Should any additional resources be spent on G&T children?

[GooseyLoosey]

I have been pondering this a lot lately.

I have 2 dcs. One (dd - 7) is (according to her teachers) bang on average and struggles with abstract concepts and sometimes has no idea what the lesson was about but is quiet and well behaved. The other (ds - 8) is (according to an ed psych) highly gifted and functions multiple years ahead of his peers and is loud and confident.

Ds gets extension work in a group with just him and one child from the year above. Whilst good, I am not actually sure what this achieves - as with many gifted children he is self-motivating to learn and discover things and would probably get as much out of being given a text book to sit and read and work through or better still, access to a computer. The extra help will not (probably) help him in the long term be a happier person or get a better job.

As far as I am concerned, the resources which seem to be available to ds would be better deployed in helping the average children (like dd) who seem to get nothing extra and often struggle on unobserved. The help might well make a difference to whether dd remains engaged with maths or not and therefore have a life changing impact for her.

In general, I don't think we focus enough on the "average child".

I completely agree with you. "Enrichment Days" = well done for being clever, so and so, have a treat.

What about all the average kids who work hard but don't get rewarded?

Average children seem to get completely overlooked in most ways. Even where there are areas that they could benefit from help, it always seems to be directed elsewhere. Clearly the children who struggle need help, I'm just not sure that the "gifted" do.

I think it depends on the child and their parents, the nature of the "extension" work and how well thought out the whole process is by the school... Some "gifted" children will benefit from extra extension work and others won't. Just as some "average" children will benefit hugely from a bit more attention and others will find extra attention confusing and unnecessary - are they doing OK or aren't they, and if yes, then why pick on them? You could argue that if you are talking about a genuinely average child then the entire school day is geared around their needs, so I think you are actually talking about a generally average child who has some areas of difficulty which are not significant enough to attract specific attention... and their needs really ought to be capable of being fulfilled by good and inspiring teaching, good tracking of progress, good checking of understanding as you go along and good use of teaching assistants... Basically, I think you are asking about how things should work in a school where nothing is particularly well targeted or kept track of, so where would the poorly targeted attention best be directed to actually hope to make a real difference?

All children benefit from extra attention. Prehaps the question is what level of resources a child should get. A child with learning difficulties may make no academic progress in a special school or even with one to one support. However that one to one support may stop the child having a nervous breakdown.

Sometimes one to one support can be a bit of a curse as it singles a child out. The best differentiation is often discrete.

I think a lot depends on your definition of "gifted". Children on the gifted and talented register at a low achieving school may not require enrichment days, but may need protection from bullies and differentiation in the classroom.

Prehaps a child's mental welbeing is more important than their SAT results. A child (of any ablity level) can need additional support for non academic reasons.

I agree with rabbitstew and reallytired. Gifted children have all sorts of difficulties that require all sorts of help and interventions - but more often than not the interventions are simply not available.

Are you sure you're not confusing the popular myth of G&T kids (bright, hard working, compliant, high achievers) with all the problems an exceptionally high IQ actually typically brings to a child's life?

Much as I love my DD I wish she had an average IQ. She would have a much much easier life.

Sorry, upon re-reading my post above I realise it comes across a bit more harshly than I intended . Could everyone please read it with "1 am" filters on and just skip the 2nd paragraph? It's too late for me to manage a useful and constructive contribution to the thread!

Eyeofnewt - I agree that children with an exceptionally high IQ can need some support. Ds has certainly needed help in understanding his peers and facilitating his peers understanding him. Oddly this has been hard to access, but extra tuition he does not particularly benefit from is there without even having to request it. As really suggests, ds's greatest need is to be protected from bullies and sadly this has not always happened.

Really - I agree that the definition of gifted is very wide and includes those who are just clever. Ds supposedly has an IQ of 157 and the ability to work around 5-7 years ahead of his peers so I think I am talking about a genuinely gifted child. I am glad they are challenging him, but I am just not sure his need to be challenged out weighs dd's needs (and those of others). Yet there is an assumption that his needs are more important because his achievements are far from average.

Rabbit, you are right, in relation to dd I am talking about an average child who does need help in one particular area - she does not process aural information well. However, I have been told quite clearly that as her SATs results are above average and she sits comfortably in the middle of the class, there is no help to give.

I would accept this if I thought all of the teaching resources were already allocated to those with more accute learning needs - everyone cannot have everything. However, ds does not have any accute learning needs and I cannot begin to imagine how much dd or other quiet children like her might benefit from doing numeracy in a group of 2.

"the popular myth of G&T kids (bright, hard working, compliant, high achievers)"

where is this a popular myth? surely the popular myth is that of the brilliant geek?

if you mention that you know somebody who is very highly gifted but also socially successful, ime people's immediate reaction is likely to be that they can't be as gifted as all that

otoh (and I see this quite often at university) people with fairly modest gifts often pass as geniuses if their behaviour is sufficiently donnish

if you post on MN that you have a child who is misbehaving in class, you are bound to get told that your child must be gifted and bored- even if you haven't mentioned a thing about their achievements

personally I think help should be given where children need it- which would include children with a high IQ who are struggling in some respect (whether socially or from understimulation), but not children with a high IQ who are not struggling

the need should decide the resources allocated

GL I'm sorry to hear your DS has suffered from bullying at school. It's just outrageous that there is less help for resolving this problem than there is for extension in the classroom!

cory - the myth at (primary) school is this: if you're bright, you're also hard working, high achieving, highly motivated to use your abilities and learn, and you're also supposed to be good across the board in order to be seen as "G&T" at school. Kids with behaviour problems are seldom recognised at school as having high learning potential.

It would be a wonderful world if a child's needs were always accurately recognised at school and appropriate help was given for whatever the issue is. But sadly, there are too many parents like us who are banging their heads against a brick wall trying to get the school to see & deal with their DC (and their problems) more appropriately.

In my experience too it would be much more helpful to our children if the vast majority of extra resources was spent on the social & emotional side of things (for everyone!) rather than G&T "jollies" for the most co-operative of the bright bunch! School is about the social side as much as the academic side and no child should suffer misery at school.

Cory, I agree that need should dictate how resources are allocated but I am not sure how they determine "need".

An average child appears to have no "needs" because they are average where as a gifted child does "need" extra work and tuition (I am not looking at any social support issues here) simply because they are gifted. I am not sure why this should be the case. Ds gets extra tuition to help him fulfill his potential. Because dd is average it seems to be assumed that she does not have any additional potential worth fulfilling. The assumptions underlying the determination of "need" are all wrong.

I think it's supposed to be more along the lines of a gifted child not having their "needs" met at school, rather than their potential, and therefore "needing" extra work and tuition.... Since a mainstream classroom is supposed to be geared to the needs of an average child, they ought therefore to be having their needs met already... Unless you really think the school is trying to help your ds meet his potential???? You can argue they aren't meeting his needs, or are wasting their time barking up the wrong tree so far as his needs are concerned, but I don't see how you can argue that they are in any way trying to help your ds (who is already capable of working 5-7years ahead of his peers) meet his "potential"????? In other words, they aren't really helping any of the children meet their potential... and in your view, aren't even meeting their needs.

Schools get it right when they treat a child as a whole person, not as a set of issues that can be dealt with separately. You cannot successfully separate someone's intellect from the rest of their personality and deal with it discretely, because their social, emotional and intellectual responses all feed off each other - as anyone who has ever done CBT can testify (or indeed anyone who has ever attempted to concentrate and behave in a socially appropriate fashion when highly emotionally distressed). It doesn't sound, GooseyLoosey, quite so much as though your children's school is failing them in their purely academic needs, it's just not viewing itself as having any role in dealing with their emotional and social responses (eg being turned off maths because it's a struggle, even though doing perfectly well at it).

You are right rabbit - a "whole child" approach would be great and I guess to be fair, I can see some effort at that. However, I am just so frustrated at ds getting everything and dd nothing when it would make so much more difference to her.