Outcomes for G&T kids- does anyone have experience?

[Theas18]

Thought I'd posted about this before but can't find it (or maybe it just got zero replies LOL).

There are a lot of parents of G&T kids on here. The kids seem to be universally primary age or younger.

Is this early promise the start of a hugely high academic career, or is it accelerated learning that then stabilizes out?

I'd love to hear peoples experience. Might add mine then,

Interesting question.

I think to get a meaningful response you would need to analyse the extension work and attitude to teaching more able children in each school, tbh. So many kids are not being given the opportunity to move faster than their peer group and so are being denied the opportunity to show what their true capabilities are.

I don't think many schools cater for more able pupils v well. I think there are a whole of raft of children not able to meet their potential, and become disillusioned, or learn to do the minimum instead of being motivated to display their talents.

Mine are a mixed bag. One tested v early (still in elementary) but the other two not tested until 10 and 11 respectively. Not far enough on to pass judgement. All were tagged g&t v early but not officially labelled until later. Ds1 was tested because he wasn't performing in school.

interesting thread idea

dd1 has been on the G&T list since about year 2 from memory, she's now in year 9. The subjects she's G&T for have changed over time which makes me think she's bright but not astonishingly so IYSWIM. She only really puts any effort in if the subject interests her, so I'm not expecting a full set of A*s by any means!

dd2 has a very different personality and prefers different subjects too, I'm glad as hopefully this will stop them being hugely competitive

Hello Theas18.

Dd is 12 and in year 8. She is the youngest in her year and not 13 until end of August. She has been on G&t since the year dot although dd and I not told about it until year 6. Apparently her CAT test for G&t was way off the scale. But what did her school do? Nothing. Not a leaflet, letter or anything. They didn't have any information at all. So what do you need to know? To be honest I can't tell you a lot. Dd was left to do her own thing at primary or help others. Never really challenged. Did nothing different to other children except had bigger parts in school plays - the parts with a lot of talking as she is a very quiet child and i suppose it was to boost confidence. She was very good actually. Not sure about accelerated learning. Dd not had that. She was given high school work in primary maths and that was probably it. School struggled to find anything for her as the other children who were supposedly top group with her were still a long way behind iyswim so they had the "hardest" work which was still far too easy for dd. So i was always told to "look on the internet" for extra work. She was placed in set 1 for all her subjects (apart from pe and dance) at high school and is still there this year. Work still easy although she did take her gcse maths at 11 and passed with A*. School not really too bothered about it, as in "well done", as i think they were expecting it. Dd quite upset that they were not interested so says she won't take any more exams until she has to (although she has just taken her nvq German). So at the moment Theas18, dd is doing her school work well. G&T not mentioned really (as i said before, set 1 are all classed as gifted and talented although they are not oficially on register) and may get a different school trip but that is it. Her levels are high - 7a or sometimes 8 from assessments. But ALL the children have the same work in class and same homework, even though dd is on, say, level 8 for German (which is what her assessment said) and others are on level 5. She has exactly the same work and have just done the same nvq 2. Can't think of anything else but feel free to ask! Best wishes.

This is a really interesting question, but I think it depends very much on the type of intelligence an individual child has (and that's not even taking into account personality, life experiences, parenting etc etc).

To give you my own experience (what with DD only being 5), I was always ahead at school, and did 3 O Levels two years early, so probably would have been classed as g&t these days. And I went to Cambridge, so to that extent it did pan out.

But my intelligence is v general - I'm good at getting on top of a subject to a certain level quickly, but am much happier doing a lot of different things simultaneously. So my academic peak was probably my O-Levels, and although I did an MA, it became increasingly clear that I was never going to do well at an academic career. Other contemporaries who were good at one thing, like maths, did do that and much better than I could ever have managed.

Having said that, after a couple of false starts, I did then find a very satisfying outlet for it all in tv, where the job basically involved learning new things all the time, along with a lot of practical organisation which I also enjoy.

Does that help? And I'd be very interested to know your own experiences.

Easier if you look at the previous generations. My younger brother was pretty unremarkable as a young child, compliantly learnt what he was told but was not an early reader, nor much of a questioner, a happy and giggly sort of child with no serious views. He had some kind of conversion in his teens, turned out to be exceedingly bright and is now a successful academic.

I was the bright child who impressed everybody with my verbal ability from the age of 1, taught myself to read long before anyone expected it of me, learnt extra languages, knew more than my teachers, found it hard to fit in with my peers etc. I am a somewhat less successful academic.

One of the saddest cases I've ever seen was a fellow university student. Because he had been good at learning at school and fitted all the stereotypical descriptions of a gifted child- socially awkward, difficulties in getting on with his peers, top marks at a low level, seeming older than his age etc- he had clearly been made to believe that he was a genius.

It was a terrible shock to him to get to university and find he wasn't actually as good as some of the giggling girls who spent half their time at parties. He managed to get taken on as a postgraduate and then it became very evident that he simply wasn't gifted enough.

I have similar experience to cory.
I would have been classed as "gifted" at school, but one teacher said "she's at the top but wouldn't be if there were potential Oxbridge candidates". The same teacher was thrilled for me and sent me a note saying "There are times when I am absolutely delighted to be proved wrong" when I'd got into Oxford.

In my dsis form there was a girl whose English was raved about. They used to read it out, enter her for competitions etc. She worked hard through secondary-and got a C at GCSE English. Not dreadful, but must have been a shock for a child who was told at primary that she was near genius.

My db was treated as a genius, as one set apart. Very like the child cory says (except he didn't go for postgraduate) he struggled at university because others were better, much better, which was really a personal afront. Dm said at his graduation he got very ratty when prizes were given out, and he didn't get one. Because he'd been brought up to expect to get the top prize in anything academic. Quite sad really.

Perhaps that experience is a fairly regular one for bright children?

I certainly found Cambridge a fair culture shock, because I'd spent my entire secondary school career top of the class without trying, and then suddenly arrived at a place where I was very, very average. But I did other things too, so it didn't destroy my entire sense of who I was, but definitely took some adjustment.

So perhaps one key thing for g&t children is to make sure they have other interests and experiences, so that when that inevitable ceiling does arrive, it's not the end of the world.

Maybe it depends what you think "should" be the outcome of being clever. It may not be anything that looks that clever from the outside. May still be very worthwhile.

5 people I know who were Id'd as very G at a young age (5-7yo). 4 of them left High School as very high achievers, too. Only one went onto get a PhD & then after a brief if moderately successful career, has long time been a SAHP. Three others (current young adults) are happily & responsibly working FT at relatively low status jobs (did not complete or even start Uni). One achieved no school qualifications at all & lives homeless (unstable unhappy childhood). I think all of them are still "clever" people, much cleverer than average, but it takes much more than cleverness to be high life achievers.

That's a very good question actually.
I was a bright child, ahead of my peer group and finding things easy.
That is until my A levels. That year my Grandad got ill with cancer and then died. It affected me a lot and in strange way it's my educational abilities that suffer the most.
From then on I was a bright child but not so bright that I didn't have to work my socks off to keep up with the brightest.
I still got in a very good uni, got a very good job that I then quit to do something completely different.
my abilities helped me when I retained, to adapt living in another country, learning other languages, starting a business.
But none of. it would ever have been possible wo a lot of other skills that have nothing to do with being gifted AS a child.

Personally, I think labelling kids as G&T when they are young is a little premature. Obviously there are exceptions though. I have known several kids, all boys coincidentally, that we're G&T up to GCSE'S but when they had to knuckle down and work did far worse than expected. One of these boys is now failing his first year of A levels despite having previously being top in the school for maths. I have also known examples where it has worked the other way around where more average kids have taken off academically.

Generally though, it must follow that if you are bright as a kid you will usually be bright as an adult.
I wonder if the reason that most of the G&T kids discussed on MN are young is because parents with older kids realise that the G&T label is of little consequence

The G&T label IS of little consequence. Your are right ParkbenchSociety. Means nothing to my dd and never has. She is still the same quiet lovely girl to me and thats all that matters.

I think it is sad if the only way people judge a "gifted" child as successful in adulthood is if they have soared academically, achieved a Phd or got to Oxbridge etc. The most startlingly gifted girl I have ever taught in a near 20 year career dropped out of a very good UK university in her first year because she realised that there was more to her life than ticking academic boxes. She has travelled, volunteered and done a host of other things. I know she will return to university, but she does so as a more fulfilled individual for having left it.

I would far, far rather my DD grows up to be confident, happy and fulfilled than she passes a clutch of early exams, excels in Maths and toddles off to Oxbridge. At 5 she already realises she is better than many of her peer group in certain areas. She is also frighteningly competitive and fearful of failure. I want to to steer her through this obstacle course so that she doesn't become one of those kids who think that they are, or must be, 'the best' or that academic success is the most important thing for them to achieve.

My most successful friend failed his 11+ and got one CSE in Art but he had talent, ambition, confidence, personality and the determination to succeed.

In the case of the man I was speaking of, I don't think it was a case of the system failing him: I read enough of his work to see that he genuinely was not bright. But he had the mannerisms that are often associated with giftedness- the quirkiness, the slightly odd way of speaking, the social difficulties. And even on MN that is often enough for an online diagnosis of giftedness.

Basically, he looked the part, but wasn't up to the work. Until we saw him in actual performance we were all taken in by his patronising way of speaking and believed he really had something. It was very sad, as he had obviously been buoying himself up with the thoughts of his genius for so long; it was all he had- and then it turned out he didn't really have that either. It was the label that was at fault; he would have been better off getting help with socialising and some realistic career advice.

My experience was similar to onesandwichshort - always effortlessly top at school and had the shock of my life at Oxford - there were people much, much cleverer than me!! I did adapt and am a fairly successful lawyer now.

Dh was also gifted in today's terms but could not cope with the school environment. He crashed and burned at school and left with a handful of As at O'level and a lot of Es. He went on to work at a hardware shop. He did an OU degree, a masters at Oxford and a PhD that won awards in its field and is now a successful accademic.

Ds is gifted too. He is 9 and can do A'level maths. He is gifted across the curriculum. A successful outcome for him would be to have a happy, interesting and stable life. He has struggled in his relationships with his peers and it has, at times, made him very unhappy. Dealing with this would be his greatest achievement.

dd is not gifted (as far as we can tell) but is better at inter-personal relationships than the other 3 of us put together. I have always believed that because of this, she has the greatest potential to be happy and successful.

DD has been on G&T register for years too. She is Year 9 now. In our area the council do quite a few opportunities. Dd has been on an art workshop and a textiles one and this year one on how the mind works - that was brilliant. She is top set for everything but I suspect gets by a lot of the time on being able to do the minimum to get a decent mark very well and very quickly. Dh and I have basically done our utmost to ignore the G&T thing. We've always known she was bright - as all our girls are. I think she has a photographic type memory like dh. I want her to have opportunities but she knows I place a far greater premium on good mental and physical health than I do on anything else.

I was considered a bright child all the way through school, so it was a surprise to get to uni & find I was a good 2:1 level student not a First candidate.

I think deep down I'd always assumed I'd get a First, but looking at my friends who got them, they had an extra spark of genius that gave them ideas & levels of insight I just couldn't see. I was more a dutiful hard-working plodder.

Very tricky when I left uni as I clearly wasn't good enough for academia but was still quiet, intense & bookish so very unsuited, as it turned out, to office work.

I'm an INFJ so would have done well in some sort of caring role like social work or counselling, but no-one spotted that potential early on and by the time I realised how badly suited I was to my job, it was too late to retrain. That's the kind of help I wish I'd had earlier, it wouldn't have changed the degree I did, but would have affected all the choices I made afterwards.

ds wasn't G&T as a young child, probably as the school didn't do that - he read early and had an unusual interest in and ability in maths right from being a toddler, but aside from that seemed pretty normal. His yr 1 teacher described him as 'borderline gifted' once (but I'm not sure if she was meaning top 10% gifted or something else, though fairly sure he was well inside top 10%) and that was the only time I remember in primary school the G word being mentioned. He's always been among the top ~3 in his year group, but not usually the top but I do think the top few are fairly exceptionally bright in his year, which is very fortunate for him as it's meant he doesn't stand out too much or get too swollen headed.

He is now 18 and I would say as he's got older it's become apparent from his results and successes that he is rather brighter and more talented than I thought when he was younger. He's never struggled at all with exams and achieved extremely highly in them. He didn't do any GCSEs early (but would have been able to) but did do a couple of ASs in year 11 and a second year OU course in year 12 achieving top grades. He's done very well in Olympiads and similar competitions being invited to national courses for high achievers in several subjects based on his results and has been chosen to represent UK in an international olympiad. Alongside this he does a lot of music at a high level (you would probably say talented), plays a sport at near national level and also has a part time job. He picks up new skills very, very easily and seemingly with less effort than is usual.

In short he's breezed through school. Whether he has developed the required work ethic for university remains to be seen.

Thanks for all the replies!

Here are my experiences:

Me- went to a very ordinary comp in the late 1970s/early 1980s. bullied for being able. Never really challenged. Did 4 A levels without much support from school tbh ( A level groups were 4-8 for each subject). My mate Carole, who was brighter than me, basically took me through the syllabus as the school didn't. She went to Cambridge, and I won't to study a pretty academic course at a red brick Russell group uni. We were the first to do either fom the school- needless to say they took the credit lol.

Carole is working in a on academic area now, and I have achieved my ambition that I held from age 7.

Not convinced I'm "gifted" really . Just able academically.

My kids- no one really labelled g&t kids at primary. They all attend/ attended supersselective grammars - dd1 was labelled in year 7 but as there was no benefits didn't really bother much tbh. interestingly, because of the grammar system, primaries never wanted to really comment on ability. They weren't allowed to say " this child should sit 11+"

Dd1 - academic form prize years 8-11 .various 6th form prizes. So in the top 6 all round academics in her year. Brilliant GCSE s. A levels too, aqa bacc etc. now 1st year uni ( rejected by Oxford after a difficult interview) Russell group uni . Got a 1st for 1st year ( last week!) whilst also holding a choral scholarship and socialising plenty! I'd say she was gifted. Suspect she may remainin academia.

Ds just sat gcses . More if a stress head than dd1. Suspect equally able.

Dd2 (13) . Probably more able than dd1. Very competitive ( eldest isn't, she just does her best and has little idea how that compares). Hugely pleased that she got the firm prize in yr7 ( same school) which dd1 didn't.

But what does all this academic sucess mean for their future lives?

It is but a small part if the picture- I'm watching with interest. they all have lots of interests aside from study too.

Gelatinous the " worth ethic for uni" thing was something I worried about.

If they've never found school work hard, what happens when they finally do get stretched ... The answer for dd has been she has just carried on doing things as well as she can and handing them in on time- school prepared her well for that.

Also she's always been busy ( as has your son) so is used to just sitting down and getting tasks done. I'm not convinced she spends the " this task should take" time on things... But what ever she's doing is working so far!

Glad it's working out well for her Thea.

I was classed as G&T when I was at school. I think I was at secondary about the time they started talking about G&T as I don't remember anyone using those terms til I was about year 10 ish.

I achieved a full set of As and was really annoyed that I wasn't allowed to take more than the school policy of 9. I did not work for them at all, I must have been a nightmare to teach as I just didn't find any of it challenging and didn't complete ANY coursework until the day before the deadline. I would turn it out in a couple of hours and assume (correctly) that it would be A quality.

I was encouraged to consider medicine as a career but nobody really pushed me to work any harder for A levels, and they definitely didn't prepare me for the possibility I might not be offered a place (obvious really as it is one of the most competitive courses going). I continued to do no work at all, just turned up at lessons and assumed it would all be easy the same as GCSEs. It was easy, but because I didn't do any revision of these easy subjects I didn't get the 4 As I was expecting and had no place at uni to go to.

I took a GAP year, did some voluntary work in India, travelled a bit, ran out of money, came home and did some minimum wage jobs to earn enough to travel again. Took another year to travel, working my way around Australia. Came home pregnant with no partner and spent a year living with my parents claiming benefits. Then I went to uni (a Russell group uni, they shouldn't have let me in with my grades but they interviewed me to see what sort of idiot would ignore their entry requirements and I must have been good in the interview as they let me in) and got a first in Maths. I was given a prize for having the highest average module score in my year. I was offered a job I hadn't applied for with a company just starting up (they're now considered leaders in their field) but turned it down to go into teaching. I'm an average teacher. I'm good but not outstanding, mostly because I generally don't have the work ethic to put as much work in as is needed to be brilliant. I'm happy though, and the kids I teach make very good progress, I just don't put on a performace every lesson.

Dd1 is almost exactly like I was at her age. She has been on the G&T register since pre-school. She is now in Y7 and I have just read her report, she's very able academically but isn't handing in all her homework (I feel like such a hypocrite when I tell her off for this). She is above all of her targets in academic subjects but below targets in practical subjects. I have no idea what her future holds, atm I see her going into some sort of science as a career but she has her own mind and will chose what she's interested in. I sincerely hope that she is challenged more than I ever was as I don't want to see her as bored as i was. If I could have afforded not to work I would definitely have home schooled her, but unfortunately I have to work or we wouldn't eat.

Dd2 is only 2, but is already showing signs of being quite bright. She may level off though and I'm not expecting her to be G&T.

I was a proper freaky child, reading at 2, discussing everything by 4, bilingual at 6 (although that had more to do with moving to France), outperforming all my schoolmates in what was a second language by 7, etc etc... Went all the way through the French education system performing well, whilst maintaining same standards of English. Never did a stroke of work, never learned how, never had to. Did well, went to Cambridge.

And oh my god, did I fall from grace. From big fish to teeny tiny weeny fish. It was hard. And I still didn't have any work ethic and still had the same butterfly mind I had through childhood, flitting from one idea to the next ADHD stylee. Was lucky to get away with a 3rd, but learned so so much. Will be ever grateful I was permitted to go there, even though I essentially stuffed it up.

Have gone on to do a PGCE (aged 29) and an MA (aged 36). Did reasonably at PGCE and very well at MA (seemed like very little work compared to Cambridge I have to say).

In adulthood I have learned to work. Cambridge taught me that, but only in retrospect as I was too busy partying to do any work.

However, professionally I am an utter dud. My university friends are neatly divided between those who retired years ago with massive fortunes (I;m 44 btw), those still earning ££££££££, those earning £££££, those earning ££ and the utterly jobless and largely unemployable due to social issues.

Imo a good work ethic is far far more important than frantically trying to ensure that early promise keeps paying out. Everybody finds their plateau eventually. Pushing your apparently gifted child may just result in sadness as they plateau and you keep pushing. The truly gifted child will keep learning no matter what, you only need to feed them and give them time. The merely precocious will plateau out eventually.

DD and DS identified as G&T very early on, and two or three schools down the line are still on G&T lists and doing well.

I was also on G&T programmes as a child, skipped a year at school, got all As, went to Cambridge, got a first, got high-flying job etc. It has all come rather off the boil since, due to family/personal circumstances, but I am taking tentative steps to get back into the swing of things career-wise.

I do think that my work ethic leaves something to be desired though, as I grew up never really needing to make an effort and always able to pull things off at the last possible moment. Maybe going to a much more academic/competitive school would have changed that, rather than the ones I went to (private but not ultra-academic) where I was top of the class without much effort - but I'm not convinced.