What is your school doing with their highest achievers under the new NC?

[amillionusernameslater]

I'm very about the new approach to G&T pupils of deepening not letting them learn new things.

What are others' schools doing with those who are well ahead of year group expectations in maths in particular?

Sorry auto correct fail!!
It was supposed to be mindfulness technoques

Yes, depression and stress have been issues in the past. That's why I am so hyper-alert when I see him cry.

I hope its just normal teenage angst or hormones, and I keep reassuring myself that it could just be that, but until I know that that the cause is nothing more serious, I feel stressed and anxious myself.

You make me worry for my DD1. My beautiful six year old who can be drawing butterflies one moment and labelling a diagram of Jupiter's Moons the next. Who told a family friend yesterday that her favourite things to read are Murderous Maths and Rainbow Fairies. Whose favourite TV programmes are Cosmos and Strictly.

She's already starting to feel the pressure of being different. Last week she wrote a letter to Blue Peter last week asking why girls weren't allowed to like space. And I'm already going into parents evenings with the expectation that I am going to have to fight for her. She's quiet and shy and physically the smallest in her class by far. It's so easy to overlook her, and also for her to be overwhelmed by the largest children.

How do I manage not to be 'that parent' and yet still make sure that she is getting the opportunity to reach her potential?

I feel exactly the same.

I just saw on the other primary thread, that a teacher posted,

" Our training on the new curriculum stated that children MUST NOT be taught objectives from the year above in order to extend their learning."

If the teacher's hands are tied what can we do as parents?

var do you think part of it could be him turning his intelligence on himself so to speak? So all the usual teenager stuff, plus the other complications, combined with the ability to over analyse himself? But with his actual ability being ahead of his years, he's coming up with the wrong answer if that makes sense?
My problem was home life not friends, but I remember from about 13 to 17 being very analytical of myself, and I had the intelligence to do it in extreme detail. But I didn't have the maturity to pick up on the fact I was over analysing myself and others behavior towards me, and therefore sometimes coming to the wrong conclusions. And as well like any experiment where you only test to prove, rather than disprove your hypothesis, it's easy to come to the wrong conclusion.

And that post is all muddled for all it is heartfelt. Both my husband and I struggled at school because we didn't quite fit in. And me because I was bored and not stretched academically. We are trying to find ways to stop history repeating itself.

Thanks for all your replies.

By way of reassurance that it might happen to your child, I can say that its not guaranteed. I have two very able children. DS1 is just as I describe, but DS2 is popular and outgoing with lots and lots of friends. DS2 is easy going, well adjusted and he just takes everything in his stride. The only thing that ever upsets Ds2 is when he gets it into his head that we don't value him in the way we do Ds1.

Lurkedforver, I think you have it exactly right. He uses his intelligence to construct a negative theory and then prove it to himself. If he had the maturity of an adult, to match his ability to argue like an adult, then he wouldn't construct the theory in the first place, or at least, he'd be able to balance it with evidence against his hypothesis so that it was less damning. If one of his teachers or his parents tell him he has got it wrong, that he has a distorted interpretation, then he just says "well you would say that, wouldn't you?!"

My ds said to me once, that he felt like a ghost at school one day, that nobody was interested in him, or what he says. HE IS ONLY 7!!!

I am so glad that I found MN, at least I can feel like I'm not alone, that I have to be strong to protect my child.

The thing is, my experience in being a G&T child in another country is telling me that it will never be easy.

In France, they will move children a year, two years, 4 years ahead to match their ability in the classroom. But the issue is well known. One year is OK, but 2 or more years ahead as a teenager is fraught with issues as they are maturing so quickly. So you end up with a child that is not bored at school but you have to deal with the fact that they are surrounded by people more mature than them (ie having a bf/gf etc...) and they are still 'a baby' compare to them.
The answer there is to move children as much as they can compare to their ability but to give them lots of support at home, see a counsellor to help them deal with the situation. One good thing is that, because they are intelligent kids, someone explaining things to them is enabling them to, at least, theoritically understand why they are off the mark. And to then have them spend a lot of time doing extra curriculum stuff with children their age (eg sports).

I think we need to do the opposite. Give them the opportuniity to do things at their level at home whilst encouraging them to socialise with their peers. Either way, Im sure that they need support to deal with the difference of attitude/outlook.

That sounds familiar. Your ds knows they are just saying that because he's conducted a deep and thorough investigation into the matter, rather than just saying it as a moody teen spur of the moment thing, therefore it's almost impossible to convince him he's wrong. Even though deep down he probably wants desperately to be proven wrong. The only comfort I can give is that I did grow out of the self analysing, and therefore incorrectly analysing the response of others, to the wrong conclusion when my maturity caught up.

He says that they "would say that, would they" because we, as parents, love him and want to bolster him. So, we'd be prepared to lie, or at least distort reality if it saved him hurt. If he is saying something unpleasant about himself which and it can't be solve but it is causing him pain, of course we'd want to convince him to ignore it. (That's DS1's logic and to an extent he's right that's waht we would do. Except the times when he thinks we are doing it, we aren't: things are not as bad he imagines.)

He says it of teachers too. He's noticed the endless quest to deliver constructive comments and offer praise even for the mundane. He used to be frustrated by this, but now he just uses the knowledge to try to scrape the gloss of the teacher's comments so that he can find what they really mean. Basically, the determined positivity and the "celebration" of things that aren't really that special have caused him to stop trusting the teachers ability to differentiate between good and average. So, he thinks if a teacher says something nice to him, or denies that DS1 is bad in the way he thinks he is, that they are just doing their job.

It is very frustrating.

I've just come back from a meeting with school, who are deeply sympathetic and understand DD, who's eight, but at the same time know that there is only so much that they can do. Her interests are different to those of the other girls in her class, she's more mature than most of them despite being the youngest in the year, and she's not ever really going to be one of the gang.

Having said that, we've had some success over the summer with meeting children with similar interests - in her case history - and they are still Skyping and emailing each other, so that does help a bit. And while I don't like a lot of what Potential Plus does, I think their events can be a lifeline in terms of finding peers.

getin I had never heard about Potential PLus. Have you had a good experience with them?

I used to belong to potential plus (its the new name for NAGC - The National Association for Gifted Children).

I only joined when Ds1 was in year 6 and stayed just a year. My impression was that it was tailored towards helping 5-10 year olds, but didn't have much for pre-teens or teens.

The advice sheets didn't have anything that you can get better from mumsnet or internet browsing. The one to one advice takes months to organise for a 10 minute slot (or was it 15 mins) and then it was just more of the Carole Dweck type advice.

Its not that it is wrong, just that it doesn't offer much for older children. Maybe they can't be helped. I am beginning to wonder.

I can imagine. Anything that didn't directly support my theories I would attribute to a motive that in reality didn't exist, sometimes a good one, sometimes bad.
Without him needing to be the slightest bit conceited, he must also know that he's more informed/ intelligent than some adults he meets. I mean more him being aware he knows more football stats than you, or being aware his mental maths is quicker than some or even all his teachers, or that he can debate politics in more depth than the neighbour etc, rather than that he's arrogantly thinking he's superior. So in his head it must make sense that on the subject of him, there's no automatic reason to assume on this topic you or the teachers know best.

Maybe you are right but he's never said that. As far as I know, he still respects his parents and teachers and expects us/ them to know our/ their stuff, or admit the gap.

However, he's a little more intolerant of children who jump up in class with their hands waving in the air (pick me, pick me..), only to give an answer that doesn't really move things along. He thinks they just like the sound of their own voice and are demanding attention. I susepct he can be privately scornful if they don't notice that their contribution was not helpful. I hope he keeps these thoughts to himself though.

That's more the repeat offenders btw, not every child, every time!

Yes we have that with dc1 too. He really has an issue with children who jump up but give 'stupid' answers. Actually I think he is also impatient with the ones who give an answer at what should be his level .....

I do think that re accepting advise, there is also the fact that, as a teenager (or near teenager with dc1), he isn't really keen on listening mum and dad anyway lol.

I don't mean disrespectful, even in thought, just that his ability provides convenient proof he isn't automatically wrong just because of his age iyswim. But obviously you know what fits better.

Yes, dd does the peers thing too with repeat offenders, but its something she doesn't broadcast. Her main peer problem at primary was getting frustrated that others didn't follow her logic, and she had to explain lots of things that to her were obvious. Eg playing bike races on a narrow track to see who could ride fastest. Dd wanted to race individually, so nobody ended up stuck behind or on the grassy edge etc, with differing start points to accomodate wheel size, and then take average speed. Her friends just wanted to all crowd a start point and see who reached the end first and was therefore fastest cyclist. And didn't get Dds point that whilst that would be a fun race, it didn't actually show who can pedal fastest like someone had suggested finding out. Talking at cross purposes.

Yes, that's fair. DS1 knows he's clever. He knows that he can remember things and understand them and take them to the next level in a way that most people can't.

He's just getting used to the idea that some adults cannot spell or have much common knowledge. I've seen him look in amazement at adults who make stupid comments. He giggled for ages when Ds2's year 5 teacher set homework that said "Make a poster about a US State (e.g. San Francisco)".

None of that applies though to refusing to accept words of encouragement. It is the child he was, not the mature part that's beginning to arrive, that causes him to deafen his ears when someone tells him that he's bullying himself without justification. I just hope this stage passes soon, and he learns to be happy again.

TBH friends would be the solution.

I'm sure he will, and as he gets older he'll have more chance to meet like minded people, and experience things where he himself feels he fits in. It must just be tough in the meantime, not only for him, but for you too.
Interestingly enough dd does the pundit thing with racing, just unfortunately racing is too unpredictable to make a fortune from!

I just wanted to pop in and say that DH and I had a looooooooooong conversation last night about how we wish we could privately educate and what could we do to make it even a vague possibility as keep worrying how much our DS is being failed by the school. Being in a class of noisy children makes him tired and crochety at the end of the day without having learnt much at all.

The maths is not too bad, but since they are making some effort on that they ignore the literacy side of things (free reader, but only have infants school books as junior sep site).

DS hates being the 'odd one out' if they do different stuff and it's affecting how he sees school. I hate that he can't be bothered because he is 'top of the school' (his words) as it's not a good attitude for him to take forward, I think.

His teacher made a point of pointing out that he hadn't got 10/10 in his maths test last week. I am happy he didn't as it might mean they were hard enough, but she said it in a sneery way as if to prove that he's not really as good as maths as I think and the test proved it.

When a school does have pupils who are struggling and there are issues with lateness, absenteeism, kids with no English joining mid-year, etc. I do understand that my son doesn't pose enough of a problem to get more attention. I am just cross with DH and myself at not being able to remove him and help him get to a school where he will feel more 'normal'.

Anyway, just wanted to join in, not just read and despair silently.

Var123 I was not at the level of your children when I was younger (or now!) but my first experience of the general public's level of arithmetic was a Saturday job in Tesco where most of the customers paid in cash. Having done ok in state schools and in the middle of A-levels (not maths tho!) it was my first foray into just how bad people are at understanding basic concepts of 3 for 2 or just working out how much change they should have (despite a till working it out for me and them).

I always try to keep that in mind as I have gone through life. Not because I am looking down on those people, but because it always reminds me that not everyone is the same as you or had the same experiences. I also remember the old lady who I used to serve who had a concentration camp tattoo on her arm.

Basketofchocolate I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

I had a Saturday job in Woolworths, in the days when tills just did the adding up and you had to work out the change yourself. I know some people can't add accurately.

20 years later, I worked with a lovely man who had fled Nazi Germany as a child. All his family had died in the concentration camps. He managed certain rich individual's accounts, including one old lady in Argentina who he took great care to conscientiously look after for many years. Then she died and when the probate came through he learned her husband had been a SS officer. Almost definitely the money had belonged to Jewish families like his. He was devastated.

What does it show though? I don't know.

I think her point was that there is a vast range of people with very different experiences and that we, and our dcs, need to respect that, and the challenges it can pose (to them and to our dcs).

In effect, they need to become more tolerant if other people mistakes (inabilities?).
Which I agree too.

I wish people were also just as tolerant of their abilities instead of laughing at the'nerdy kid' as it was the worst thing in the world.