Gifted summer programme - does this sound like a good thing?

[flyingspaghettimonster]

We missed a phone call today from the school counsellor (we are in the US at the moment) asking us to come in and fill out a form as they want my son to do a gifted summer program... I can't find any info on this online and nobody is at the school now, son is untested yet as only kindergarten, but his teacher keeps telling us he is academically gifted and sister tested 99th percentile...

He hates school though and will likely be mad as hell if I force summer school upon him, so I am wondering if anyone has any experience of this sort of thing before I go into speak with the woman tomorrow? I don't want him to think we are punishing him with extra school... not sure what advantage there could possibly be for him at such a young age (turned 6 yesterday)...

Find out if there is anything on this programme that he would actually like to do and take it from there.

Some gifted children are very happy to have their free time organised for them and will enjoy almost any activity that stretches them, others have very clear ideas of their own as to what they enjoy and will resent being forced away from that just because they are gifted.

If you can't sell this to him, or if you had other ideas for your summer together, then don't bother.

Kindergarten? could you please explain the us school years as i thought, incorrectlyit seems, that kindergarten was equivalent to reception. when is the cut off date?

Spag, I missed this. Tbh I would leave it until later than kindergarten. Some of the middle school ones are fab - the ones round here are run at the university and sound brilliant. A lot aren't academic per se, but they do run fantastic sciences experiment weeks, film making, and lots of sporty stuff, as well as 'miniphd' camps... the psych says book early, as often the bright kids they are aimed at miss out, because all the yummy mummies sign up Tarquin to try and keep up with the jones's.