Gifted vs High Learning Potential

[chillikate]

I've been in here a lot since my DS was about 3, and I must admit I find it can be very negative. Comments like "your child can't be gifted because my child was doing that and so much more at his age" are completely unhelpful.

Parents search out this forum because something has happened that has made them question their child abilities - not because they want to boast or brag.

Interestingly PPUK have not only changed their name but have also changed their own terminology believing that the word "gifted" is misunderstood and outdated. Personally I think that "High Learning Potential" far better fits my own son and lots of other children whose parents come here looking for advice.

Please lets just help each other and not turn it into a boasting match. People come here because they need help & advice.

[jaws5]

Thanks rotaryairer, I have read those before, and they're spot on! Obviously there is enough information out there that confirms what we know as parents, but the education system hasn't caught up. My worry is that my child will become disengaged from learning in the classroom and won't try to do it their way, but stop caring when his confidence finally goes...

[rotaryairer]

"he needs is a different teaching/learning method, focused on brainstorming and creativity that then connects with the traditional foundations of education, not the other way round..."

Yes to this! This would suit my DS totally. Unfortunately, the 11+ doesn't test creativity and someone G&T in only one area would fail.

Interesting article posted on here recently:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/06/boris-johnson-missed-point-iq

There can also be a difference between G&T and high achieving:

www.bertiekingore.com/high-gt-create.htm

[morethanpotatoprints]

Sorry, forgot to add. High achiever would be no good neither as my dd is about average academically

[morethanpotatoprints]

I don't like the term G&T in a school setting as it isn't measurable and transferable.
I happen to have a very gifted/ talented dd, it is a curse for us all including her so certainly not a boast.
Her gift is music and ability is amazing. however, schools have a G&T register in which dc who are just picking up an instrument are considered gifted if not many people in the class are playing music.
You can have an extremely gifted person on one hand and a complete beginner on the other, but both are classed as the same.

[Mistigri]

I'm not sure that a super-selective grammar type school would suit my DD, even though she is a high achiever. She doesn't seem to hang out with the other high achieving girls and she definitely positions herself as being a bit "different". I think she would be unhappy in a very pressurized, competitive school environment with a restricted social mix.

Plus, she likes schoolwork not dominating her life as she can spend time pursuing her hobbies!

For senior high (lycée) we have the choice between selective private and an intensive foreign language course at an ordinary sixth form college and if she is accepted she will probably take up the latter.

[jaws5]

var123 that's a tricky question, and I'm not sure about the answer.... I guess that a grammar school in the traditional sense would benefit and suit the top group in my son's class, about four or five children, mostly girls who are very bright, ambitious learners, clearly "high learning potential". I suspect my son would find it constricting.... it's so difficult!

[var123]

jaws5 - Its certainly not mainstream, if it does exist.

I know grammar's didn't take the top 2% alone, but being in a class of the top 20% say (or even the top 10%) has got to be better than a mixed ability class?

[jaws5]

The thing is, I'm not sure my son would shine at a grammar school... what I think he needs is a different teaching/learning method, focused on brainstorming and creativity that then connects with the traditional foundations of education, not the other way round.... I don't know if it exists!

[Mistigri]

Grammar schools were never about identifying the top 2-3% though - more like the top 10-15%. I took the 11+ in 1975, was in selective classes throughout, yet I was bored rigid for most of secondary school.

My DD's comprehensive actually seem to be doing a better job of engaging her!

[var123]

I also agree that school G&T does very little for those who are 2sd from the mean. It doesn't even try to help them.

However, I'd add that it does very little for anyone at all since the funding was cut (in 2008?). Maybe it didn't do much before then either, I don't know about that.

Wasn't the G&T scheme originally invented so that the state system could compete with the independent sector for the very high ability pupils? If I remember the history correctly, the teachers were supposed to identify the top 5% and use the funding to provide them with opportunities that the high abilities meant the children would be able to benefit.

Then the department of education did a review and found the G&T scheme was not working as expected. So, they broadened the range to the top 10%. Then they left it alone for a few years before withdrawing funding.

That's what I remember reading once but if someone knows better, I'd be happy to be corrected.

If the whole G&T scheme were scrapped today though, and replaced by a scheme to identify the children who are 1sd and at least 2sd from the mean, and then devise an education for them that would develop their abilities, then I'd be all in favour. However, I think that's been tried too... it was the 11+ and grammar school system which was once widespread and now only exists in a few small pockets of England. It would be a very unpopular move, politically, to bring it back.

One of the criticisms of the grammar system was that there were false negatives and false positives when the children were tested at age 11. If you do want to test to find those with the highest potential though, then the tests have to be universal and there has to be some agreed point to do it.

(sorry very long post).

[Mistigri]

jaws yes I am convinced that more needs to be done for children in your son's situation who fall between the gaps on both fronts - too bright to qualify for proper SN provision but too dyslexic to get into G&T programs.

Children like my daughter need very little in the way of extra help other than being in a classroom in which it is possible for teachers to get in with teaching, and a supportive school environment that prevents bright kids being marginalized.

[jaws5]

tenderbuttons and Mistigri, I completely agree with you! the term G&T as used by schools does very little for children who are more than two or more standard deviations away... it focuses on the 10% brightest, most of whom are one standard deviation. Boys in particular with an IQ of 130+ can find it difficult, especially if there is something else like dyslexia complicating things -- and it's surprisingly common how often these two go together. This is the problem I have encountered with my son, and he doesn't even qualify for the G&T program at primary school because his written work is not good enough. He is top 1% in ability, but dyslexic. He is definitely very different from the top group of "bright" children in his class, and I am aware that he's much more challenging for the teacher and the bright kids are a joy to teach.

[Mistigri]

I think that there is definitely an increased likelihood that children will need special provision as you move further from the norm, but I don't think very high IQs are necessarily incompatible with mainstream education. DD's IQ is in the +3SD range, and her verbal reasoning abilities were above the ceiling of the usual tests. She is doing well in a normal French comprehensive school which offers little in the way of differentiation (has skipped one year). If anything, school has been more difficult for her brother who is bright but not exceptionally so.

From what I've seen, bright girls with strong verbal reasoning abilities tend to do well in mainstream schools regardless of how exceptionally able they are. It is much more difficult for boys (perhaps because academic excellence is less easy to cope with for boys generally), for children who have uneven abilities (eg maths and science kid who struggles with writing), and for children who are gifted but also learning disabled (eg dyslexic). It helps if there are other very able students, in order to maintain motivation - dd is exceptionally fortunate to be in a class with two other girls who are extremely able.

[tenderbuttons]

I actually do thing the terminology makes a difference. The use of the phrase G&T for the top ten percent has really muddied the waters, because the needs of the top 10% are very different from the needs of the gifted, if you take that definition of two standard deviations or above. So now there isn't a word to use to describe that population, and a school will go 'oh we have g&t provision, which isn't necessarily what that smaller group need.

I do actually think that standard deviations are the way to go, not least because they take IQ numbers out of the equation. So one standard deviiation is mummytime's bright. Two standard deviations is gifted. Three is where it gets difficult. I have seen an American document which actually sets this out quite well in terms of the accommodations that are appropriate for each SD, and it's interesting reading. Two standard deviations, and a teacher should be able to cope by setting extra work. Three, and you are looking at skipping (or a dedicated gifted classroom or selective school). By four you are looking at individualised orovision, and five they basically say, yiou are doomed, homeschool them. But what that gives you is the sense that not all gifted children remotely resemble each other, and what works for one child may not work for another.

PiqueABoo. One thing they have in America is gifted magnet schools, where the gifted population in a particular area is all sent to one school, so that provision is possible. But here we have selection by wealth - many private schools will deal well with the gifted, but if you can't afford that choices ar much more limited.

[var123]

Its all about perspective, isn't it? From my perspective, i can see that my children are both very bright. They were tested and depending on exactly what type of intelligence was being tested, they were in the top 15% through to off the scale. I don't really know how good they are, but I do know that school doesn't challenge them at all in the subjects in which they excel. I would not call them gifted but only because I think of that as sounding rather egotistical.

However, its all just a name and it doesn't begin to address the important stuff.

[mummytime]

As far as I understand "bright" doesn't equal gifted, but just stands for normally clever. In a school lots of children are "bright" much fewer are gifted.

[var123]

I think the health visitors with the dropping jaws, are, in reality, health visitors who can think of nothing useful to say when invited to marvel at a PFB's accomplishments!

Experience has probably taught them to not contradict.

About the terminology ... I don't really care what they call it, as long as they get on with dealing with it! My concern is that debates about how best to collectively describe more able / gifted /HLP/ clever/ bright children simply gives the people who should be working out how to best educate them an excuse to waste time debating appropriate terminology.

[PiqueABoo]

"Gifted has the benefit of being succinct"

Agreed, but there is a lot of embedded hostility in English (state) education to any term indicating relative ability, especially "gifted". With that in mind it was quite interesting to see Hunt revive the words "gifted and talented" via some largely worthless political gesture shortly before the general election.

Perhaps we should start talking about percentiles because they're very difficult to argue with. Well unless you understand error bars etc., in which case you're much less likely to be arguing about terminology.

" it may put off any parent or child from trying to attain"

They might also decide they'll put up a fierce fight to defy expectations. DD is like that i.e. if I want to motivate her then one very good way is to suggest that something is currently too difficult for her because she's too young or something.

It very clearly suits anti-intellectual ideologues to focus on labels, but I think they are a very minor bit-player next to the majority of secondary school children being repeatedly told what they are expected to attain courtesy of their targets, tracking and "flight paths" etc.

"outside the UK having a common definition (IQ at least two standard deviations above the average)."

The problem with 2SD is that's roughly the top 2% and assuming DD's eight-form entry school had a perfect distribution, might mean four children and I doubt that is enough weight of numbers to get the school doing anything much. Not that some do anything much when they use the local top 10%.

[JustRichmal]

Potential is a possibility of what a child could attain. Without the education it may not be realised. The flip side of this is children with less initial potential could realise more of their ability with better education. If a child is in the top 10% of the class, I would say it is not possible to separate out what portion of that is due to genes or what portion is due to being taught more. Still. both get labelled gifted in the present system. I do not know what my dd's initial learning potential was, I only care that I have helped her make the most of it.

The only reason I dislike any label is it may put off any parent or child from trying to attain, because they have been labelled with a mediocre learning potential. I would much rather a child had the attitude of the potential of succeeding than the attitude of why bother when they're not in that 10% with their magical gifted label and so will never be really any good.

I also think if people were posting "I was able to teach my 2 year old to count to 100", I would be more sympathetic, but these feats of amazing toddler achievement are always presented as something the toddler has gleaned from the ether through the power of their amazing intellect alone.

Also the number of health workers whose jaws drop at the sight of these genius children would raise serious concerns about the state of the NHS. My health visitor just used to check dd's health. The subject of dd's intellect never arouse.

Lastly intelligence itself is not an affliction. The child may have other problems, just the same as other children may.

[Mistigri]

I don't think messing with the language of giftedness really changes the underlying problem, which is that (a) any discussion of intellectual ability necessarily risks looking like you are bragging and/or being a bit pfb ;) - but that shouldn't stop you having that discussion as long as you choose an appropriate place for it and (b) children who are gifted/have high learning potential/ whatever are as different from each other as they are from less able children, so the benefits of grouping them under a single "banner" are questionable. Some have problems (often stemming not from the giftedness itself, but from particular learning or behavioural issues). Others don't. It's difficult to know in advance but the more you anticipate problems, the more you risk creating them.

I object to the high learning potential label on the grounds that it's a nonsense (all human beings have high learning potential, compared with all other mammals). Gifted has the benefit of being succinct, obvious and at least outside the UK having a common definition (IQ at least two standard deviations above the average).

[Wailywailywaily]

I do tend to avoid the posts about babies and toddlers. I certainly knew mine were gifted and talented when they were babies :)

I was really wary when I first started to lurk here and suspected that it was all stealth boasting but as I have got to recognise some regular posters I have found it more and more helpful.

[var123]

I think things have changed inthe last year or two. It used to be as described in the OP, but not so much any more.

The only exception is when someone is asking about a baby or toddler. (eg their potato paintings are dali-esque! )

Generally though Ive found everyone helpful and supportive when Ive asked for advice.

[himagain]

i think bad behaved gifted children may just be asserting their authority over a load of dumb adults and peers