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.

The Los Angeles School District doesn't have 26% G&T students throughout. The economy of scale was created by the way in which the school has been set up so that students come from all over. That in itself can be a strategy. In fact part of the reason it doesn't work so well in the younger grades is that they don't pool kids so there are only a few in each school. The point I was trying to make is that it's possible to pool G&T kids from a large area, while still having them integrated into general education in the subjects where that makes sense. The school has multiple specialities that draw kids to it (G&T, Performing Arts and Special Education are the main ones). These three areas are not normally ones that are viewed as co-existing well together, but in fact they do work very well together as there are a lot of overlaps.

May i ask you, Bert, in your capacity as a school governor, with a demonstrable strong interest in G&T issues (or else you wouldn't even have posted on this thread once..), how many children are not challenged by the national curriculum at primary school and in KS3, + how many are not challenged by GCSEs in KS4?

If you can answer that, then you have your answer about the number being talked of.

I know for certain that in some cases only a couple, or even one are going for some subjects. Some subjects I imagine the numbers will be made up by the likes of shithole high, who'll send anyone that might scrape a pass in any subject. However it's a semi rural catchment, with a college in a small town, more populated areas would have enough for a class even with each school only sending one or two.

As for entry, it would need to be fluid. And assuming any classes weren't run with the sole basis of eg everyone in the maths group sitting a level on x date, mid term, never mind what year ability is noticed, wouldn't matter.

No personal experience but iirc I've heard people on here say similar is done in some areas with groups of primaries sending some kids to a local secondary for some classes. As in all y6s together, rather than being spread round existing classes.

I have absolutely no idea!

Sorry, that was to var.

var123 I would imagine that part of the problem is how does one assess whether or not children are being challenged. My ds does very poorly in a classroom setting where he's not being challenged. For example he got a terrible grade in his basic computer class in 2nd grade (age 7) because he was so bored that he just faded off into dream land. (In fact, although he ostensibly had not mastered the "basics" of computers like using Word, he was instead hacking past all the district parental controls and changing all the setting on the school computers so that he could access them at will.) Dd at a similar age was "failing" math because she couldn't add numbers in her head, but at home was easily doubling and tripling recipes with cups and tablespoon measurements.

Through most of elementary school, I was told that unless my dc's were performing at the extreme top of the chart by conventional measures, they would not be considered as not having their G&T needs met. This is still somewhat the case in high school, but I have now far more clarity about how they will get into college or move forward in life without conventional grades and indicators of such. (I do think that further education/academics are far more flexible in that way in the USA than in the UK.)

My experience is that the more flexible and varied the options are, the more likely they are to meet everyone's needs in some meaningful way.

In my capacity as a querulous parent with a personal interest and an hour to spare, I once made pretty graphs out of the then current national KS2-4 transition data. This is very dodgy, but it's more than a random guess for the GCSE not-challenged-enough: 4%. Which just happens to be the size of stanine 9.

I wasn't being entirely straightforward with my last post. The point I was trying to make was that no one bothers to find out how many children are not being challenged by the current system, because they don't matter.

Bert kept asking what about this, what about that, how many children etc. and I read it as she was trying to pick holes in a daydream about how an ignored segment of children might be educated even though it is many millions of miles from a serious threat to the status quo.

Have you considered changing schools? We picked very very academic private schools from age 4 for our children as I earn enough to pay for that - would that work for you? Some of those schools work 2 years ahead of the state schools and you only get in if you have a high IQ. You tend not to get that in state primaries although you can find it if you move to an area with state grammar schools from 11+ which again may be worth doing if you have bright children.

"Bert kept asking what about this, what about that, how many children etc. and I read it as she was trying to pick holes in a daydream about how an ignored segment of children might be educated even though it is many millions of miles from a serious threat to the status quo."

Well it's no point in having a daydream that can't work, surely? If you want solutions then we have to come up with practical ideas. I thought that's what we were talking about. But if it's just pie in the sky then carry on. Can't see the point, though.

And what do you mean by "threat to the status quo"?

The thing to add too is that we are now in a situation where there just in't enough teachers around. It's not a question of having good teachers or a good head or whatever. Its an issue with having teachers altogether, teachers that actually know their subject.

So far, I've seen dc1 (who is just in Y7) catching his science teacher who didn't know what dc1 was talking about (that was only about elements on the periodic table!).
Language teachers who don't really speak the language.
All that because there just aren't enough teachers we we are....

So yes we can/could change the system. We can/could/should challenge the situation and demand for your dcs some sort of engagement. But how on earth can we even start to ask that if the teachers are run down to the ground with no spare ressources, that actually finding teachers is an issue anyway?

I'm seen just now what a school that doesn't try and engage their brighter students can do to the mental health of said children. I see with dc1 just now. And I still can't bring myself to demand all that because I really don't think they can give that to him.

sofia you see for me, my issue is that even when they have a child who is clearly performing at a high level and HAS reached all the steps they are supposed to have, they don't always challenged them.

dc1 received his evaluation maths. Level 6 with 94%. I asked when they would be evaluating him at level 7 (or 8) and had a very non commital 'well maybe next time'.
Oh and dc1 as also been told that he would have to get used to be bored in class and go at the same pace than everyone else (in front of me - parents evening). That was just after I mentioned how disengaged dc1 was with school within a month or two from starting Y7.

The issue imo is much wider than the difficulty to evaluate children.

"go at the same pace than everyone else (in front of me - parents evening)."
What happened when you asked about differentiation? What happened when you went to the Head of Department and told him what he said?

Yes, WoodHeaven I completely agree. There are some subjects where my dc's score off the charts, but haven't been "moved up" or challenged in those subjects.

Unfortunately in the conventional approach to education you have to "assess" the child's needs in order to know what material to give them, but if you are assessing those needs with conventional tools that don't actually recognize unconventional abilities and needs then you will never acknowledge the existence of the needs.

Personally I wanted to home school my dc's but neither was interested and wanted to go to our local school. Luckily the local school has turned out to be much better than I expected. AND ds is now asking to be home schooled in the subjects where the local school can't meet his needs.

Bertrand you are offering conventional solutions to unconventional problems. I don't know about Wood, but I've tried as you suggested both in the UK and the USA and got absolutely nowhere. Usually the response is "we can't give special treatment to your child" and a complete lack of understanding what differentiation actually means.

But you start with the conventional. No teacher in an English school shod say that- it runs counter to policy. So when they do, you take it to the next level up. And then the next.

The big problem is that many people, including some teachers/ school leadership, believe 'able' means capable of getting a* at gcse. Of course that is high ability, but many people fail to see able doesn't end there except for the rarity of the genius doing a degree age 10. So when you try and explain your dc isn't in the former group, it's as though the answer comes from the view 'well they must be, because they aren't the super genius group'

Plus I think some people just can't understand ability.

And what happens when you get to ofsted level bert? Knowing full well they've already reported the same issues themselves? Do you think because the odd parent suddenly confirms something they already know that they'll do something? Because I suggest they won't. They don't bother when it's the much larger high achievers group, so B and up being failed, so I find it unlikely they'd suddenly do anything about the top most able.

Talking of Ofsted (the dreaded Wilshaw):

"The second issue we have to address is the lingering damage caused by the botched reform of our schools in the ’60s and ’70s. Let me say straightaway that I am not going to argue for selection or a return to grammar schools. But the ideologues who drove the comprehensive agenda confused equality with equity. They took it to mean that one size should fit all.

As a consequence, there was a wholesale dumbing down of standards. It meant aggressive anti-elitism.

...

I’m pleased to say that much of that nonsense has gone. There is now a growing awareness of the needs of different pupils. However, as I said at the beginning, the one-size-fits-all approach still lets down far too many, particularly at both ends of the ability spectrum. The most able are not being stretched."

A serious problem with policy on G&T in many times and places (it's the kind of thing that tends to see-saw when one approach works badly, back to another extreme that also causes problems) - is that you need totally different things for different degrees of differentiation.

So - top 10% - every school should normally be aiming to cater appropriately for these children, within standard classrooms and timetables
Top 1% - might require a bit more effort but not unreasonable for a school to do something with these children especially if you identify those who are at this level in specific broad subject areas. Definitely an argument in favour of selective schooling in some way to allow these children to meet their peer group.
Top 0.1% - proper provision for these children is much less likely to be found within a standard classroom, these are the children who might need accelerating or fundamentally different approaches. Do we expect the bottom 0.1% to gain anything at all from a normal classroom?

What is right for one of these groups may be inappropriate for another - for example I've seen a system where for a period of time something like the top 5%, or even more, were being accelerated through middle highschool. That is a strategy quite likely to result in problems which conveniently allow people to turn around and say, see, we told you accelerating bright children wasn't necessary / was harmful.

Personally, I think that the traditional "acceleration" of children isn't a great idea. My dd has "skipped" a grade, by her own choice and against my better judgement ("mom, I am done with middle school and am going to high school next year"), which she is managing well emotionally and academically, but I see some areas where it isn't really working (socially). I would have much preferred that she remained with her age group for the majority of her school interactions, and instead was offered differentiated learning within the classroom setting, but this wasn't really happening at all in public school and only marginally in private school. As it happens, the school she did end up at is probably the best we could have asked for, although by no means perfect.
A few years ago, I had a sit down with ds' teacher and the principal of his school (private school at that time) and asked if he could be given more challenging work in science (earth science that year). For example, I suggested that if they were turning in an assignment on volcanoes, that my ds be asked to research a volcano that he wasn't familiar with and if such a thing didnt exist, then ask him to give more in depth information about the volcano they were studying. The teacher came from a very conventional educational background (although this school was progressive) and her biggest concern was that ds would be unhappy that he was being given "more work" than the other students. I can't tell you how many times I have tried to explain to ds' teachers that he prefers to be given challenging assignments that the other students are not being given. He doesn't view this as "more work" (even if it is) because he enjoys the intellectual stimulation.

Ironically, I am now getting in public school the G&T support that ds needs solely because it's in the name of medical and mental health support!

Bertrand I am sorry to keep picking on you, but my biggest roadblock in seeking academic solutions for my unconventional children, has been the plethora of conventional solutions that I have had to wade through before being allowed to try something different. The only good part of this is that it has trained me enormously well to cope with my ds' rare genetic disease that has needed unconventional medical solutions in a sea of conventional platitudes. My prize favorite useless suggestion from a fellow parent to ds' untreatable intractable 6 week migraine is "just sign him up for AYSO (American Youth Soccer Organization) and he'll get better." (Actual solution was discovered many years later by his rather odd, but brilliant neurologist at a neurology convention a few months ago.)

And Bertrand, just because no english teacher should say that, doesn't mean that they (and their department heads and principals and regional managers) don't.... so now what?

I've been interested reading this thread to think about the concept of the g&t generally. I attended a primary school in an area where heavy industry provided all the employment, but ds attends a primary school in a major university city. It's very noticeable that the academic level of the children in ds's school is much much higher than that in my primary school. Consequently while I felt like a real brainbox at school, ds feels very average and often discouraged. I honestly feel that I did better at school for having time to think, and never becoming discouraged by having very high achieving peers. Although I was often lonely because my peers were quite different from me. I wonder whether these kids on this thread who are so far ahead of their peers are benefitting in self-confidence from being unusual for their class, and the parents might be glad to realise that, even though they may feel frustrated by the lack of pace of the child's learning.

I doubt it ipsos. My dd absolutely loves it when she finds anyone equal, or better than her. She's experienced both and I'd say without doubt she prefers not to be the lone outlier. She's also self confident generally and always has been, whatever the setting. I also think it's more common for outliers to have confidence issues, than the other way round.

Your thoughts are possibly accurate when there is a small margin in ability, and I have no doubt some outliers get a confidence boost as you say, but I think in general it's more likely to be a negative impact.

I asked DS1 recently if he would like to go to a fee-paying, highly selective school that is reasonable travelling distance from us, if we could afford it. He said no, he wouldn’t because he likes being top. So, maybe there is something in what you are saying, ipsos.

However, I think DS's low self-esteem is what is at play here and he would simply change gear, like he has before.

When DS started a new primary school in Y5, the teacher did not refer to the previous teacher’s report and placed Ds in the middle of the class. The cohort was much more able than the previous class, so DS simply upped his game a little. He didn’t tell anyone he was doing it, he didn’t know himself, I suspect, but he saw that a higher standard was being produced by other DC and so he started delivering better work. The teacher, without telling me, moved him to the top set. By Christmas, Ds1 was telling me the work was too easy so I rang the teacher and asked if she might consider moving Ds up a set? That’s the moment that the teacher and I both found out that DS1 was more able than either of us had suspected. (and unfortunately, there was no more extension work to be had – which ties back to the main theme of this thread).

However, socially, and emotionally, as Ipsos asks, DS finds it lonely knowing more than the people around him. He gets frustrated when the vocal, but relatively less able in his class ask the teacher to go over something one more time and she does so, asking everyone to listen. He bottles up the feelings of resentment and boredom (because let’s face it, its something you should keep to yourself). However, bottling up negative feelings is not good for you and sometimes DS just seems so sad. In Y6, I remember him crying and asking me why is it never his turn? I think that’s a good question.