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.

Well, for the government to do more, you would have to show need. How can that be done?

Isn't this fun? I ask a question and you do everything you can think of not to answer it!

Its like a game of fantasy PMQs. You'll be telling me about the Northern Powerhouse soon!

Actually, I said that for the current year 10, it is better for the school to move an A to an A* than a G to an F.

So no, I don't think I am.

"If it is generally agreed that G&T students are less well catered for than almost every other group in terms of effort, resources and funding"

Could you provide a reference for that?

I also think you have to decide what you mean by 'G&T'. Different authors on the subject of giftedness define it very differently, and it is always worth thinking about whether we are talking about:

1 in 10: ie around 3 in every class
1 in 100: ie several in each school year in a secondary
1 in 1000: ie one in an average size secondary, only one every 5 years or so in an average primary
1 in 10,000: the level of ability that a teacher in primary may only encounter once in a career or less, and in a secondary might only encounter once every 10 years

It also depends whether ability is 'spiky' - very high in 1 subject, e.g. Maths - or across the board, and whether it is 'academic giftedness' or e.g. sport, music etc.

FWIW, I would say that G&T students in academic subjects at the 1 in 10 level are well catered for as 'normal able pupils'. The 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,000, especially the spiky ones, much less so, and, especially where their main talent is not specifically academic (sport, music, dance etc) will not achieve their potential in mainstream schooling but will require specialised or outside school educational provision.

So I think a blanket statement such as the one quoted is not useful - it needs to be defined further to become meaningful.

Did you only read my preamble? I said that I think more able children are more likely to access enrichment activities and extracurricular activities. I also referenced progress, but you have discounted that.

Sorry - that was to var123. Not teacherwith...

Could you provide a reference for that?

RTFT.

Generally accepted.

Again - has since been clarified as meaning that I was addressing everyone who has posted on the thread.

Generally was added, for the exceptions.

TheFallenMadonna - you've lost me. The preamble of what you wrote this evening or some other time?

You said we were focusing on the preamble of your post ("It is generally accepted..."), and not on the content of it. I was pointing out that after I queried that, I did address the issue of resources and effort with examples of where they are accessed primarily (but admittedly not exclusively) by more able students.

G&T kids at my school get extra GCSEs (which cost money to teach and enter), access to competitions, the sporty ones get ferried around to matches. I'd say they take quite a lot of effort and funding compared to say B grade kids, who just turn up and do the work.

I know I worked my bloody arse off getting my top set an extra maths GCSE in the same time that other groups did one. The extra mocks, the extra marking, revision sessions and so on.

So handwringing about poor neglected G&T students pisses me off, rather.

Bertrand has a point. The problem is how to measure the academic need and how much it's being met. I have two dc's who are both gifted but in very different ways. Ds was tested both in the state school system (tested as gifted with no additional information) (3/100) and privately (tested as having a genius IQ with significant learning differences) 1/10000 and currently known as 2E. Ds excels in some subjects and not in others and because of his learning differences and lack of executive functioning skills performs erratically at best. How do you measure whether his needs are being met. He can take a test on one day and score 100% and then take the same test the next day and score 50%. Ds rarely has his needs met adequately.
Dd was tested in public school as being Highly Gifted (no additional information) (1/100) and privately tested as smart but not genius. (1/10) But dd has relatively good executive functioning skills and minor learning differences. Dd has had her needs met fairly well by any school she attended.
How do you measure and meet and measure your meeting for these two children?

My personal experience, as I stated before, is that the more choice and flexibility available to the student, the more likely their unique (1/100 or 1/10000) needs are going to be met. And again in my personal experience, this is completely unrelated to funding. (dc's have been in both public and private well funded and poorly funded schools).

The thing is, var, a thread about SEN pupils will attract a consensus that SEN children are not being well catered for, in terms of time, money and effort.

A thread about 'invisible middle' children will attract a consensus that these children are not being well catered for, in terms of time, money and effort.

A thread about high ability / G&T pupils (however you choose to define it - I would say both mine sit between the '1 in 100' and '1 in 1000' level academically, and one around the 1 in 1000 level for a non-academic interest) will come to a consensus that high ability children are not being well catered for, in terms of time, money and effort.

Should e.g. a group of Traveller parents post on a thread about their children, they would come to a consensus that their children are not being well catered for, in terms of time, money and effort. Equally, poor working class boys.

Achieving a consensus on a 'special interest' thread does not make something 'true' in any generalised sense IYSWIM?

As I said, the 1 in 10 level is well catered for in schools IME. 1 in 100, pretty well unless very spiky. The move to measure schools by 'progress' rather than by 'absolute results' over past years has been very useful in focusing the minds of those schools who might have been tempted to pay less attention to children wgho could easily pass the 'minimum benchmark'.

Where mainstream schools are less good are for those children in the 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,000 categories. This is partly for the pragmatic reason that normal benchmarks - A* at GCSE or A-level - taken at normal ages are pretty much irrelevant for such children, so it is the qualifications, rather than the schools per se, that mean that no measure of such pupil's actual achievements is possible. It is only by additional benchmarks - Maths Olympiad, playing for a Premier League team at 16, performance within specialised music / performing arts contexts such as dance companies,. orchestras or international competitions - that their attainments can be measured.

Oh, sorry. I genuinely didn't think that when you said "generally accepted" you meant on this thread!

Right. Well, you asked what would make the government do anything. I repeat what I said- you would have to demonstrate need- they certainly aren't going to if you don't. Do you think you can, in an objective way?

What would you like to happen?

I get why frontline teachers might be pressed for time, but am I the only person who reads the reports and research touching on this area? The rather significant Ofsted for instance with Most Able v1, Most Able v2, some of KS3 Wasted Years and lots of speeches (yes they're going as low as KS2 L5c+, but they're definitely not saying L5a/6 are mysteriously immune). Or several from non-gov sources like Sutton Trust and so on (some of these are stuffed with history and data). It's not generally accepted for lots of reasons, but it is generally true.

I have read the Ofsted reports. My school's More Able provision was written with them in mind. I have also looked at provision and outcomes for other groups though, and I don't think it is generally accepted (present company excepted) that the More Able are disadvantaged over and above (under and below?) other groups.

I also think, btw, that catering for the 'rarer' levels of ability is almost always going to involve a partnership, and seldom a school by itself - for the simple reason that the levels of ability ARE rare, so there is no point in every school being prepared to meet that level of ability in every subject in every year, because there won' be the children every year.

Partnerships (real and virtual) and pooling expertise on an area or county or even countrywide basis seem to me to be the best way forward. These could be:

• partnerships with universities
• availability of higher qualification teaching over the internet, either in real time and interactive, or recorded
• county or countrywide groups such as music centres, sports centres of excellence
• partnerships with charities with expertise or private enterprise or organisations such as GCHQ
• Some specialised centres of full time education (music schools are an example of these),

It is probably worth pointing out that I know of examples of all of these, so it's not that these don't exist, just perhaps that their takeup is not yet universal or considered by schools as a normal part of their provision.

Pique, but the point of those reports is that the 'more able' are not yet making the progress that they are capable of - which is not quite the same as 'are are less well catered for than almost every other group in terms of effort, resources and funding'.

One is a comparison to an 'absolute standard of progress', the other is a 'comparison with all other groups' - and it is the latter that I am querying, because of course I know about the former.

The problem is there is absolutely nothing in the education system to measure need. The level/ grades/ curriculum stop too low to get a figure for who's above it. Not every able childs parents care, or recognise whether their childs needs are met, so you can't just poll every parent. Schools aren't always going to tell the truth, or notice. You'd need an actual way of tracking to know.

I'm not convinced there should be a burden of proof to demonstrate a net profit to society in educating the most able. We don't as a society deem some groups more worthy of investment in education than others, or want evidence it's worth our while across the rest of the ability spectrum. Society supports lots of things that don't offer benefit for anyone but the individual concerned. Which is how it should work. But fwiw I think social mobility is a very probable benefit.

noble because you believe that the most able are having their needs met in your lessons, it doesn't provide blanket evidence that is the case for every able child in every school.

var I don't think it ever will be solved, the new nc balls about everyone progressing at the same way and broadening and whatever other buzz words are in favour for providing sweet fa show just how much interest there is in helping able dc. I'd like to be wrong.

lurked, no, but I know the effort and money that went into providing that group with an extra GCSE and I know it is not uncommon for other schools to do similar. Bright kids get an extra GCSE in science too. When people moan about clever kids never getting extra funding, are they ignoring stuff like extra qualifications?

Does anyone (except me!) think there are groups that should be higher priority than the most able?

I would still like, by the way, to know what we are talking about when we say "most able"?

teacher that does all sound like a definite way forward. How to get it expanded across every school in the country? And would it be workable with an independent co-ordinator, rather than just the schools deciding who to put forward, so every child had an equal chance of being considered? As I'd hate it to be something only accessed by kids at good schools and/or proactive parents, I'd like a universal way.

noble not every school offers seperate science gcses. And many that do, offer it as an option, so the able do the same number as any other group. And yeah, I'm ignoring it because my accessible state provision doesn't offer extra qualifications to able kids.

bert so back to my response, why not ditch the whole top 50%, and just focus on those with the greatest need? It would make loads of resources available. Or make state education like newlifes school so everyone had to pay what they can afford, again freeing up resourses for the most needy?

As to what level is able enough to be failed, anyone in the top 40% would fit in that category round here. In general I'd say at a minimum 1/100, although in a skewed comprehensive cohort there may well be enough to provide safety in numbers at that ability. Generally, probably above that though.

Bertrand funnily enough I partially agree with you. Often the "most able" are exactly that "most able." However I wouldn't put all, or perhaps even most G&T children in that category. Many are extremely bright, but not "most able." I think the highest priority has to be the children/families who don't have the resources to help themselves for whatever reason (their own disabilities or their family's issues). For example, I think that my ds, but not my dd falls into this category.

And to add that will be more than the numbers imply, because kids may be 1/100 in most subjects but 1/1000 in others, or 1/10 in most stuff and 1/10000 in another.