Nowhere close to 'potential' but happy

[secretlemondedrinker]

Ds is 7, he has an Iq on the 99.9th percentile, at school he is working at a couple of years ahead in reading and maths but nowhere close to where he is at home or close to his potential, however he is happy at school, has friends and enjoys his time there.
I see no reason to rock the boat and unless ds starts to have any problems I won't be approaching school, am I right in this descision? or am I letting him down?

You are so very right to do exactly what you're doing (speaking with personal experience when I was a child, long story I won't bore you with).

If he's happy then I think your right to leave him for now. It wasn't clear whether your ds is not showing his potential himself or you felt that the school weren't aware of it x

If I can just throw a spanner in the works.

I was happy at school, and was also ahead of my peers despite working within myself - and I believe that it was that experience of not really making any effort but getting good results that has made my work life as an adult somewhat more difficult - those habits you don't realise you are learning are hard to break.

I think that you are right in your decision as long as:
a) he continues to be happy with his friends
b) he is learning via some means to strive, to try new things, to publicly fail and try again (which is what AnswersToAnything is hinting at I think)
c) he is not in a constant state of frustration

Just watch out for him getting bored. And yes, he needs to fail/not understand, it is part of learning. My 8 year old is about GCSE level at maths. He became obsessed at about 5. We had exactly the same dilemma and I didn't want to be a pushy parent. For a long time I encouraged his fascination with numbers but was resolute not to do anything pushy.

But he needs to be at that level just to keep his mind alive. He started to hate maths at school because it was so boring and it became a problem. We actually moved school and he now, very luckily for him, he has one to one maths lessons.

At his previous school they just gave him extension sheets which didn't even start to satisfy him. Now he talks about maths with shining eyes.

So I would say, review the situation constantly.

As it happens we've just decided - after two weeks of gut-wrenching hand-wringing deliberation and to-and-froing - to keep our highly advanced dd (8) in her nice but ordinary school rather than taking up an offer from a more successful school down the road.

Happiness, a creative and inspiring teacher and a steady peer group were some of the reasons. I also think we can get too hung up on the idea of learning as a linear trajectory. People learn new things sometimes in a formal sequential fashion, or sometimes just as bits of a jigsaw out of the blue. Often the effectiveness of learning those bits has much more to do with happiness, safety and intrinsic motivation than someone telling you you're a 4B so you have to do such-and-such to become a 4A. Then we might revisit the bits some time later (again, because they are fascinating and relevant) fill in some of the gaps, and reinforce them.

The formulation of levels and targets at schools has a lot to answer for. It's based on a false conception of learning that is unrealistically linear and fails to take into account the role of subjective meaning to the person learning.

They're little kids. If he's finding school fun and interesting, likes being there, and it reinforces a sense of emotional safety within which he can explore - and if he's going outside the boundaries at home anyway - then just be happy.