Are our children invisible?

[AlisonJP]

Does anyone else feel that G&T is invisible in the education system?

Provision and funding for special needs seems to be very good and SEN children seem to have lots of rights and reasonable expectations.

From what I have seen, being on the gifted and talented register means absolutely nothing and if you are lucky enough to have a good teacher they may give the child something slightly harder to do when they have finished the classwork but that is about all.

That is probably fine for your just above average child who needs to be stretched a little bit beyond the curriculum for their year group.

But what about the child who is capable of working several years above their chronological age. The national curriculum is just as inappropriate for them as it is for a SEN child who is several years behind.

It seems they are looking for everyone to be average, which is great for the child who gets lots of support to catch up but not so good for the gifted child who is expected to wait for their classmates to be able to do what they could already do a couple of years ago. No wonder they get bored, frustrated and disruptive.

What a waste of potential!

I can only comment on my own experience, which is with a ds who is particularly able mathematically. His school have tried very hard to accomodate his needs. He was allowed to work throgh the KS2 curriculum in Y2 and Y3 and in Y4 I have had some very useful discussions with the SEN coordinator, class teacher and Head, with the result that he has been offered a range of extension activities and the school have had a secondary sepcialist design a KS3 workscheme for him. His class teachers problems have been that they are not mathematics specialists and therefore can't teach him trigonometry or algebra competently.

There are quite a few very bright kids in the class and I know that work is differentiated for this group.

How old is/are your dc? I have found that it became easier to communicate with the school once he was out of infants and the gap between what he knew and others bacame larger and larger. He is at a small state school and tbh I think they do absolutely everythig that they are able to given their resources and range of expertise.

No, not particularly. I have no idea if my children are 'G&T' but both of them are working at a level about two years above their chronological age for literacy (the younger one is not quite eight, and is working at just below a level 4) and appear to be quite challenged and stimulated. They aren't bored or frustrated at all.

There area a lot of misconceptions about SEN in your post OP.
'Provision and funding for special needs seems to be very good' - not true. Parents often have to fight for provision and teachers are generally not trained to cater for children with SEN
'SEN children seem to have lots of rights' teachers are supposed to make reasonable adjustments for children with a disability but teachers are often unaware of this legislation

Ds isn't bored or frustrated but he is not challenged at all from what I see.
The whole class get the same homework. The upside is he can complete it in 2 mins and move on to doing something he actually wants to do instead.

There is some differentiation but it seems to be simply top group/ middle group/ lower group and a child who is an outlier from the top group doesn't seem to gt anything extra .
At the moment I feel with reading levels that the school is waiting for everyone else to catch up.

It's very disappointing and I can't decide whether to a. patch up at home but that eats into ds' leisure time, b. push more with school but that's hard and I feel they will think I'm...pushy, or c. to move schools but that's not easy as there isn't an obvious alternative.

KC - apologies if I am speaking out of turn as I am coming from a point of some ignorance.

My DD has just been diagnosed as highly gifted with dyspraxia and whilst there seems to be plenty of support available to help with dyspraxia, I have not yet seen any evidence that her giftedness is really being considered in the mix.

We are seeing the SENCO tomorrow so I may yet have to eat my words but I am not holding out much hope on the G&T front.

I thnk many schools don't differentiate between the more able and the extraordinarily more able. They assign the top 10% of their pupils as G&T and give them more challenging work - or sometimes just more work!

But 'true' G&T is not the same as above average bright, and our edu ation system just isn't set up to deal with these children because the system is so centrally dictated and rigid.

That's okay Alison - also have a ds with SEN and high intelligence which has made for an explosive mix. The school should be differentiating for your ds. If they aren't meeting his needs you need to challenge them on that. Could it be that your ds's dyspraxia is 'masking' his high intelligence?

Is it any better in private schools on the whole?

teachers are supposed to make reasonable adjustments for children with a disability but teachers are often unaware of this legislation
At least there is legislation.

There is no legislation requiring teachers / schools to do anything for gifted children.

If a teacher were discriminating against a SEN child, there'd be hell to play if it became public knowledge. Discrimination against G&T children happens on a daily basis. Even the inadequacies of UK state teachers - most of whom have zero training in catering for this special needs group - is a discrimination.

I'm loathe to compare to SEN children though. The consequences of SEN kids not getting the help you need are greater than G&T kids not getting the attention we'd like them to.

Carole I do understand where you are coming from, however I think the consequences for G&T children can be just as serious.

I am not talking here about the slightly above average bright kid, I am talking about exceptionally gifted children. Not providing them with material at the appropriate level can lead to boredom, frustration, anger and poor behaviour.

This in turn can lead potentially to exclusion, disillusionment with the system, very low self esteem and mental health problems. In the same way as these difficulties can hinder special needs children, this can lead to poor or no qualifications, drug or alcohol dependency, delinquency, prison, homelessness, unemployment.

This may seem extreme but what seems like a small issue can very easily escalate and spiral out of control.

OK fair point Alison.
I was very bored at school and merely underperformed a bit until A levels when the standard and pace of teaching picked up but I was merely top 1 or 2% of population bright, rather than a Ruth Lawrence type so that might be why it wasn't too serious an issue.

I am a qualified teacher and have taught in many many schools in the past. I completely agree with you AlisonJP There aren't that many provisions and many exceptionally gifted children usually become the 'TA' They end up sharpening pencils, organising trays/books and doing odd jobs around the classroom. Even when i was a child, i was considered bright and when i finished my work, there was nothing left for me to do, so the teacher would give me chores! This is my personal experience and as a result i made an easy decision to homeschool my children. I appreciate that is not an option for eveybody but if the children do attend schools then they should have the same provisions as a SEN child. I also use to be SENCO, so i know how much effort we put in helping SEN children, how great would it be if a TA was allocated to a gifted child, to help them further flourish?

I do agree, my sibling had severe needs, and was catered to wonderfully (not that it wasn't a fight for my parents) - as a child I was in awe of his school and all the facilities they had.

In contrast, I was allowed to skip some pages in my maths book. This lead to me being unbelievably bored at school, and becoming a truant (from primary upwards). I still got all my qualifications, and have done fine in life, but I'm curious as to where I could have gone if I'd had the same extra input my brother did.

Yes, G&T children will do fine without the extra input, but imagine what they could do if they were actually catered for.

It feels like we're spending all our time pulling everyone towards the middle.

You know who gets the worst deal of all?

Kids who are SEN and gifted. They really are invisible.

dadatlarge- you are comparing a child having a disability to a child being gifted as if they are like for like. They are not.

KATTT - I agree with that totally.

'I am not talking here about the slightly above average bright kid, I am talking about exceptionally gifted children. Not providing them with material at the appropriate level can lead to boredom, frustration, anger and poor behaviour.'

The largest group of children who are excluded from school have SEN/SN.

There's also a high proportion of the prison population with SEN.

kc0rns1lk

"dadatlarge- you are comparing a child having a disability to a child being gifted as if they are like for like. They are not."

I don't think they're the same but the problems both sets (or overlapping sets) of children have are symptoms of the same problem with our system. The education system there to teach a curriculum not to teach children.

"dadatlarge- you are comparing a child having a disability to a child being gifted as if they are like for like. They are not."
How ridiculous!

I'm not comparing children, I'm comparing legislation covering provisions in schools for two different types of needs. I would agree with you than not all SEN children are properly catered for, but that's a different topic of discussion. On the issue of legislation: laws exist requiring schools to provide for SEN, requiring LAs to provide for SEN, requiring other agencies to provide for SEN. There is no law that requires any of them to do a single damn thing for gifted children. That is a fact.

You say schools should be "differentiating" for a gifted child. Let me make very, very clear that schools do not have the ability to cater for the top 5%. The 30 to a class structure simply does not allow the most intelligent individuals to progress at their own speed and most teachers are not up to the task. Teachers do their best to "differentiate" and "stretch", but with very little knowledge or understanding of how intelligent children learn. I've spoken with several of them and have ranted and raved in these forums in the past about their general level of ignorance on the subject of teaching gifted children (or even just intelligent ones). Our state school system has evolved so teachers are specialists in helping struggling pupils. Outside of this specialisation they're good at convincing parents (and themselves) that they're doing the right thing for everyone else. They ain't. "Differentiating" and "stretching"! Jeez, I do wish they'd read at least one abbreviated copy of a half decent book on teaching gifted children.

dadatlarge -Teachers in state schools are certainly not specialist in helping struggling pupils - unless of course they are trained as 'specialist 'teachers.

DAL - The only point I'd query is - are they actually specialists in helping struggling children?

DAL - you speak complete sense here (and elsewhere).

My experience is that if teachers need to decide whether a kid is having problems due to G&T or SEN, they will fall into the comfort zone of deciding it's a SEN. They are more familiar with it (more training in recognising a SEN), the school might get extra funding, it's easier to assume there's something medical causing problem behaviour - rather than the uncomfortable thought that their teaching style just does not suit this kid.