Starting school - advice please

[MyAngels]

Hi
DS is 4.5 and starts school in September. I appreciate he hasn't been officially titled G&T, but I know that he must have "high learning potential" (is that the better phrase?) and I thought posting here would put me in less danger of "bragging", than posting elsewhere..

If you had a gifted child (and you suspected they were, when going into Reception), how did you manage that with the teachers? Did you tell them your suspicions, and risk getting the "I'm a professional, its my job to educate/socialise him, I'll take it from here, thank you.." response (we got this from his preschool teacher), or keep quiet, wait till they notice and come to you?

My DS's abilities seem to have gone ballistic in the last few months, starting to read (on his own), adding up (begs me to do adding with him - can now do number bonds to 10 easily, to 20 with a bit more effort), learnt to tell the time this week - yesterday I found him searching on iplayer for his beloved Dolly Parton (we went to Glastonbury!) by typing "dolie" in the search line with no help from me....

I'm trying not to do too much with him for fear of looking like a pushy parent, but will, of course, answer him and show him if he asks me something.

We have had trouble at preschool with him - not doing as told, defying teacher, not sitting on carpet etc. His new reception teachers (job share) are aware of these aspects (which of course need attention), but I'm just not sure how best to approach them about his more intellectual abilities. We have a 30 minute meeting with the teachers arranged for the Friday before he starts in September, by the way.

Any advice very welcome, thanks.

Chebame and tender please promise me that you will stick around on MN because I would love to have this conversation with you again when your DCs have done their GCSEs.

Cheebame

My children don't worry about standing out. If only.

why, just out of interest?

If it told you, you would just say I was wrong.

You'll see

I never said a word. I knew the teachers were qualified to do their job and would pick up that DD was eager to learn and very bright.

Aged 2 she was counting, reading, writing her name, knew the correct terms for all the moon shapes (nursery staff not happy to be corrected), could tell the time and could tell instantly how many items in 2 piles of things without counting.

She is now 10 and still very bright, learns for fun, found errors in school text books and is very keen to publish her first book.

Just let him learn but yes, far more important that he learns to do as he is told than you tell the teachers he is clever. Be wary of blaming his unacceptable behaviour on the fact he is bored. He could just not want to do as he is told.

Now you are just trying to be goady.

But given that I was also gifted as a child - and have a pretty good idea of the range of DD's abilities too - perhaps my idea of where she will be might actually be accurate. Heaven forfend.

Actually not just mine, let's not forget the two EPs and the school as well.

"Chebame and tender please promise me that you will stick around on MN because I would love to have this conversation with you again when your DCs have done their GCSEs."

Innit tho.

DD1 is very academic but teachers have always picked this up and given her enough to do without me saying anything. I honestly don't think you need to worry in reception- there will be so much to get used to which is different from nursery/pre-school it will be very unlikely they are bored. Also even with a child that probably meets most of the end of EYFS requirements already the teacher will want to check there are no gaps in knowledge and go over the basics- and gosh, there is just so much for them to learn - topic work etc. The stuff DD2 has done this year in reception is amazing - every day's a school day for me!

As they go on through the school you should be told how they are progressing according to NC levels. I think it's when they get into KS2 you have to keep an eye on progress more. But good schools will be doing this anyway.

I always recall dd1's lovely, lovely reception teacher telling the parents at the pre-start meeting how she was always as encouraged by the child who enjoyed scribbling/mark-making as the child who was writing their name/starting to form sentences - as both were 'normal and exciting' developments for the reception aged child

Goldmandra said "Chebame and tender please promise me that you will stick around on MN because I would love to have this conversation with you again when your DCs have done their GCSEs."

If you want to have a conversation in 12 years time in which I will say once more that my child at the age of 4 (or 12 years ago, as it will be then) was different than your child was at age 4 then do get in touch nearer the time.

I don't think the material fact that what I am saying about my child's experience is true will have changed, nor do I think what your child experienced as a 4 year old will have changed. Experiences are somewhat fixed in that regard. Time's a bummer like that. It only goes in one direction.

Hang on though - let's press this button that says 'Fast Forward 12 years' and see what happens. We might as well. I might be dead by then, so let's have the conversation now.

(do your own harp gliss or click here

And it's 2026.

My daughter is 16 and has GCSE English (D) only. She didn't pass anything else, and it was a struggle to get her to attend school from the age of 13.

tenderbuttons child is also 16 and has 18 GCSEs at A* and 3 A-levels at grade A and has partially completed an Open University course in Chemistry.

What are your conclusions?

I heard somewhere that early years teachers are not allowed to insist a child does something e.g. sit down and listen to a story. Also that this extends to making a child learn to count to 10, learn to read or write.

I also heard that some teachers (e.g. the new reception teacher at our local primary) are hesitant to show any child how to count, read or write in the reception year for fear it will sadden the children who did not want to learn these things when they realise they have fallen behind.

I really, truly, deeply hope that this is just an urban myth, without a grain of truth!

None of those instances of defiant behaviour seem logically attributable to being too clever to do as he's told - I'd be thinking more about that.

It's irrelevant whether he's G&T or not.

If his preschool is failing to meet his needs, if he's frustrated and bored not occasionally but all day, every day - he's unlikely to cooperate. Can you blame his? Carpet time is probably his worst torture.

It's the job of a teacher to engage all their students.

Sounds like his preschool teachers are rubbish.

Any competent, caring teacher will notice if a child is consistently unengaged - this includes the gifted/clever child who's bored, it includes the less academic child who's fallen behind and tuned out, it even includes a child who simply can't hear due to glue ear.

The problem comes when a teacher doesn't notice or doesn't care that a child is bored and disengaged. Whatever the reason.

I heard somewhere that early years teachers are not allowed to insist a child does something e.g. sit down and listen to a story.

Early Years practitioners are advised not to insist that toddlers and pre-schoolers sit down for long periods to listen to stories because making children sit and listen for longer than their attention span is a good way to teach them that books and stories are boring.

As for not teaching counting, reading or writing in Reception - I know some Reception teachers who are expected to insist the the children sit at desks and practise literacy and numeracy skills for much longer than their natural attention span allows and again, it just fosters a negative attitude to learning in those who find it a chore. it has nothing to do with what other children think of it.

The EYFS encourages teachers to offer learning opportunities through play because children learn much better from activities they lead themselves and they choose to engage in tasks for as long as they are interested, working at the level that are right for them that day. This is a much more effective way for them to learn than being sat in front of a task they dislike, not allowed to move until it is completed.

Okay, I will have a go at trying to explain why the 'come back in 12 years' comment is worth thinking about.

First off, the gaps between children's achievements at 4 or 5 are not necessarily predictive in any tidy way of where these children will be at age 9 or age 15. It's nice when they learn something quickly, but it doesn't necessarily translate into effortless high achievement throughout their school career. Gaps in maturity and attainment are particularly noticeable in early primary, and what some of the posters here are trying to point out is that it's important not to over-read a child's attainment at any particular point, especially early on in their school career.

Secondly, and more importantly, there are children whose development does not follow a linear path, and who are definitely 'quirky' in some way. Some of these children will have very high academic achievement in some in some or many areas. BUT you can bet London to a brick, that there will be other things that will not come so naturally to them, whether that's social, sensory, behavioural, memory, whatever.

IME (and I have a couple of these not-entirely-neurotypical children myself, and know lots of other parents with non-standard-issue kids) it is very easy to focus on the child's high academic achievements (which may range from slightly above average to stratospherical) and encourage them to play to their strengths. The danger here is that the child and the parents focus on the things that come naturally to the child, while undervaluing the things the child finds difficult. You probably won't want to hear this, but I will say it anyway - it is easier and more dangerous to miss a trick in terms of the child's social, emotional and behavioural aspects than it is to risk them being intellectually understimulated.

Yes, there are individual teachers and indeed whole schools that are crap at dealing with quirky children, and you do need to make sure that the school have some idea of what makes your child tick and are providing them with input of some kind that will keep them busy and interested. BUT the highest academic stimulation in the country is not going to make your child a happy functioning teenager if they haven't got a handle on the rules of social and emotional interactions. If they are happy and settled, with a good peer group and a sensible teacher, then the academic side of things will take care of itself, bearing in mind you can provide lots of enrichment out of school and the school is providing a varied diet including lots of social and sensory as well as academic experiences.

FWIW, with all children I know who fit into this 'quirky' category (aspects of eg. ADD, ASD, dyspraxia, sensory processing disorder etc etc), the really bad outcomes have been where parents have prioritised the child's academic needs over the social and emotional ones - bad outcomes being things like the child getting kicked out of school because child can't comply with behavioural demands and school can't or won't support them, or variations on the theme of child developing school refusal or other MH problems, or just dropping out post-16.

By far the most positive outcomes for these children have been where the parents have consciously prioritised finding a school that will support the child as an individual, socially, behaviourally and emotionally, rather than choosing a school that will just focus on their (undoubted) high academic potential.

Great post frogs

I agree with all of that. Which is why we took her out of school one day a week for outdoor learning when she was at the old school. Which is why we praise her for her efforts in PE, or learning to ride a bike, when she's borderline dyspraxic far more than we do her schoolwork.

But quite often the child who isn't working at 15 is the bright one who has learned to coast, or to give up out of frustration, much earlier. I know, that was very nearly me. So that's why we moved DD when the academics were falling apart, because she was already learning that if she didn't try at all, no one minded. And so why should she bother? To see her lose her previous joy in finding things out was grim.

And we do know how bright she is: we got her tested precisely because we thought that she might be a precocious reader and that was it. She's in the top 0.5%. Perhaps she will choose not to be academic, that's entirely up to her. But if she wants to steam ahead, I'd like her to have the chance to. And that's as much about learning to learn in primary as it is about anything else.

[post edited by MNHQ]

What a fantastic post, Frogs

Not many posts teach me something entirely new Frogs, but yours did. Thank you.

I agree with rocketjam-and if he really is gifted it will show up fairly quickly. I think that sometimes people underestimate what some other children can do at the same age. e.g. children who can already read.

She's in the top 0.5%

Of children who have been tested, presumably?

I expect it's figure derived from the distribution curve associated with the test, SuburbanRhonda so it will be 0.5% of the population as a whole.

I'm not sure what your point is though?

Delphiniumsblue said " if he really is gifted it will show up fairly quickly"

Maybe - the OPs child has an advantage in this regard being a boy. It's a little different for girls:

Kramer (1985) found that teachers were usually able to identify gifted boys, but were often surprised to learn that a girl was considered smart. The gifted girls in her study were very successful at hiding their intelligence and in silencing their voices. In another analysis of research about adult perceptions of girls’ intelligence, Myra and David Sadker (1994) stated that “study after study has shown that adults, both teachers and parents, underestimate the intelligence of girls”

www.sengifted.org/archives/articles/social-and-emotional-issues-faced-by-gifted-girls-in-elementary-and-secondary-school

I'm not sure anyone is suggesting choosing a school purely on academic criteria, frogs but I skimmed a few posts.

I don't entirely agree with "the academic side of things will take care of itself, bearing in mind you can provide lots of enrichment out of school and the school is providing a varied diet including lots of social and sensory as well as academic experiences" because the academic side will only "take care of itself" if the child has access to appropriate resources and is allowed to use them despite this perhaps meaning they are basically doing their own curriculum. I don't at all agree that school is doing a good job is an academically gifted child is relying on enrichment out of school for intellectual stimulation. School should be as challenging and enriching in every way - emotional, intellectual and so on - for each child.

No-one would accept a school where 'average' children were not intellectually stimulated on the grounds that 'well, they can do all that out of school' regardless of how enriching it was socially. The parents of gifted children just want school to be the same experience for their child as it is for any other.

I expect it's figure derived from the distribution curve associated with the test, SuburbanRhonda

Gosh, really?