of the class by a mile is fine but it has its dangers as they get older, depending if they are accepted by their classmates or picked on for being clever. I certainly felt isolated as a child, even though I wasn't bullied, there just wasn't anyone like me at my school.

I think the point is not to worry before anything bad has happened. I don't believe it to be better to ignore how bright/gifted your children are, and think it's very dismissive of people to try and make out they are just averagely bright and run of the mill when they are not! However, being gifted is not necessarily problematic, it's perfectly possible to be quite well-rounded, sociable and gifted, so I wouldn't panic at this point.

And it kind of blows your argument, because you said you could get any brightish 4 year old (paraphrasing) to level 5 by Y2 - so you would have to teach level 5 content.
Contrary to what seems to be common opinion among state school teachers, NC maths isn't different to other maths, it's simply a sub-set.

I didn't even know the NC when I taught DS. Who cares? We were just having fun and learned whatever came along. The only "warning" I had to give him when he took the KS2 paper at the age of seven (6+ actually, he's summer born) was to ensure he showed the working so any simpleton could understand it ...or he'd lose marks. I explicitly told him not to use any vedic maths techniques, Trachtenberg shortcuts or even what's to him basic mental calculation (because I know teachers don't have a clue about all that - they're stuck in the same boring, inefficient, limited and slow methods of mathematical operations that have hardly changed since schools first came into existence a couple of centuries ago. It's all they know, it's all they're allowed to teach. If they can't solve 475 squared in their heads they're not going to believe his answer was legitimately arrived at).

So, no, I wouldn't need to teach those brightish children anything specifically from your NC. The only place they'd lose marks in a KS2 paper is where they weren't able to prove their competence by "dumbing down their work".

BTW, Feenie, the reason why you weren't able to find any SATS scores outside of the ceiling is because there is a ceiling. Teachers and schools get zero credit for any pupil achieving past that ceiling of L3, a ridiculously low level any average child should be able to achieve at that age.

I have no idea where you've got the notion that children lose marks by not using the correct method - that's absolute rubbish. If the answer is correct, the full marks are awarded.

You have been misinformed, DaL.

Wow, Level 3 for any "average" child to achieve by age 7? Do you realise how bad that makes most parents feel, DAL? Either they are massively letting their children down or their children turn out to be "ridiculously" subnormal, if one follows your logic.

Think I shall be adding what DAL has said to my list of "Astonishing things I have read on MN".

If the answer is correct, the full marks are awarded.
You misunderstand/misquote me, Feenie. My point was about the working. - you lose points for not showing working. If DS made a mistake between brain and pen and wrote that 475 squared down as 226525 instead of 225625 he would lose all marks - you wouldn't understand his method even if he did write it down - whereas if he had done it "your" way and made the same mistake he'd still get 50% of the marks for his working. I'm not criticising KS marking schemes. In fact, they are very fair, balanced and well suited to the KS tests administered to state educated children.

ragged, sorry if that has upset you, but it isn't a criticism of parents, it's about the system. If a good teacher like Feenie had your child all day and could use any opportunity to bring numbers in and play around with them - no need to earn a living, keep home, look after other DCs - just Feenie and your DD, I bet your DD would be at least a 3A by seven if she's of average or above average ability. DD not achieving that same degree of competence in school is because of the environment, the teacher having to cater for 29 other kids and various restrictions imposed by the system (not to mention the ingrained pursuit of and culture of mediocrity). It's not because she can't.

I'm sure I could get an "average" child achieving something extremely impressive if I had them trapped with me all day for a year without any distractions and focused on one issue....

(all day, every day, that is...).

My point was about the working. - you lose points for not showing working. If DS made a mistake between brain and pen and wrote that 475 squared down as 226525 instead of 225625 he would lose all marks - you wouldn't understand his method even if he did write it down - whereas if he had done it "your" way and made the same mistake he'd still get 50% of the marks for his working.

That's a quibble about one mark, for working. And you are misinformed - any way of working would be admissable. There isn't a 'my' way - children should be encouraged to use the way which suits them. At level 5, I honestly think that any successful method would be easily understood.

In any case, a question like that would be on the calculator paper, and so probably wouldn't need to be worked out.

Coming on here offers me some relief and consolation that I am not the only "unlucky" parent, whose "bright" child has not been catered for at all in a school environment. I have been on here lots of times and been in the school lots but I am convinced now that it is not a battle I can win.

I sometimes came to doubt my own motives, ie why do I want my DD to be stretched or simply taught to her own ability, do I have issues? Should I just let her be? The worse part for me and the reason in the end I keep worrying is seeing my child DISENGAGED from learning. That's got to be the worse possible outcome for a child, long term. I don't want my child to be a genius, I want my child to come home enthusiastic and excited about learning - any learning.

OP I am with you though, is paying for private the answer or will it be more of the same, even in a selective school? Good question....

I'm sure I could get an "average" child achieving something extremely impressive if I had them trapped with me all day for a year without any distractions and focused on one issue....
The person would need to be pretty dumb for it to take them all day for a year. It won't take you that long. What you can achieve with a child one-to-one in a couple of minutes can often be more than what the teacher can achieve in a whole hour of pitching to 30 kids who have a wide range of ability and interest.

Children have an enormous excitement for learning. It's schools that knock it out of them and, in general, schools do it more successfully and more quickly with intelligent, creative and with gifted children. That's how we've designed our school system. We have to dumb them down to fit them in. Which reminds me, there is a book by an award winning teacher called "Dumbing Our Children Down... The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling". I highly recommend it to every parent. It makes this point in a far more intelligent and articulate way and with numerous examples.

At level 5, I honestly think that any successful method would be easily understood.
You overestimate teachers or may not be aware of operations and methods used in extreme mental maths or the Trachtenberg system, for example (do a bit of research on it and you'll see what I mean). The average teacher wouldn't understand these methods because she was taught and she teaches a very blinkered way of approaching mathematical operations or she uses the current fad method that she's obliged to use. Why? Because it's the easiest way to make a large group numerate. The only route she knows to the other side of the mountain is through the tunnel and she travels back and forth every year painstakingly encouraging children across. There's a better way - you need to teach the kids to fly and simply let them loose. This is very difficult to impossible to do with 30 kids bundled together based on age (not ability) some of whom may have learning difficulties while others are EG or PG. You can't teach them all to fly when some don't have feathers yet. But they can all hop along to the end of the tunnel.

DadatLarge - do you believe that a selective private school, say at primary level would have the same issues? Where I live selective primary schools have classes of up to 25 children so I guess following your argument their teaching can't be that different? Or is it different because of the cohort being selected to be of a higher level?

We considered private schools as an alternative and we visited about 15 of them within a driving distance of our house. Some looked better than others and I'm sure my kids would have been happy and well cared for in all of them, but in the end we decided to home educate. What decided us was when we realised that HE educated children aren't negatively impacted on the social side - they get to meet a lot of other HE kids both older and younger and they get a lot more opportunities to do so. This dispelled the main reservation we had against HE.

If we were going private we would have picked selective with small class sizes and with teachers who had the right attitudes and skills to keep the more intelligent children enthusiastic about learning (whether or not they were qualified teachers - in fact, being a qualified teacher is a bit of a drawback in my opinion). In your 25 to the class school, how many teachers are there to the class? 1:25 isn't fantastic for a paid service, is it?

Ds (7) has been assessed as profoundly gifted - in the top 0.01 and I have asked myself constantly what the best option for him would be. He is a bit geeky and does not really get his peers which is apparently common in the profoundly gifted. I have met many highly intelligent people in my life whose lack of social skills has had a severe impact on their ability to function in the real world. As a result, I have decided to leave ds for the moment in his state primary - he is not intellectually stretched in any way there, but he is being forced to look at how to integrate with others and to learn valuable social skills. I am convinced that in the long term these will benefit him more. In addition, at home he has learned how to programme in Java, is building himself a robot and reads voraciously. He reports all this back to school and they ignore him, but hey-ho, that is a life lesson too.