Could you talk to me abot what happens in secondary schools with G&T children?

[KevinAndMe]

As I have no idea how the system works (Not british...).

Basically dc1 is starting secondary this year. He has spent most of his primary year being bored/finding things easy even though all the teachers have recognised that he is way ahead.

He has had one teacher with a solid background in maths/science who has commented that his knowledge & understanding in science was at GCSE level. He was in Y5... A lot of the other teachers just haven't been able to understand what the heck ke is going on about (and then some have grown quite ressentful about it).

Now this is a background where we have NOT being teaching him anything at home. He learnt from books and TV programs and asking questions.

Now that he is in Y7, what can I expect from school? They are streaming from Y7 in maths, Y9 in science but will that really be enough to finally challenge him a bit?
If not, what would you advise to do to keep him interested? I don't want to 'teach him' new concepts as such. This will just widen the gap even more. But what else could I do?

I'm afraid OP, you will have to wait and see.

Some schools are far better at educating their most able pupils, than others.

It's a shame that proper setting is not being quickly introduced, as IME, that it a huge help to ensuring the high ability pupils receive adequate challenge.

Just because they aren't set doesn't mean there isn't differentiation. There will be some sort of parent meeting early on in the term - you can ask then.

Differentiation is second best to setting IME.

A mixed ability set studying the same concept, with differentiation, will still have the concept itself and the speed dictated by middle ability (generally the biggest grouping).

A set of all high ability pupils will work on different concepts altogether and at a faster pace (or should do).

Dd's experience of high school has been in sets

Yr7 was spent repeating stuff that dd had covered in primary school -lots of primary feeder schools so lots of differences in depth of curriculum covered in different areas

Yr8 was spent going through topics at a phenomenal pace with dd putting tons of pressure on herself to remain top whilst its a memory test rather than learning and understanding

Yr 9 remains to be seen

Didn't you ask the school when you viewed schools? What criteria did you use to select his school?

One of the first questions we asked when viewing primaries was what happens to the children that can already read and write. Some answers were woeful tbh.

Oh, and don't assume that just because setting doesn't happen, the classes won't be arranged on prior attainment basis. I think lots of schools do this unofficially.

I would have if there had a been a choice in which school he was going to go.

Unfortunately, we only have two secondary nearby, oner of which he would never have had a place as it is massively oversubscribed (think people within catchement don't always get a place. We are about 500m out said catchement). One religious school also overscubscribed and we would fit the criteria (which includes going to church every week for the last whatever number of years).

Any other decent school would mean a 30~25mins journey by car (if we could get a place)

The school dc1 is going to IS a good school with good results which is a food point.

Emochild that's what I have been told too by parents of children who have gone through that school. Hence why I'm asking how to best ensure he is keeping his interests and isn't getting too bored.
The pattern I'm seeing at the moment is him getting bored again and again and then then not quite liking to go to school and sort of disengaging from it.

Ah, Hobson's Choice, eh?

I think you need to look at other things that broaden his learning.
Have you seen coursera and memrise? They have lots of different subjects on there, all levels.

I would still speak to school and find out what they can offer in terms of differentiation.

One difficulty with self-taught maths is sometimes the foundations are missing, just the higher-level concept is grasped. It may be that he has huge gaps in his knowledge that need filling in before he goes off too far at a tangent.

Hopefully the novelty of having a timetable with lots of new teachers, in different settings, and new subjects will engage him. At least in the short term. Which will give you a chance to assess.

Depends on the schools attitude entirely. The one dd isn't catchment for will do their best to stretch them. The awful catchment school will do fuck all, even if you turn up with the gcse already. Except perhaps claim credit for it.
However in fairness at a good secondary school I'd say you have a decent chance, because you aren't limited to the opinion of what perhaps is one mistaken teacher.

I fully agree with gaps in knowledge! And not just with maths but also in science. Sometimes, too, he has understood things not quite right but of course, no one has ever corrected him.

I'll have a look at the two sites you mentioned and see if I can find something that will interest dc1. Would they offer things where you can go deeper into the subject but wo neede new knowledge (eg principles are the same but would need a 3 or 2 step approach rather than 1 or 2 steps ?)

The school has specified parents should come and chat with teachers if they think the child is struggling or finding things too easy .... that didn't fall into death ears!

I can tell you about one outstanding secondary comprehensive school. However I have no idea what other schools do, except that this school tends to do whatever is considered best practice so other schools probably do something similar.

Ds1 is going into year 9 this week. He was top set all the way through primary school, and never really challenged.
Primary school tended to aim for 2 sublevels of progress per year, but they were happy enough with 1.5 and would even accept 1 (plateauing). Whereas, secondary school looks for 3 sublevels.
This was great for DS1 in year 7. In maths, he was a 6 in year 6, but in year 7, his target was 7a. The pupils were split into sets and the work was definitely more challenging than primary school. He got the 7a.

The following year, Y8, the target was 8b. He got 8a after 4 months. However, now some of the top set students were labouring away still stuck on level 7, so it became a mixed ability class once again, just like at primary school. DS1 was bored and unchallenged for most of the year.

It was as if someone had opened the valve just a little bit wider, he'd responded to the challenge and now he had to learn to wait for the others to catch up again (just like primary school).

The head of department and the teachers spoke of differentiation within the top set, but, just like primary school, it wasn't really differentiated work: just more of the same offered in a slightly more complex way. So, DS1's experience was more or less the same as it had been in primary

Science, English, MFL and PE were also set by year 8, and it was the same story there as in maths.

At Ds1's school the top set get less homework than the lower sets - actually they get none. However, I hear parents of children in the lower sets talk of three hours per night. I suspect that the explanation is that each set gets taught the same things at the same time with some classwork and some homework. However, the top set do their homework in the lesson. This enables the school to move children between sets without the need for catching up.

The big difference at secondary are the school clubs. They are like a visit to the science museum, and the only place where DS1 can access something new. That worked well in year 7, but by year 8, the need to avoid being labelled a "geek" got in the way.

SheGot yes dc1 is all excited by the timetable etc...

The other thing I'm hoping is that dc1 will find children with similarish abilities that he can relate to. He is very good at socialising but basically he feels the odd one out and that he has no one to share what really excites him (apart from us, parents, but that can't be the same ).
That then creates another set of problems, ie not saying things by fear of looking ike the 'nerdy one' again.

*var1238 yep I'm seen the same thing happening with not wanting to be the 'geek'.

Up to the point that I'm now insisting I am a geek too and that's OK.

var how do you keep you dc involved in his learning?

I don't for maths. However, after I posted it got me thinking what his target will be this year (Y9)? I suspect he will be given a level 8a again. So, I wondering if I could set him his own private target of a A at GCSE (i.e. take the test at home next April or May using a past paper)? I'll see if he'll go for that and I'll offer to teach him.

As to the rest, we keep him well-supplied with books. He likes documentaries so we watch those with him. DH has deep general knowledge, so they talk all the time about geography/ politics/ history/ medicine / scientific breakthroughs etc. DS1 loves talking about stuff like that, so DH can do it and I'll join in sometimes (and try not to act bored for the rest!).

We do day trips and usually find something to talk about. e.g. we were in Lynmouth, Devon last week and DH was talking with DS about the geography and about the flood in 1953. Then I said something in French and DS2 couldn't understand it so we went through the verb "etre".

God we sound boring when I read that back! DS1 loves it though and DS2 just zones out and starts thinking about his latest video game. I do not think we hot house our children, but when I look at that list, and remember we've been doing this for years, maybe its not surprising that both our sons are doing well at school?

Not boring at all. It sounds exactely what we are doing at home!

DH and I have different strengths so Dh is all about explaining engineering, going on about history and the industrial revolution etc...
I do the more general scientific stuff, medicine, politics and general knowledge.
And yes we do A LOT of museums etc too.

dc2 seems to be coping with it and is clearly still taking a lot out of it too.

The idea of setting his own target is a good one actually. I'm going to dig that one out too.

Bumping for the evening crowd

I don't think my daughter was ever really challenged by coursework in early secondary, but it didn't seem to matter that much. She has always found stimulation outside of school (music and writing mainly). She has never been stretched in class, but a couple of her teachers providing a broader challenge outside the formal curriculum (for eg she participated in a history competition last year, which involved writing a dissertation on concentration camp survivors' experiences after the end of WW2 - she did this with two other students both of whom are probably gifted).

She has just got fairly exceptional grades in her school leaving diploma (we are not in the UK) so a laissez faire approach does not appear to have done any harm.

For me this issue at this age is not pushing them to advance ever further in the curriculum, but to ensure that they don't disengage. It's been harder with my DS (going into Y9) than his objectively much more gifted sister. The difference seems to be that he is less of an autodidact his sister, he wants to be taught whereas she wants to learn.

Agree about keeping them interested.
I think it also depends on what is their strong subject. It's hard to learn about chemistry it physics wo someone teaching you some basics.

Dd's secondary (state academy) teach to a level rather than age in the core subjects and then in more traditional ability sets (just with her own year) for the other subjects . She went into the top mixed yr 7/8 class last year for maths . She did not seem to go over old primary stuff at all and it was full on hit the ground running as soon as she started.
Last year ( year7) was the best school year she's had for a long time.
They also teach year 9/10 & 11's together in GCSE classes
This structure is part of the reason we chose the school .
Primary school was difficult once she got into juniors and she had to find challenges outside of school to keep her buzzing. This helped a lot.

What sort of challenges did she do trout?

First day at school yesterday.
Dc1 had maths and the teacher asked them to do ... Column additions with two and 3 digits. Column subtraction with 2 and 3 digits again.
Dc1 had fully mastered that in Y3....

I really hope the streaming will help!

Don't panic OP.

The first few sessions will be a dance through of basics.

My DC have just gone into sixth form at one if the most academically selective schools in the UK and fully expect to have to a few ground covering sessions.