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. :)

are you SURE you're not American?

cos for an English person you sure are sick-making

ROFL

Me too, hence the Japanese and having a DS who is an expert on the Crusades and Gothic architecture.

DAL, the rigour of school is what will help your DC hold down a job one day. The conflicts on the bus/in the playground are what will help them to realise that they can come and talk to you about anything and that you will always be on their side.

Good luck with it all

No need for anti-American talk. We are more then capable of breeding our own smug nobbers.

My question is about the OP's comment that he works in his own business so can afford for one parent to be at home. Does that mean it is actually your DW who does the home educating?

I'm glad you think your DCs are special OP. I'm sure we all think ours are too.

This has cheered me up after a bad day
Very tempted to print it out and stick it on the staffroom wall.

My youngest brother was G/T, ended up going bad bad ways, so early promise came to not a lot.

I'll stick pins in anyones eyes if they come near my child with a G/T register.

You do sound smug as fuck real happy, DAL, so good luck for the future.

If I remember correctly, DAL's wife is the one that works - as a teacher.

feenie PMSL.

Hocus thanks but I am already aware that school runs 39 weeks a year and that my child's school day is from 8.50am to 3.30pm. Thanks also for the ground breaking suggestion that I could "home Ed my child outside of these times". Do you have great difficulty in conceptualising scenarios that differ from the status quo?

Very quickly @ EFA: You should investigate "flexi" schooling. Some heads allow it.

"If I remember correctly, DAL's wife is the one that works - as a teacher."
Feenie, I've already pointed out - and others have referenced the fact - that we manage with one wage, mine. It has always been so. But, hey, if it makes for some hilarity and gets the kids PMSLing... :)

So your dw is now an ex-teacher then?

I definitely remember reading that your wife failed gifted children taught previously DAL.

If your DW is the one doing the bulk of the schooling why isn't she the one on here crowing about how fabulous everything is?

It's lush that you get so much joy out of your DW's efforts OP :)

And if your wife does the HE-ing, how does that make you the MN expert?

nearly couldn't be bothered to post, but felt i had to point out that loads of teachers have done a great deal of study on teaching g+t kids. In my school we all have regular inset on such groups, and don't forget dal that some teachers may even fall into the g+t category themselves
I love teaching really talented kids (who doesn't - never yet met a teacher who groans on being given top set whatever year, whereas the converse for bottom set y10 is not true).
I remain at odds with the definition of gandt as currently set - like many other posters I think really gifted students are very rare indeed. I have no problems in teaching the odd one that is (or indeed all the others that are listed as G+T), of stretching them, with debating, science clubs, extra reading, lengthy discussions in my frees about esoteric matters - I love that part of my job. I have an excellent track record with talented students too, aiming for 100% UMS at A level, and often achieving it, helping with applications, and work experience for the most competitive courses at the best unis.
But the most important fact about all I do to help my G+T students is that I'm not unique - very many of my colleagues do it, very many of my dcs teachers, at 2 different secondary schools do it. Even little fleas do it.

Had you posted on the HE board I think that you would have got a much better reception-they would all tell you that you were fantastic and great for your DCs. Maybe better to post here and get a taste of reality-not that I think for one moment that you are listening!

So all the time that you were posting about the teachers not recognising your child's ability and dealing with it accordingly, you were failing to recognise the abilitiies of your other children and so weren't addressing those needs?

Why so much pointless sniping at DAL?
As far as I can see he is suggesting people have a serious think as to whether HE may work well for them and not saying that you are only a good parent if you HE?

He is smug and thinks he has all the answers for all DCs. HE isn't best for all DCs. His idea of them doing their own thing and then a quick bit of cramming to get A* grades in public exams may work for a tiny few (his own of course as they are gifted-so he says) but it will fail the majority.
He may not think that you are only a good parent if you HE, but he sure thinks that he is a good parent-I think he is quite scary and am very relieved that he wasn't mine!

He needs to post in HE-they will all tell him that he is wonderful!

Do you drive a hybrid car and love the smell of your own farts as well DadAtLarge ?

DadAtLarge,

Well, a few points. G&T, what a load of crapola! When I went to Uni in the early 80s, only the top 10% of pupils got into ANY uni (as opposed to a poly) and, when you work it out, less than 1% are able to get into the top 4 or 5 unis. Your average uni student regarded themselves as bright but in no way as gifted or talented, let alone gifted AND talented.

And, as for phonics, it is the only sensible way of learning to read. It is like trying to understand the structure of numbers without learning to count, just hoping to recognise "patterns" in numbers.

So, as two bright parents, you have three moderately bright children...wow, call David Cameron and get him to close down all the schools in favour of HE. It is called genetics, a good family environment and good nutrition. Of course, HE is better than a crap school, but the vast majority of Oxbridge students go to normal schools and I do not see any evidence of Einstein, Newton, Leibnitz, Hawking etc being HE.

You enjoy HE, nothing wrong in that. However a Uni and work environment will be far more like a school than HE and, at some point, your children will have to adapt.

The part I don't get DAL is how you are adamant that a gifted child being HE'd will motivate him/herself without the need for constant guidance/pushing by the parent, yet have always reacted rather scornfully when I have suggested that it is possible for a gifted child in a school environment to be motivated to use lessons as a point of departure from which to go on and learn more than the bare minimum. This was how school worked for me: as a source of inspiration and it seems to be how it works for dd. That experience is no less real than that of your HE'd children. But apparently we have been failed because we have been inspired and motivated by the wrong thing. Tough.

Do you know... evangelical people REALLY piss me off.
AIBU to feel that way, or are there really lotsa folk out there that dig a zealot or many in their lives? And if so... why? Why doesn't it annoy the F&%K out of you like it does me?