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.

"However, socially, and emotionally, as Ipsos asks, DS finds it lonely knowing more than the people around him."

That's very sad. I don't think my ds feels like that- but he is involved in a lot of outside school activity where he mixes with his academic peers. Is that an option for your ds?

I think ds has friends in different "boxes", if you see what I mean. At school, he has friends that he can talk about football, and popular music and gaming and The Walking Dead with. He's quite politically aware too- and you don't necessarily have to be on an academic lever to talk about politics. Then he goes to a couple of outside school activities, like youth theatre where the kids tend to be on the cleverer side of the bell curve, and he has friends from there who will talk about books and more "intellectual" things.

I think it would make an awful lot more sense in the long term to give kids strategies to help them cope with 'knowing more than the people around them', rather than planning to make sure they spend five or seven years in a cohort that in no way reflects the kind of society they are likely to want to live in for the following six decades or more.

"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."

That's just poor teaching practice. Sure, removing your child from it might solve his issues - but it leaves an awful lot of children still exposed to it. There is always 'more extension work to be had'. We are blessed to live in a world with practically unlimited access to it.

Particularly if they are really super bright, because the chances are they are going to spend most of their lives with people who aren't as clever as them.

I think Ds1 has had a lot of time to develop those strategies - 13 years and counting, and he'll still get them whether he went to a super-selective or not, unless he was boarding.

Extra-curricular things: we actually used those as a means to show him how to mix with other people and cope with doing things that he's not particularly good at but still enjoys e.g. joining a local football team. DH would kill me for saying this, but football doesn't seem to take any brains at all.

Personally, i don't think life is quite as mixed as people say, but it depends on what job you do. If you went into social services say, you might spend the majority of your day with people who either aren't very bright, or who at least aren't using their brains when making life choices and bringing up their children.
If, on the other hand, you went into the legal profession as a corporate lawyer, you'd probably spend most of your day speaking to other well-educated people (and then you'd be able to come home to your place in a nice area, invite your work and uni friends over for dinner parties and exchange pleasantries with your neighbours who also have the mental capacity to earn highly, else they would not be able to afford to live in that neighbourhood.)

I agree with some of the last comments.

I agree with Ipsos that being at the top has its advantages/disadvantages (just like being at the 'bottom' has). However, having being myself in a place where I have been at the top, just nicely challenged and right at the bottom of the pile, I would say the best position is to be 'just nicely challenged'. That's where differenciating work should come in. Except that we know it doesn't and hoping to get full differenciation will not work for the top 1% (or 0.1%).

I also agree about struggling with the idea that no one around is at the same level. I mean I do struggle with that myself as an adult because there are very few people around me that will be happy to talk about politics or science or whatnot at the level I like. The result is that I have been dumping down my interests because ... well... there is no one to share it with anyway. (Note I'm living in the back of beyond so the 'pool' of people is much more restricted than if I was living let's say in London which also explains how hard it can be to find like minded people)
So YY to feel like an outsider but also YY to the fact you have learn to live with it too!

And this is where I'm finding the balance quite hard to find. I actually don't believe that pushing our dcs to be as ahead as possible is the right thing to do. They might get there 2,3 years before other people but will it really make a difference in their lifes?
I do believe that school is there to teach them some basic life skills. One of them is to socialise, another is to learn that when ones encounter a problem/difficulty learning, then they can exercise their brain muscles and they WILL learn (SN aside). Another again is to instill in their a life long joy of learning.
All that can be done by engaging children in their learning. This can be done by giving them harder work but it doesn't have to be just that.

That's why I'm contemplating looking at private schools and hoping for a boursary. Because, in one term, dc1 has lost his pleasure in learning, is feeling low, has nothing to look forward to. He certainly isn't putting any effort into his school work, incl doing some research for history for example when I know he loves history. And it's the attitude that I'm having some big issues with.

I really can't engage with this ridiculously compartmentalised and narrow thinking. I wish your son all the best.

That was to the OP, clearly.

var123 agree too. My very good friends, the life long ones, are all 'bright' people. I've met them along the way, in very different situations. Some of them haven't actually done 'well' education wise but they are still intelligent people, with a big open mind.

Re extra curriculum stuff, I'm finding that dc1 doesn't mix that well with people there. Again, his outlook is much 'waht the heck are they doing? That's just stupid.'
Sometimes it's about knowledge but more foten than not it's about behaviour and maturity.

Because here is something else to consider too. If one can be G&T academically, then surely one can also be more mature than his peers?
I so so wish that the british system wasn't so strict re mixing with different ages groups. Irt would do a lot of good to allow children who are less mature to mix with chiildren younger than them and to allow those who are more mature to mix with those who are older.

multivac have you had any success in making a school change their attitude to G&T children and differenciate work?
Could you tell me how you've done that?

Sorry, WH, I'm leaving the echo chamber.

"Re extra curriculum stuff, I'm finding that dc1 doesn't mix that well with people there. Again, his outlook is much 'waht the heck are they doing? That's just stupid.'
Sometimes it's about knowledge but more foten than not it's about behaviour and maturity"

Gosh. I'm wondering what extra curriculars you've tried.....................

" so so wish that the british system wasn't so strict re mixing with different ages groups. Irt would do a lot of good to allow children who are less mature to mix with chiildren younger than them and to allow those who are more mature to mix with those who are older."

I can think of 3 extra curricular activities instantly that my children did/do that were mixed ages..........

Bertrand it depends a lot of what children are doing.
dc1 does tennis and it's by age group. He used to go swimming and all galas were by age group (and so was training because roughly children of a certain age were all that a certain level).
He is also doing some orienteering and that's a very lonely activity.

If you look at tennis, dc1 will always complain about other children bragging about their latest tennis racquet/their parents car/whatever, the ones who think that because they have xx brand for a racquet then it automatically makes them 'good at tennis'. Some people who then fool around during the lessons and just don't 'apply themselves'. Or the ones who quite very angry that they are loosing and will argue every single point, will cheat etc (and yes even during tournaments)
In effect he is complaining of the same thing than at school. That you have quite a lot of children there that are happy to fool around, create mayhem when others would love to just enjoy the sport.

The activities that would allow for some mixing up of ages (like let's say theater) aren't what interest him.

You can't have mixed age groups in competitive sports, though. And it seems to me that the behaviour you're describing is an indication of a badly run club, rather than a lack of intellectual ability among the members!

multivac, just because someone doesn't follow the same algorithm as you when thinking things through, and who may therefore not reach the same conclusions as you, does not make them right or wrong. If you think it does, then it is your thinking that is narrow.

I wasn't talking about intellectual ability though. More about maturity and attitude.

The more of you who don't think it's good to push your children to succeed the better as it makes more space at the top for mine. Go forth and give them low expectations.

My ds2 is in year 2 and is given maths and spellings that are appropriate to his ability.
I didn't realise until parents evening how well he was doing..his teacher was talking about his times tables work and praising it and I then said "oh that's good"
And she said "yes, especially as we havent taught it yet"

But I buy him books to read at home (the school books bore him) and he writes little stories and likes to draw so we make sure he has plenty of books/paper etc
In year 1 he went into year 2 for maths work so I do feel they are differentiating well for him.
Ds2 is at 3a (old nc levels) for spelling but There are children in his class
Still on phase 1 phonics it's hard to make sure all kids get work that challenges them I think

"The more of you who don't think it's good to push your children to succeed the better as it makes more space at the top for mine. Go forth and give them low expectations."

Wrong thread. Nobody would be on this one if they felt like that!

Multivac - Sorry forgot to add... but thank you for your contribution. its been interesting, although its a shame that you never got around to describing the theory you've seen working in practice.

wow this thread is moving fast!

"I wasn't talking about intellectual ability though. More about maturity and attitude."

Still badly run clubs. Try another one. Lots of teenagers of all abilities want to do well and try hard at their sports. The sort of behaviour you outline wouldn't be tolerated in any one the ones my kids go to.

WoodHeaven - I agree about the maturity stuff up to a point. That point is when you take a mature, sensible younger child and the next age group up in hormonal teenager.

*"The more of you who don't think it's good to push your children to succeed the better as it makes more space at the top for mine. Go forth and give them low expectations."

Wrong thread. Nobody would be on this one if they felt like that!*

Finally! I agree with Bertrand!