Wow! I've just realised ALL my kids are academically gifted!

[DadAtLarge]

I've made numerous posts over the years about DS and his aptitude for maths ...starting with my original post as a confused parent requesting assistance because he was bored in school ...and continuing to my more informed posts in the last couple of years speaking as a (now) governor and authority on the G&T programme.

We were delighted with the school's (eventual) response in getting him a secondary teacher once a week for a maths lesson (from the end of Y2) ...and all the other effort they put in to cater for him. The school couldn't have done more. But we decided that best efforts ain't good enough.

Earlier this year we took all three children out of school permanently. There are various terms for it - home schooling, home education, dossing about....

I feel that what we do is more dossing about than anything else. :)

And voila! I find that my other two are gifted as well! The only reason I can think of that this didn't show earlier is because the first one spent more individual time with DW and me while the others had to share our time. Since taking the HE decision we've been able to spend more quality time with #2 and #3 ... and we discover they're just as or even more gifted than #1.

Yikes! I'm kicking myself now that we ever sent them to school.

A common theme in my posts over the last year has been that schools fail all gifted children. My apologies. They don't just fail them. Schools fail them in a monumental way. I know, I know, not all of you subscribe to that view and you believe that a single teacher catering for 30 kids of widely differing abilities, different social backgrounds, different needs, different level of parental support etc., can do justice to your DC. Good luck to you if you do. But ...

If you have the option to HE I urge you to investigate it. It's not as difficult as you may think, you don't need to be an expert in any subject, you don't need to have any teaching experience. From what I've seen of HE children, they are better behaved, more social (yes!) and friendly and they achieve GCSE results on par with or better than their school counterparts. If you're the type who loves having the kids around - rather than the type who can't wait for summer holidays to end - you'll walk around with a big grin on your face all day long.

I do. :)

I'm glad you are so blessed but you sound an awful bore.

But how on earth do they learn anything? It's fabulous you can skip queues at theme parks, what a boon, but what do your children actually know of the world? How do they attain their knowledge and deepen their understanding if not provided with a structured setting? You say you have no structured lessons and just let them get on with it. If that were my dd she's quite happily gaze in the mirror all day and play with her hair. Maybe I'm raising the world's first G & T hairdresser? I do think it's very unhealthy when parents base so much of their own identity on the achievements and expectations of their children.

I seriously considered it when mine were younger. Certainly the flexibility my friend had appealed.

But we found a great school around the corner that ticked all our boxes and my friend said we should at least try it. I said I'd whip em out if they didn't like it (for one thing I'd be happy to save ten grand a term)....but ya know, the buggers love it. Always have from day one.

Of course if we all home educated all our children would be G&T as the term just means the top 10% of a school.

It didn't used to, in three decades of teaching, I've met 4 truly gifted children and many, many very clever ones.

I think it is swinging back, when the G&T scheme came in however many years ago it was the top 10% of the school in an area. I know we don't do it that way and have criteria that describe what a G&T child should be able to do and then see if anyone fits that description.

I think the term 'gifted' has become overused. To me, 'gifted' is extremely rare. I have only met one truly gifted person in my entire life.

I was G+T too, IQ of 138 at 7yrs old. But I was lazy....

Chickens I agree, I should have put G+T in ""..... I was not gifted.

I think the intention behind the scheme is a good one, in too many schools the focus is on the C/D borderline or the Level 3/4 at key stage 2. The G&T scheme encouraged teachers to think of there more able students.

Yep, agreed twinkly. Both my DS's are on the G&T register at their school, and they are very capable children. But so are a hell of a lot of other children. And ten percent of the entire population is not gifted. Unless they're all living secretly in the sewers constructing some kind of Utopia for genuises. But I doubt it. Oh, and I would have been considered G&T at school . I didn't invent anything of worth, but I do excel at eating chocolate sneakily so I don't have to share with the DC.

Truly gifted children are not lazy in their areas of interest, but they may not think or learn in the ways that their adults and peers understand learning to be.
So they can disengage.

Another mate of mine has a truly gifted son and it has been difficuly. His primary school admitted than in some areas they struggled to accommodate him. He went up a year, but that was no solution as a five year old suddenly found himself in class with seven year olds and he didn't have the maturity for it across the board.

It all got very tricky indeed. But there was no way she could afford to give up work and HE amd anyway she was not sure that was the best way to go even if she could.

Eventually he was offered a place in a specialist school in the states. I went with her and was gobsmacked. But she just cried. All she wanted for him was to enjoy a normal childhood.

"How do they attain their knowledge and deepen their understanding if not provided with a structured setting?"
The structured setting is highly overrated. We've been conditioned to believe it's essential to our children acquiring the knowledge and skills to pass exams. I fell for that myself once! ;) All this "structured stuff" hasn't been around that long, you know! It's a fairly recent invention. We humans managed perfectly well without it for centuries. The most knowledgeable man I know never had any formal education beyond Y6.

"If that were my dd she's quite happily gaze in the mirror all day and play with her hair."
If mine wanted to do that, I'd let her! At some point she'd get bored with the mirror. Have you heard of "Free Range Learning"? Not something I completely buy into but there are some interesting books on the subject.

"It's fabulous you can skip queues at theme parks, what a boon, but what do your children actually know of the world?"
They "help" their mother with cooking, "help" me with gardening, do some community and voluntary work, meet up with lots of people who do various interesting things and we try to get them involved in local projects where there are learning opportunities. My (9 yr) son spent the morning assisting me setting up a router to work on a Linux network. He absolutely loved it! He is out playing now but will later be creating a shoot-em-up game using GameMaker 8 (free program).

With the maths and English and stuff, schools make such a big deal out of it. All that a kid needs to A* a GCSE could be learned in a couple of months before the test! There are plenty of examples in the HE community. Give me any primary school child (who is average at maths) for one hour a day and I'll teach her a whole term of maths in a couple of weeks. And I'm not a teacher!

DS could take his maths GCSEs this year, but I'll let him chill out a bit, there's a lot of fun to be had first.

Wow! Have a chocolate medal OP!

I came on this thread just do a face, after reading the OP's posts I have also been a little bit sick in disgust at his super smug, self satisfied, preachy manner. OP do you realise how you come across???? I hope your children are getting lots of opportunties to socialise whilst being HE'd, I would really be saddened to think of them learning about social niceties and interaction from you.

Chickenshavenoeyebrows, I could have written exactly the same as you did in the last two sentences of your post!

I came on here about to head to the special needs board to have a moan and stumbled across this post in active conversations. Good lord! Note to self - never click on a G+T thread again.

It's a lot about freeing kids to be kids. The formal "education" bit is minimal. I do not know ANY HE parent who does even a couple of hours every day. You just don't need to!

I stick to my original comment-come back and tell us how it has gone in a year from now.
They will have to be truly gifted if they are going it alone without adult guidance. I am always a bit shocked that people so underestimate the influence of a gifted teacher-I think they are worth their weight in gold.

You sound such an arse. And you better start saving for their uni fees now

Hmm, yes, but the 'Maths and English and stuff' are what is going to be required of them when they go out into the world and get a job. How do you think your children are going to cope when they realise they will actually be required to stick to a structured routine? I think it's great that you're trying to give them the skills you clealy think they won't aquire in school. I just don't think it's necessarily in their best interests long term. Again, you have a lot of your own identity wrapped up in being a home educator.

Do your children have friends outside the home?

All that a kid needs to A a GCSE could be learned in a couple of months before the test! There are plenty of examples in the HE community.*

Please come back and tell us if it works. I know examples of those who have done well in HE (gone to Cambridge etc) I also know those who have done extremely badly and are not fit for higher education or work. In fact the whole range-just like school.

Are you high on something OP?

"Of course if we all home educated all our children would be G&T..."
Exactly! That's the point of the OP.

"Truly gifted children ...can disengage."
More so in schools, more so in schools! Our schools aren't geared to cater for them. It's a horrible thing we do to put them in a stifling environment with "professionals" who are trained in crowd control but who, in their entire life, have never read a single book on the teaching of gifted children (much less have any experience of the psycho-physiological problems found so often in children with exceptionally high IQs). I was speaking with Simone from powerwood.org.uk just the other day about this, it really is amazing how ill-equipped our schools and teachers are at catering for this group.

wordfactory, I know exactly what you mean. It's very sad.

HOw is it you don't have to work then?
How do you earn money?

You sound a bit evangelical. Do they actually want it? Are they ready for it? You sound a bit alarming to me-one scary dad.