So she's "G&T" so what?!

[bubbles1112]

Had parents eve for dd last week. She's in year 2. Teacher told us she has been placed on the g&t register for literacy (reading and writing)...but she didn't really give the impression that a lot was going to happen because of this. She is in a class of 30 with a big range of abilities. Should I expect something because she's on this register or is it just lip service?

You should absolutely expect something. (English teacher here). Check whether reading books or homework differentiated. My son's school offers extra activities like a day at another school. The teacher should be able to say how they are meeting her needs.

She gets quite hard spellings!

Yes, in my experience. For a start it means they've identified your dc as a high achiever & are aware that they need to give her differentiate work to suit her ability (of course they should do this to suit every childs level whether they're G&T or not). Also, you might find she gets to do other things like inter school master classes in the subject(s) she's gifted in. Ds also gets at least an hour a week out of mainstream lessons for higher level maths & English. He gets to use the computers more in school too.

Its a no in my experience. In primary school, my daughter had extra maths and english homework to do. That was probably it. I was told that she was already doing high school work and that they couldn't give her much more and i was told to find stuff on websites! Sometimes she would help children with their reading or maths which i didn't agree with and i tackled the teacher about it and was told in a roundabout way that i should feel blessed that she is so gifted! Doesn't help with MY daughter's education! Other than that daughter no different except for that she always got the best parts in school plays - or rather the parts that had the most speaking. Now at high school she doesn't do anything different than her friends within her class. Work the same and homework the same. Sometimes she may go on better school trips but as she is in set 1 for subjects, ALL set 1 will go on these trips, but they are not on g and t register. Hope this all makes sense.

Ibizagirl if your dd and another did their maths GCSE early then surely they were given some different work (would a school really let them sit public exams completely unprepared-would it not potentially affect their league table results). Maybe I am odd but I found teaching others helped me fully understand my work (at school and now!) but to be fair I would be annoyed if it was all the time. Your daughter sounds great and very balanced do you not think some of this is the low key approach of the schools? I am really pleased DS's school are discrete about achievements.

Hi iggly2. Regarding the maths. When dd started year 7 (she is now year 8) all her class were given a workbook and it said it was level 7 and she found this easy. But only my dd and another girl were asked to sit a GCSE. I later found out that the other children in the maths set didn't do very well on their assessment papers, where my dd got 7's i think with the other girl and the others got 6's. I think that was right.To be honest and not sound bigheaded, dd finds everything very easy. She was given some homework to do that she hasn't learnt before and did it easily. It just seems to come to her naturally. She hasn't got a workbook for this year so am not sure what she is doing in maths, but she is getting less homework than in year 7. Can't explain it. Levels still good though.

Question for Wolfie (sorry OP) - as an English teacher, what would you describe as 'gifted' in year 1/ year 2/ year 3?

Not sure as I teach secondary. The direct gov website just says significantly ahead of their year group. That could depend on reading age or writing level.