The glass ceiling for very able children

[var123]

Has anyone else encountered the sense that the school is merely paying lip service to the ideals that they will challenge all children and work to bring all the children in the class to their potential?

I bumped along it a couple of days ago in a face to face conversation with one of the teacher's at my children's secondary.

He was full of buzzwords (like resilience and challenge) but there was a complete vacuum when it came to detail about how he planned to achieve that wrt to my children. In fact, he kept lapsing into telling me how my DC might help the others "by inspiring the less able".

Honestly, has there ever been a human being born into this world, who feels inspired to keep ploughing away at something due to being in the presence of someone who learned to do it without breaking stride?? People who struggle and then succeed are the inspiring ones because they make you feel like if you can do it, then maybe you can too. The ones who always find it easy and are just waiting for you to catch up so they can move on are just disheartening to contemplate.

I am sorry I don't agree. No state school or 6th form college will take on students with As and Bs to resist GCSEs.

out whe have have a similar thing here- mature students can attend University without a GCSE!
Rose a lot of apprenticeships for young people run an academic qualification, grade C (or equivalent), alongside to 'upgrade' those that didn't achieve a C.
Having said that, this discussion has deviated from Var's original post.
I don't consider my DD (Yr 7) to be GnT =despite= having=passed=L6=Maths=SPAG=and Reading=papers =last=year.
She is 'bright' , in my opinion.
To borrow Var's analogy, I would describe her as a V Dub Camper Van, that sadly, was '=sorned=, or not , given the area we live in!

red I don't disagree it's important, I just think it's secondary to the mental frustration and disillusionment of an able child being ignored. Entrance requirements aside, I also think that a child who has never found anything academically challenging in school would be at a massive disadvantage when at degree level they suddenly have to think, and not just coast through.

So not dismissing what you're saying at all, just saying it has a bigger impact than the grade alone.

Seriously. The sooner we get rid of the increasingly anomalous insistence on externally moderated testing at the end of KS4, the better. In a system of compulsory education to 18, it's a ridiculous distraction.

I just think there is something wrong in this country about education system. In my country, everybody have to take entrance exam, private or state, to enter high school. So, there will be not so much difference in ability/attainment among children in high school. They can choose which uni to go and take entrance exam, but it's pretty much decided by which high school you go, unless you work really hard. But it's possible to go to top uni, if you work really hard, even if you are in not so good high school. It seems to work well. And my country always comes up as one of the top country in international thing.

Well this thread has really disintegrated. Its not about giving high achievers privilege or the negligible difference between an A and an A. It about kids for whom an A is almost an irrelevance because they go through school already knowing almost everything they are taught. Grammar school expansion or an 11+ would make no difference for them. It would cost zero extra to run a few schools for specifically gifted pupils.

Again, bolognese, where shall we put these 'few schools'?

One near to your house, obviously....

but what about the - five? ten? others we'd need?

Bertrand

I have agreed with most of what you have said, but disagree to a certain extent about GCSE's.
Of course options will be narrowed or limited without Maths and English, but you'd be surprised what can be achieved and accepted as a substitute.

I don't have a GCSE to my name, but have a HND, Hons Degree 2.1 (proud moment), several pg management certs, a couple of pg Social Science Masters level courses, a PgCE and a level 2 C&G in Maths and English.
The maths being my proudest moment ever.

Those who are failed at school can go on to achieve far more than they ever imagined.

Even if we're looking at one percent of the total student population, that's only 80000 kids (from early years to KS5). I suppose we could put one of your super-selective frees in every county, and assume an even distribution of 'gifted' children throughout England, Wales and N. Ireland - plus that every family with such a child would be willing and able potentially to commute from one end of a county to another.

But really, wouldn't it be easier simply to drop the pretence that students can be divided into three, four or five 'slices' of ability, and instead, teach them as individuals?

Mind you, I imagine that a system suggesting that 'gifted' kids are as common as one in a hundred wouldn't go down too well on here. It's tricky, isn't it!

You could just make them with a boarding option multi. That way you could do entrance as a national exam, so you didn't end up with one areas ss harder to enter than another.

Tbh though, I don't think that's the only way. You could just offer classes composed of all the local comprehensives most able at a college or similar. Same as some vocational courses are. That way you could tailor it to the individual child.

Even with the ideal of all kids taught individually in a mixed group, it doesn't really work. You couldn't realistically have one child doing latin and classics while another learns basic literacy. Or have one studying ks4 physics while the other is learning column addition.

Neither does it allow for academic peers. I didn't think it was that important till dd started her secondary, it's only now I'm aware how much she was missing out on.

There already are additional classes, courses etc that HLP children can access; and yes, there could - probably should - be more of them. I think online, student-led learning via sites like Khan etc. should be much more widely and heavily promoted, too. As I mentioned earlier, my kids are making use of this kind of approach for maths in Y6 and it works really well, without removing them from a comprehensive setting.

And as for academic peers - well, yes, that is always going to be an issue for someone who is by definition in a tiny, tiny minority, isn't it? Most in that situation, including the 'merely very able' (like me ) meet them for the first time at university. Which was fine.

Boarding doesn't suit every child, or every family. I would be concerned about a system that used that level of segregation to cater for the most able, when other options are possible.

As you mentioned earlier lurked, the issue isn't about grades. It's about engagement. Obsession with the former - by parents, mostly, but fuelled thanks to the impact on schools of league tables - is massively damaging, imo, to the latter.

A year ago multi I would have agreed with you. Dd was y6, and despite being in a cohort that was lower than average academically, they really did cater to her needs as much as was practically possible. Her work was always differentiated, and in maths she did her own thing entirely. It didn't maximise her potential, or really stretch her, but she was engaged and happy which was enough imo. And I would have been more than happy with a secondary the same.

Unfortunately, her secondary options were crap. So I desperately pursued independent, despite not being able to pay any fees. And with a combination of scholarship and bursary it paid off. Setting aside all the trimmings, the educational difference is astounding. As is the social side of learning, because dd actually has friendly rivalry for the first time. (Not saying private makes a brighter cohort, but big names have more than their share, especially when their bursary pot means they can take more than one child from non fee paying homes).

I have nothing but praise for her primary, and the staff. They worked miracles given its other problems, and even with a decent budget for g&t provision they couldn't have done much more. Unless you get into silly spending like hiring latin/ mfl/ science teachers for one child. But what they couldn't do was give her an academic peer group, and I think she'd miss out so much if she'd continued at a secondary with equally brilliant teaching, but as an outlier.

To be fair, lurked, you don't know what her experience might have been in the 'crap' secondary options she had - or perhaps you sent her there and then moved her; but in that case, you don't know what her experience might have been like in a state secondary with genuinely individualised teaching.

In either case, though, 'desperately pursuing' private education, and pulling it off by the skin of one's teeth, is hardly an ideal situation, is it? Not to mention the fact that you might well have deprived one or more similarly able children of an academic peer in the state system by syphoning your child off through selection... happy to sacrifice unknown student's possible advantage in order to promote that of your own child in this case...?

multi, put the schools ANYWHERE, parents of gifted pupils are desperate they will move house (including me), the idea of an online school sounds very cost effective. Individual teaching sounds great but we dont have the money for it! And quite frankly gifted pupils just need to be left alone with a few book, so individual teaching would probably be a waste of resource.

Sorry, I'm not following you - is individual teaching 'great', or 'a waste of resource'?

And if 'gifted pupils just need to be left alone with a few book [sic]'... why on earth do you want a school for them at all?

As mentioned earlier, my kids will have access to individualised teaching next year, at a non-selective state school. It is possible.

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't move house to be near it, though.

some gifted children do very well with just a few books. that's why i'm not certain that what gifted children need is more books and more teaching. i think they also benefit from life; travel museums great plays other opportunities. opportunities that sadly i don't think the state can or should provide. as it was mentioned upthread the able will usually do well with or without support.
as for segregating them and teaching them together the gifted group has varied talents...artistic and sporting don't seem to be included in your country retreat boarding school.

Surely a separate school for gifted children would just have the same issues but moved up? There will always be a scale of "giftedness"- and what about children who are gifted in one subject but not others. And how do you define "giftedness"? There can't be many of the "never had to work at all ever in Secondary school" type. I know there's someone on here whose child was coasting to 10 A*s without doing any work at all- but they must be vanishingly rare, surely- so wouldn't really have a peer group even in a specialized school?

multi trust me, her state school choices were crap. One is a shithole with problems in every area, I wouldn't leave a plant I liked in their care. And was also the one she was allocated. The second doesn't have a bad ethos, and for a child just under average to low achieving is very good. It's just not any good for more able or high achievers. I did enough research to know.

Like I said, another secondary that I have every reason to believe is as great as her primary, we'd never get a place at.

I'm actually very proud my gamble paid off, because my dd is accessing a suitable education. I do know dd is loving having some academic peers, because she tells me so. She's experienced excellent individual learning, and having peers to learn alongside, so I think she's qualified to say which is more enjoyable.

As to leaving other able kids behind alone at either, I'd say the same if it was reversed. Better one gets a chance than both being doomed to a none academic education at a school that is like a caricature of a 60's secondary modern. And tbh, my dds education isn't a social experiment. Nor is the burden of a sink school or other kids education. You could send 60 able kids in the next y7 with sharp elbowed parents and short of sacking half the staff you'd get nowhere.

Unless you've earmarked an undersubscribed shit hole with a well deserved bad reputation in every area, that anyone with interest and choice will do anything to avoid, I don't think you're in a position to judge my choices.

Multivac- may I ask how you know what your DD will experience next year at a new school?

I don't know what will happen to DS1 next year at his current school.

I had an expectation when DS1 was in year 6 that the secondary school was going to take care of him. I'd done as much research as I reasonably could. We were at a feeder school, so there were lots of parents I could speak to who had actual experience of the secondary through their older DC. Everything was positive, so I hoped that nothing would substantially change - like the HT leaving - by the time my DC got there and all would be fine.

Just to explain, my DC are able enough to be in the top sets for almost all subjects and to do the work, pretty much getting top marks or close in every test, without actually making any particular effort. However, maths is the only subject that they are extremely bored in. They could be set much more complex questions and still be able to do them without assistance, but maybe they would have to stop to think. Both boys have complained to me about the maths being too easy and the boredom and frustration that they experience.

So, for maths only, I approached the school to ask about harder work. I could've gone to other depts too, because I am sure they could cope with a faster pace generally, but I only asked the maths dept as it is the only subject that is causing rebound stress on my sons. This is how I found out that once you are at the top of the top set and still need more, the school will blind its eyes and deafen its ears.

I don't think I could've found that out without actually having been in the situation. If my DC were only as good in maths as they are in the other subjects, which is still very good, I'd never have found out and continued in blissful ignorance.

Also, unlike Lurkedforever1, I didn't have crap options for state comprehensives. The state comprehensive that my Dc attend get some of the best results on the country and is widely feted as being a model for other schools.

Actually bertrand I think you could do it. Even viewing it from the perspective of dds maths set, where I guess ability ranges from reasonable effort to a*, to kids beyond that ability, while the curriculum itself might not be offering enough, there is enough teacher time and motivation to offer those beyond that level stimulation. Dds primary did it with a mixed cohort, but the difference is, with a highly able cohort the teacher doesn't need to be amazing, and there is no staff dilemma of needing the best teachers for the lowest achievers.

I do think there is something in the fact most able children aren't equally able across the board, which is why I think a subject based outreach program would work better. And solve the problem of fair places being awarded. But failing that, super selectives would be better than the current non offering of able provision. ( I know some schools and teachers do offer excellent able provision, but the system itself has no policy)