Anbody else Homeschooling a G&T child?

[JazminKennedy]

Hiya,

my daughter is 6 and i have been homeschooling her since she was born! She started reading and writing when she was 2 years old and that's when i decided for deffo that i would continue to homeschool her. She plays the piano and currently her fave thing is Algebra!!! :-o

Are there any other homeschooling mothers out there schooling a Gifted and Talented child? Schools have a lot of funding these days but what support is out there for home educators? (If any?)

Schools don't get extra funding for G&T kids.
G&T is only slightly more than a box-ticking exercise in most English state schools.

I am homschooling a bright child. I dislike the term 'G&T' to be honest, as my experience of raising my older DC has taught me that it is less about inherent talent and more about how much time the parents have invested in the child.

My DS is also 6 and we are using the K12 system. It is fantastic and you can go at your own pace. For instance, we did a whole year's Maths course in just 2 months. We won't maintain that pace forever, but I plan to bring him up to +2 years ahead for his age. We started at the beginning though, as he was previously in a different system.

jazmin there is currently no responsibilty for the state to provide any resources for education other than a school place.

If you choose to home educate then you are , sadly, not entitled to any resourses.

That said, the home educating community can be very effective at sharing resources.

bornagain what's the K12 system?
I too HE a bright child, although I'm a relative newbie, I have only been doing it this year.
There is no financial support jazmin, just He groups, if you can find one that suits.

it is less about inherent talent and more about how much time the parents have invested in the child

From here:

"Binet ... stressed that intellectual development progressed at variable rates and could be influenced by the environment; therefore, intelligence was not based solely on genetics..."

Thank you all for your comments. Sorry i wasn't very clear with the funding issue. I am a qualified teacher and have taught very bright kids in the past, the schools that i worked in gave them extra provisions, for example free Music tuitions, grants for dance and so forth. I live in Manchester and there is a Music policy in place, you get discounted Music tuition at a very very cheap rate, i think it works out to be £5 per sesssion (I enquired for a Piano teacher, the average cost was £25 per half hour!) The prob is that the child has to be 8!!

I also run my own Home Ed group and support the local mums :) Both my kids go Gymnastics, Drama (solely for building confidence) Swimming and Martial Arts. Obviously i chose to Homeschool and knew the financial implications but my daughter wants to do everything and everything adds up! :(

BornAgainBitch My daughter is doing Secondary age maths, we have been advised for her to sit her GCSE maths in a couple of years. I personally feel it is too early and will see what she wants to do in the future. x

Hi,
I am working on a radio piece about gifted and talented funding. Does anyone have real experience of the funding that was available in schools? Do you really feel the difference now that the government funding has ended? has your child been affected?

I'm really ,i would love to be able to home school my dd,she is currently being failed by her school which is an "outstanding" state school

mrsshears, if you have the time to HE you'll do a million times better than any OFSTED outstanding school.

Are there any other homeschooling mothers out there schooling a Gifted and Talented child?
If you're homeschooling you can make pretty much any child seem like a gifted one. Piece. Of. Cake.

We removed all our children from an outstanding school to home educate them.

dadatlarge i have read many of your posts with interest and what you describe in them regarding state schools is what i believe is happening to my dd.
dd started reception last september and recieved differentation for a short period of time(about a term)which tailed off,dd has since been held back,i believe on purpose by the teacher to fall in line with the top group(i know how far fetched that sounds but i honestly believe this to be true and that this is being done to make life easier for the teacher)i really believe that dd hasnt learned anything academic in her reception year,to be fair she has come on leaps and bounds socially as this is an area she had prevously struggled.
I'm hoping that y1 will be different but if this isnt the case then something will have to give.

Yes, I'm homeschooling 2. DD1 was on the G&T register at school and I took her out at 12; personally I think she's just pretty bright. She's 15 and has 7 GCSEs and is starting maths A level. Despite this, she doesn't really like academic work much so we don't spend too much time on it - she's into dance and skating. That's what she wants to use her brain for. As long as she is happy, I'm happy. I'm not going to push her into an academic career or to university just to satisfy my sense of pride.

DD2 is 11. I think she's more what you'd call true G&T. We took her out of school at 8 because she was so far ahead academically the only way they could cope with her was to put her in with the 11 years olds; she was utterly miserable. She adores learning and soaks up every bit of information she can grasp. She finds everything sh does easy, from science to maths to music to ballet. She changes her mind about what she wants to do in life on a daily basis as she has so many things she loves. She's just taken Physics IGCSE and the LA asked on her last visit why she hadn't yet taken GCSE maths as she's working easily at that level.

It's a difficult one for me because I'm not sure what benefit there is in doing them so early. We're following GCSE courses for most things and she tends to extend herself into A level territory. But if we take them all now, what then? A levels at 13? I want her to have a childhood and there's going to be nowhere left to go. I conceded to the Physics IGCSE and she loved every minute - except that all the 16 year olds stared at her when she took it!

So instead I'm trying to broaden her out; she's following an astronomy course, learns lots of musical instruments, does lots of dancing and skating, draws and paints a lot, studies obscure subjects she has an interest in.

The nice thing is that most home ed groups are not based around academic ability. Emotionally she's actually quite young for her age and lots of her friends are around 9. They have no idea where she's at academically, much less care. This makes her life so much more normal than when she was at school.

I don't actually think G&T is all environment by the way, though I know that's a different issue. If anything, DD2 has been more neglected educationally than DD1 and I was more laid back with her from birth. Yet by a year old she was talking in full sentences. It was embarrassing taking her out because she looked tiny and young into the bargain and so everyone constantly stopped me to ask how old she was and why she was talking - as if I'd worked some kind of magic trick on her! I kind of knew from the start she was something a bit different.

Oh, and no funding whatsoever. All the music, dance and skating lessons have left us really struggling for money and we have to pay for textbooks and GCSE exam fees into the bargain.

I'm home schooling DS1 aged 10. Another one here that spoke in sentences at a year old. At 3 he was assessed and we were told his language skills were approx 2 years ahead. The first yr in state school was hell for him and his teacher felt that his peers didn't relate well to him. Mostly they were puzzled by him! He asked to be home schooled.

He was working on multiplication and adding in columns in maths at 2.5 yrs. He found maths boring at school and whilst they acknowledged that he was working in advance of his peers no provission was made. In some ways this has helped because at home I was also able to keep him occupied on other things. So at 9 when we finally conceded school wasn't working and gave in to his request for home-ed only then did we start to look at KS3 maths and now he is doing the IGCSE course.

So far I haven't found any support and no home-ed groups specifically for bright kids. We do attend a steiner home schoool and I have been amazed by the huge variation in ages and ability. Most of the kids are working way in advance of their age peers in school. The home-ed advisor here in sussex stated that many of the kids he sees would be labelled G&T in school.

Oh wow, lots of fellow home edders :-D

Hello :) my names Michaela and I am a third year student and Canterbury Christ Church university. Sorry if this is not the right place to post but I am finding it very difficult to reach groups of home school parents. I am currently trying to research whether home school parents would/do use environmental education centres for learning outside the classroom. I am also trying to find out what is the most effective way is to reach home school parents? For example online forums, social media, flyers, leaflets, stalls at home school fairs? I would really appreciate it if anybody has any information on the subject please reply on here or if you would like to email me [email protected].

thank you

I think most HErs do it on a budget completely flexibly, at their own time. I don't think you'll find hardly any who would go to a charging education centre open & closed at specific times.

My son is gifted in math. He likes playing with numbers since he was very young. Last year, his teacher recommended Beestar to us. Its GT math is an excellent online program designed specifically for gifited kids at every grade level. My son has been using it for a year. We like it very much.
The practice questions on Beestar are very attractive to keep kids interested. Many of them have pictures to help students better understand the subtle math concepts. They are well organized to guide gifted students to go beyond basics to advanced mind-opening problems.
My son got to know some other talented students on Beestar. They share the same interests and even have an online math discussion group. I can see he becomes very confident in his math class. I am so happy that we finally find a program that works great for my son.

Michaela you'd be much better off starting your own thread rather that coming in on one from 2011. People will respond to the original posters question, not realising THIS THREAD IS 4 YEARS OLD!

I need a school for a very clever autistic boy who is currently school refusing. A twenty four hour, four day curriculum if possible - West Midlands, Yorkshire or North West. We are going to tribunal in four weeks and I am appealing for a TYPE of school rather than a named school??
Are there any charities that help potential plus but autistic boys in year nine?
Bel.

tigerlilly02, you may get better response by starting a new thread rather than adding on to this one which has not been posted on for years and has a title so different your circumstances.

You could try posting a thread in the SEN section also.

Hopefully someone can give you advice. Good luck.

@tigerlilly02, agree with Richmal, better to start a new thread. Or maybe start in SN section and in local.