How were you told?

[Clarence15]

How and when were you told that your child was G&T?

Do schools actually make a point of telling parents? Is the child aware that they are in this category?

I know that my dd is bright, and she's working in the higher end of the class above at the moment. But she's not in a G&T category (as far as I know) although her teachers have always told me she's very bright.

Is it important to you that you have this title for your child, in order to ensure they are properly challenged, or are you happy to let the school get on with it? Do you actively speak to the school about it or not?

Thanks

Yes. And twelve year olds are very motivated by £25

"by the time they reach secondary school, our system has knocked a lot of the interest, enthusiasm and curiousity out of them. Schools work methodically, year after year, to average these kids down (even though teachers don't realise/won't accept this). Schools don't celebrate intelligence and are shy to recognise academic achievements publicly ... in fact, they play this down"

DadatLarge, this has been my experience 100%, with both my children so far.

And it was ours, in state primary. Not so however, in selective independent secondary.

"DadatLarge, this has been my experience 100%, with both my children so far."

Not my experience, depends on the child, mine are enthusiastic learners at school. I suspect hothoused kids lose their enthusiasm quite early.

"Schools don't celebrate intelligence and are shy to recognise academic achievements publicly ... in fact, they play this down"

Biggest load of nonsense I have ever read

bruffin, the biggest load of nonsense is that state schools with 30 to the class, a wide range of abilities, no selection at admission, a mixture of special needs, pupils from widely differing social backgrounds, have and have-nots ...schools which have strict targets on underperforming pupils but no adjusted targets for faster learners ....schools which are severely strapped for cash ...can do a brilliant job of educating our brightest children. That's what's a load of nonsense :)

The best they can do is grin, put on a brave front and make the best of a bad bargain.

Whatever spin schools may put on it and however individual parents of gifted children feel their child has been catered for the fact remains that there are many, many compromises with more to come (from budget cuts, loss of staff, move to academies, LAs slashing services etc).

cory (and others), you've got completely the wrong picture about competition. A competition that ranks pupils on intelligence is a one off competition - yikes, you don't rank kids based on IQ!

Competition that works as motivation is competition that rewards application and achievement - competition that encourages learning. While there may be such competition in schools it is badly hampered by the fact that the reward is very rarely publicly visible via clearly defined ranking structures, scores, targets and achievements pupils can measure (and compare) themselves.

Head told me DS yr2 is 'extremely able'. Quite happy to accept that is not the same as G&T but am going to crash this anyway

Experiences which match others above;
teacher says he is coasting & hiding light under bushel
he was given extra maths workbook to do at home
she 'wishes she could do more with him but....'
however, he did receive an achievement certificate in assembly when completed said workbook,

DS is not challenged (heaven help the truly gifted) at this 'outstanding' school but he has good friends & I rate the school for pastoral care. On balance find myself leaning towards those agreeing with DAL.

DadAtLarge "State schools with 30 to the class, a wide range of abilities, no selection at admission, a mixture of special needs, pupils from widely differing social backgrounds, have and have-nots...".

So, only nice, middle-class white kids with obsessive concerned parents can be G&T then?

The class argument is irrelevant and a michevious diversion. A G&T pupil can come from any background and I've often argued on these boards that the G&T pupils who come from deprived, uncaring backgrounds are the ones most at risk from losing out in the education stakes.

Funnily enough it's the kids in the "nice schools in middle class areas" who are least affected as their parents are usually in a position to substitute for school failings. DW and I did... till we realised it's a lot easier to just take full responsibility for our children's education and we pulled them out of school. They now have formal schooling for the equivalent of less than one day a week and still learn more than they learnt in school. The rest of the time they're being educated in the wider world, visiting museums (they love it!), woods and doing some voluntary work. They're also having a ball of a time with other home educated children and getting a lot more physical play.

For parents who need the facility of the free baby sitting service we call schools, it pays to defend the school system and defend how it provides for the more academic pupils. Accepting the reality has a downside for them: it could persuade more parents of bright children to pull their kids out of school thus changing the school demographic. (On a positive note, such exodus has the potential to reduce ability range in the class which could improve provision for the least able.)

"cory (and others), you've got completely the wrong picture about competition. A competition that ranks pupils on intelligence is a one off competition - yikes, you don't rank kids based on IQ!

Competition that works as motivation is competition that rewards application and achievement - competition that encourages learning. While there may be such competition in schools it is badly hampered by the fact that the reward is very rarely publicly visible via clearly defined ranking structures, scores, targets and achievements pupils can measure (and compare)"

I don't mean that a one-off competition is a way forward for schools or for
g & t children in general: I simply thought that it would provide something nice for Amaretti's ds to do over the summer (which was all she was asking about), and might lead onto further exploring this field if he finds something interesting. If his own mother thinks this is something that might encourage him, it is quite likely that she knows what makes him tick.

But on the whole my take on competition/ranking is that by the time they reach secondary age many children are not motivated by in-school competition, however publicly visible, because they are thinking forward and have already set their sights on a type of competitition that is beyond how they rank in this particular school. Dd and her friends at 14 are talking about careers, about getting into Oxbridge or a top drama school or veterinary college; they have a fair idea of the criteria (easy to get hold of these days) and know that being top of your class at school isn't going to mean anything to the admissions office. Of course they may not make it or they may change their minds, but that is the sort of thing that motivates them, not the idea of coming first or second in a class they are only going to be in for a few years. They already know how they rank in class, they get results, they are doing exam modules by Yr 9, they don't need to read it on a yet another piece of paper. Everybody knows who is top in English and who is top in maths, it's not something that can easily stay hidden. The girl who is gifted in gymnastics is not asking herself where she ranks in the school: she is wondering whether she will be selected for the next Olympics (this being a distinct possibility).

As for targets, I think dd's school are, on the whole, very good about that. The targets set in English (dd's strongest area) in the last couple of years have been particularly focused and aimed at making her a better writer- not just good enough to get an A* (which is taken for granted), but getting as good as she can be for her own sake. Even state school teachers can care about that sort of thing. Her English teacher clearly does.

I might add that I have offered dd the opportunity to be homeschooled, and she has turned it down. Partly admittedly because she enjoys the social scene, but also she says because she finds school an interesting place to be.

cory, when I say you've got the wrong idea about competition I wasn't talking about your recommendation to Amaretti. You said: "About the ranking, my experience is that they know where they are in the class by the time they get to secondary."

Any ranking that doesn't change from one term to the next is not based on application and achievement, it's based on ability/IQ.

"by the time they reach secondary age many children are not motivated by in-school competition"
I strongly disagree. I was never a teenage girl but I can assure you teenage boys are very, very competitive. They'll compete in hand wrestling, the size of their bogies, who can piss to the bungalow's eaves. Competition is in their blood. If school managements refuse to accept this biological fact they are stupider than I thought.

That's boys. But I'd be very surprised if girls of that age don't compete with each other as well even if to a lesser degree.

This is the problem: The teaching profession is predominantly female, school management is dominated by the social and collaborative nature of the female sex and schools are largely devoid of the type of academically competitive environments in which boys shine best.

I have a teenage boy. The schools do recognise that competition is important. He comes home and tells me if he got the highest mark for an essay etc. Marks are not kept a secret. He is getting a prize at prize giving in a few weeks(no idea what for as it is a big secret). They don't hand out prizes for everything. There are just two prizes per year group per subject, so to get a prize is a high achievement
But and it is a big but, he also has enough extras (in many ways too many) to also keep his competative spirit happy. He is not your normal sporty boy and does not excel at the normal school sports, but kayaks competatively.
Schools are not responsible for your childs whole wellbeing.

My teenage DD also knows exactly where she came in her class and compared to other classes. She knows she was top in art for two years running.
She is in fact more aware than DS because she is a very social being and has friends in lots of different classes.

"You said: "About the ranking, my experience is that they know where they are in the class by the time they get to secondary."

Any ranking that doesn't change from one term to the next is not based on application and achievement, it's based on ability/IQ."

Where did I say I was talking about ranking that doesn't change from one term to the next?

I meant: by the time they get to secondary, they keep track of who is top in maths at this particular time, who got what results in the latest chemistry test, who gets what level in different subjects, who is predicted 11 A*s, who gets put in for competitions by the school.

They are constantly doing exams and getting marked work back- how could they not know what the current ranking is? Where is this secondary school system you seem to be talking about where students don't get clearly measurable results which they can compare?

It is not that the teens I know are uncompetitive: I think competition is very natural for both sexes. But my experience is that secondary school is a totally different world to primary school, and that there is a much stronger emphasis on results anyway.

Besides, if you are seriously gifted and talented, then by the time you get to your teens, you are probably already looking at a wider field for your competition. If you are a possible for the Olympics, then you might not care too much about winning the school egg and spoon race. If you have a real musical talent, you will be thinking "will I be good enough to be a soloist" or "is my band getting enough gigs to show people how good we are", not "do my friends know that I am top of the class" (that will be common knowledge). Teens may well be having pissing competitions, but they also attend career evenings and write their own applications for work experience; their world is wider than that of a primary school child.

And I see no harm in schools encouraging gifted children to take part in more academic competitions: maths challenges, debating competitions between schools, national Shakespeare monologue competition- whatever may be relevant to the interests and talents of a particular teen; ime schools are usually very keen to do this. It doesn't hurt for a child to get out and meet others like him now and then, and see where the real competition is. I found it a very useful experience to see that I couldn't win the national French essay competition just because I was way better at French than anyone else in my school; it gave me a clearer idea of what the standards would be like at university.

"The teaching profession is predominantly female, school management is dominated by the social and collaborative nature of the female sex"

Not in secondary school, surely? All the secondaries I know have a fairly even mix of male and female teachers, with male teachers tending to dominate maths and sciences. Dd has more male teachers than female atm and this is not unusual. I don't think she's ever had a female maths or science teacher. I agree that primary schools are too much of a feminine affair, but I don't know any secondaries that are at all like primaries in this respect.

At primary school never mentioned explicitly, but lots of masterclasses 'for the children we think will enjoy it most and get most out of it' or 'our maths table is doing maths with a teacher from secondary school' etc - not hard to work out.

At secondary, explicitly told and so are the kids.

Dadatlarge - what would you suggest for DS in the long holidays? He is 12, very bright and self motivated, good at languages, maths and science and interested in history. He listens to a lot of radio 4 podcasts and reads widely, most recently Sepulchre by Kate Mosse and The War of the Worlds. He plays a musical instrument well and has a sunny "can do" attitude, bless him.