Would you put a 4 year old to a Year 1 class?

[rrbrigi]

Hi,

I have a son who will be 4 in July and will start the school in Sept 2012. I have lots of concerns which scholl to send him. He is a very bright child, I am not sure if he is gifted but academiccly very bright. He is very good in reading, math, computer, languages etc.
I would prefer to send him in year1, because he already knows everything that a reception year old child needs to know.
I heard even if a teacher does some extra work with gifted children it still would be the same work with more practice. E.g.: if children learn the phonics (s a t p i n) in school, the gifted children will learn the same phonics (even if he already knows them), he only will do extra works, so he does more practice but won't learn anything new. It means for me that he will loose the possibility to learn more quickly than others, and he will loose the interest about learning (doing the things that he already knows)and I think it can lead to behavioural issues.
Because of this reason I probably would like to send him in a private school where I will pay so I might have voice in his education. The other reason why I probably need to send him to a private school is because there is no option to start in Year1 instead of reception year in stat schools.

I would like to hear some comment from you, how your child school helped your child to develop his gift or brightness from reception year. Or if you have a child who started in Year1 at the age of 4 instead of a reception year euther in a state school or in a private school.
Please write to me if you know any good school for a bright child in West Sussex (Horsham area).

Thanks for your response.

Okay, so I would say the best way to go about finding a school might be:

1. Input your postcode on the Ofsted website to find local schools, and then read the inspection reports. Bear in mind that the closer they are to you, the more likely your DS is to get a place. I just put in a central Horsham postcode which brought up 23 Primary schools.

1. If you're into league tables, the primary league tables for West Sussex are here - you can refine by entering your postcode at the bottom. These just tell you how well pupils do in Y6 SAT tests though, they don't tell you how well the school would cope with a gifted child (or indeed with one who was struggling).

1. If you are also considering independent schools, Pennthorpe and Farlington seem to be the main pre-preps around Horsham (pre-prep is up to 7y; prep from 7y-13y; senior school 13y+).

Go and visit the schools.

Also look up EYFS; this is what they follow in preschool and reception as the skills your child will need to develop for Year 1. It has 5 key stages, one of which is social. Academic is not the only thing that the school develops and whilst your son sounds streets ahead academically he sounds like he really needs to develop other social skills etc.

I wouldn't jump the gun yet, rather investigate all the schools in the area, private and state and see what you think.

Thank you very much for all of your answer.
I will do that you said.
I organised a meeting with my son teacher in the nursery and will see what she thinks. Than I will call the schools and organise a visit where possibly I can see how the class works.
Socially, it seems to me he is ok. He does not like to play with others but hope it will come later, or you might right it will come after his English will be more advance. From outside if you would meet him, he is the most smiler child I ever seen. He enjoys the life with his family.
And just one more thing, family and love can solve a lot of problem that a gifted children can have socially, so I am not worried at all he will kill himself later in his life.

I have not made up my mind yet, and I definitely will go to see lots of schools, private and state as well. And I will ask their opinion too.

Please write to me if you know any good schools around Horsham. If you have any experience that they take care of gifted children.

Once again thanks for your answers, it really helps me think about this not just academicly.

Sorry if I write something that is not correct, the English is not my first language.

Your English is far better than my Hungarian :)

I think being one year advanced will not help a child in anyway. Being socially awkward can change a life.

I am assuming the aim is for him eventually to go on to further education at a top university or learning a profession. University trained professions such as veterinary, medicine, dentistry, law, research science, language translators all require good communication skills. These and other social skills will be looked at in interviews by most of the leading universities. Most bright children if hard working get good grades so the difference in grades will not be apparent (unless STEP papers are gained), on the other hand verbal and social skills will be apparent to a certain extent at interview.

I have a bright friend who at school was advanced a couple of years (home educated till going to school at 13) she got great grades. She did NOT get into her first university choice due to poor interview performance.

My husband (exceptional medical doctor at his level) did not get into ANY of the universities that interviewed him (socially awkward at the university interview age). The university he went to now does interviews (as do almost all for medicine and other competitive subjects now, Oxbridge certainly interview for everything).

You can do work at home, lots of parents do. I supplement homework if it is completed within the allotted 20 minutes as he was beginning to develop a poor attitude towards it (throwing it on the ground). If the school is good it should support your child well. Learning musical instruments are always a good way of stretching a child. Everyone at school has difficult times at some stage I think it is in a child?s interests to try and make it as smooth as possible an experience.The importance of social skills and the ability to mix well with others for personal happiness is immeasurable.

Hi!

I went to spoke my son teacher yesterday, and she thinks the same that I. My son is more advanced in academic than reception or year one. She also assured me that he is advanced socially as well. She does not think that putting my son in year 1 would harm him at all (not in socially or academicly). She truly think that would be a good idea for him, however it won't be happen, because of the English system. She suggested a state primary school for me, where is a big possibility that they will move up my son to year 1 after the first term (the settling period). This school already done this with a couple of other children.
She also told me that my son is very advanced academicly and socially but she thinks he is not gifted, but very bright and she also told it will turn up later if she is wrong and my son gifted. And I think she is a very good teacher, she knows my son and I accept her advice.

Thank you for your answers.

I most definately would at least investigate. I tried to get my daughter into school a yr early and was disappointed by the response and lack of interest, she was at nursery in her 2nd year, very bored, being very naughty and challenging and although friendly and sociable, she had very little in common with the other children. I applied for a bursery at a private school, and she was accepted a yr early. It was the best thing I could have done, although my daughter spent the whole year pretending she could not read or write so academically benifitted very little in that sense! The benifit was mainly from putting her into an educational enviroment that broadened her interests, and gave her some inkling of what learning is, and how much there is to learn! I could only afford the bursery for that year so she is now at state school (the local authority ignore the fact she has completed primary one so she is back in primary one). On a brighter note, the school is excellent and she is working at primary 2-3 level in class and they are more than happy to reasses her as needs be. Yes kids need childhood etc and can be immature, but for some kids the joy of learning is the best bit of chilhood, and I know lots of older kids that have a total lack of maturity no matter what age. Thats the tricky bit about gifted kids, its all out of sync, I would say it is well worth investigating school, and various types of school at that. Had someone told me when Freya was born that she would have attended aprivate school, then moved to a tiny rural catholic school by age 5 I would have laughed, but needs must, and it is working out very wel for her. It is difficult to have a child that is academicaly advanced, and the term'gifted' can scream 'bully me', whilst parents assume you are some kind of pushy snob! Good luck and I hope it all works out!

You need to find out what the potential destination school is prepared to do.

Firstly, they will want to assess your DC themselves based on how he actually is in the classroom. This will be different from how he is in other settings, and will include social, artistic, sporting, musical abilities as well as straight academic. Secondly, you may want to find out how they differentiate work in the classroom - there will be other bright and gifted children both in previous years and in his year. They should know what they do, and be able to explain it to you. Thirdly, as accelerating a year is rare and usually inadvisable, you could see if they can accommodate any mix and match solutions (one gifted mathematician in my DS's year went up a class for maths but stayed with his cohort for everything else - whether this can be done depends on both realities of timetabling and, crucially, attitude). Fourthly, you might also want to seek out enrichment activities which can be done alongside ordinary schooling.

I understand the difficulty of playing with children who are technically the same age but intelligence wise much younger than your DS.

I too found them stressful, my oldest son, perhaps like yours was able to follow rules of games, set games up and play well but did not like younger children "not getting it".

I too found it easier to avoid these situations in the end.

It was a BIG mistake.

Avoiding teaching our children to accomodate others simply encourages an inflated sense of leadership, difficulty accepting others have good ideas too and by the time they are 6 they stop being cute and just become difficult playmates.

For reasons unrelated to my child, I was able to spend the morning in his class recently and watch how the Year 1 class was taught. My son is 5 and well above average intellectually.

I saw him draw pictures, play with shapes, recite the days of the week, write his number to 100. He has been able to do all of that for years. He is stretched in maths and reading sometimes - but I didn't see any evidence of that.

I did not see a child who was under-stimulated. I saw a child that was carefully watching everyone and learning to navigate the social realm. For him, part of being extra smart is being extra sensitive to all social nuance. He thinks about everything he says before he says it. He finds it exhausting. Thank goodness he doesn't need to learn maths on top of that.

He is learning valuable skills in school. I suspect the day will come when we will need to consider his curriculum, but for now he is learning plenty of important skills in Year 1. And at home tonight he read his chapter book and practiced his times tables.

I would not put a 4 year old in year 1. It is developmentally inappropriate to ask them to sit and listen quietly for that long.

Absolutely no! Having had two boys in the same position it was a disaster socially, with handwriting and keeping up in terms of volume, and they were never given positions of responsibility or good parts in plays etc. Even though they were moved up a year they were still not stretched. Happiness is most important!

I would not have chosen for any of my kids to miss reception.

Able kids at my dcs school get differentiated work. My dd1 is a September born 6 year old & has just moved up along with some of the other more able children into a predominately yr2 class, (she is year 1). The school chose which kids were ready not just based on their intellect/national curriculum level or g&t status, but also on their social & emotional readiness. They didn't move up one of Dds friends, who is also bright & on a similar level to some of those who did move because she is August born & they felt at such a young age she'd still be better off in a less formal setting.

Ds1 (yr3,) is taken out of class at least 1x a week for extra maths/English & also comes out of lessons for music (instrument) lessons. He became a free reader at the start of yr1. Homework is differentiated & there are ability groups for spelling etc.

Btw I suspect your neighbours dd is in reception, my dd started reception a couple of days before her 5th birthday.

I agree that reception is very different from nursery and a year spent learning the social skills will be invaluable. DS1 went to school (at 4.5) reading etc etc, but he definitely needed to be with his peer group for a year. However, he enjoyed enormously going up a year for literacy, which meant he got "stretched", but belonged with his own peers and got to spend most of the year outside.

The age gap here is vast and should not be underestimated. The OP's DC will have only just stopped being 3, but a year 1 class will include autumn children who are turning 6. That's nearly twice as old, bigger, more coordinated, and in established friendship groups. And amongst this children there will also be a range of abilities, including the very bright.

I think he would be far too far adrift.

I think something else to consider is what will happen when your child finishes primary. Some primary schools are willing to put a child up a class, but secondarys seem far more reluctant. This might mean that your child will end up having to do year 6 twice...

I wouldn't because there is such a huge physical, social and emotional differences between the younger YR dcs and the older Y1 dcs. If you are skipping a year I think long term YR is possibly the worst one. Mys dcs aren't gifted but I know that at their state school it is fairly normal to put dcs in other classes (up or down) to do specific things eg a Y1 dc goes into Y3 for literacy and a secondary maths teacher comes in every week to work with able maths pupils.
Until you start the school you don't know what the rest of his class will be like. You might be lucky enough to get a few very able dcs who will all be able to do the work together without having to move out of year. Even if he is the only bright boy a YR teacher should be able to cope with differentiation. There is plenty of time to skip ahead later.

Please listen to the likes of Iggly, Para and Goosey. We have been through this and know what matters. I used to think a bit like you. I know see the bigger picture and that my son is much better off learning with his peers. He is way more sociable than I ever thought he'd be when he was three and was just like your ds, and I really think that is a lot down to doing a play-based reception year.

Think big picture! If he is smart enough to need moving up a year in theory he is also smart enough to do brilliantly in his own year group but this way he is more likely to be happy and sociable.

Are any of your local schools small enough that they have a mixed year class either R/1 or 1/2 or R/1/2 It does happen in some small schools and may give your bright but young child the spread of skills he will need to be learning at school, academic and social.

www.spreytonprimaryschool.ik.org/p_Welcome_to_Spreyton_School_Web_Site.ikml this school is NOT in your area but has the mixed year classes I refer to. The whole school is only 2 classes. Class 1 is 4-7 yr olds class 2 is 7/8 year olds up to 11 yr olds.

My dd was put up to year1 for reading at 4 and new to reception. She was reading The Gruffalo with ease when she entered reception and so was academically more than able to hold her own in year 1. However, I wouldn't have been happy for her to be in year 1 all the time.

Equally, she went to a new school who do not move children to different year groups at all and she has been accommodated well within her year. It has not been to her detriment at all, despite the fact that she is still very very able in reading and writing (she is reading at Level 2a in year 1 and is capable of using apostrophes and exclamation marks in her stories etc). I trust her teacher to challenge her within the classroom.

It's interesting that a local school has done this - skipped a couple of children over Reception. If I were you I would go and visit this school and talk to the teachers. I must say if there were one year I would not want ds to have missed, it would have been Reception. I would also say that by the end of the Reception year, quite a few children were very, very ready to move up to Year 1 and that can be a problem. However, it was a short-term problem!

I was skipped ahead a year myself in primary school (it used to happen a lot in the UK back in the mists of time) and it was utterly pointless, I ended up changing schools and just going back into the age-appropriate year again.

I wouldn't/am not choosing to go down this route. My ds was 4 in August and is in reception having spent the previous term in nursery. He is the youngest in the class, the majority having already turned 5. There is clearly a vast difference in interaction and social skills between him and his classmates. Though he is interacting more, he is still, what I would class, as a loner.

However, academically he is ahead. Confirmed by his teacher on parents evening, he has since been tested on his reading level which has produced results of him having a reading age of 6 and a half. I am meeting the ed psych and the SENCO tomorrow to discuss the way forward (thankfully!)

But on the subject of going up a year, I feel this would be disasterous. I am unsure whether his lack of social skills is due to the age gap or something else. He would really struggle socially goingup a year at this stage.

I was moved up a year at primary school. It didn't do me any harm as such, but it caused more difficulty at 14-18 than any other time. Academically and socially I was "fine", but I wasn't able to join in things like Duke of Edinburgh at the same age as my classmates, so I never did, for example. And as I left school at 16, a year out wasn't much cop either as I was too young for foreign work permits, so I didn't do that. University was fine, but maybe I'd have been more driven if I was a bit older, I don't know. But I have always felt like a misfit/outsider.

I do know that I am very keen that my kids don't move forward a year. Any school should be able to challenge your kid from within their own year group? Easy for me to say, though, as our school is small, and most classes have 2 year groups anyway, and my kids are always in the group with the year above, iyswim.