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'm not convinced I agree that the 'top most able' have no holes in their basic skills.

In fact I disagree based on meeting those young people at least two days a week .

Perhaps maths is different? disquit could answer that.

But in my subject, there are holes.

The most mathematically able child I have encountered - had sixth form level maths lessons video streamed in late primary / early secondary in terms of 'conventional' maths teaching, but also in terms of mathematical concepts way beyond and outside the syllabus - couldn't tell the time particularly well as a child. Not because they 'hadn't got the necessary maths ability' - but just because it was a 'functional skill often included in Maths' that they didn't really bother with. Interesting calculations given the 60 / 24 / 12 [rather than the more conventional 100, 10], interesting angles between clock hands.... but the actual time at that moment...no, not really.

I also think that we need to think of very able young people not just in terms of their ability, but also as their areas of relative weakness. It is an interesting dilemma, faced with a child with a very spiky profile - the exceptional sportswoman, the great mathematician, the top chess player - to what extent in their education you spend time stretching their high ability area even further, and to what extent you ensure that they are at least competent in all areas ... and if extra time is available, where you invest it - in boosting their weakness, or further extending their strength?

One of the reasons I have so valued the education provided by my DS school is that it will not allow pupils to focus exclusively on their bright spot.

Acceleration happens to a degree, but young people are encouraged to learn as broadly as possible.

It's easier for the school to do this than would normally be the case because it is both independent and super selective.

noblegiraffe, I let my ds try the nrich problem you posted. He solved first part without any help. Didn't try part2 & 3 yet but will do it later. I would be happy if he was given that sort of problem at school. But that kind of thing doesn't happen, because he is in YR3, and doing same things that other YR3 are doing.

And also YR9 child who struggle with "calculations with fractions, e.g. -4+7/3", I wouldn't think the child is very able in maths. My ds has no problem with it.

Irvine, the first part of the fraction problem is easy, the last part is open-ended.

My Y9s are very able in maths, I've been teaching long enough to be able to tell! However, they are not the next Euler. If your DS is truly exceptional, and he sounds like he is, then the national curriculum should not be designed around him.

I wish I could send my ds to your school, noble.

irvine, I am a primary teacher - not teaching Y3 at the moment, but have done - and use nrich regularly, as do my colleagues.

There is, btw, a specific, hopefully short term issue in primary at the moment, most specifically in Maths, due to the change in the primary curriculum in 2014.

The curriculum was not well consulted on, not trialled in schools, and there was no training around it (there was lots of training, trialling etc for the previous 'Rose' proposal for the new NC, but it was summarily scrapped by the new government when Labour left power). The tests - unfortunately very high stakes for schools - used to test it have not yet been run for the first time, and there are lots of uncertainties about what they will be like which are only slowly being resolved. Assessment between the 'key end of KS' tests is left up to schools to decide on, and there are a multiplicity of different approaches, some less accommodating of high ability than others!

The Maths curriculum in particular has taken three 'pretty good general principles' and hardened them into 'legal curriculum'

• We should not be satisfied that the 'least able' fall further and further behind, and wherever possible they should be accessing the same curriculum as their age peers.
• The curriculum as a whole should be more ambitious
• Extension should include 'broadening and deepening' rather than always being 'acceleration into the content of future years'

It also introduces the concept of 'mastery', which tbh has many definitions, all of which are slightly different. IMO, and it is only an opinion, there is also an interesting and slippery dichotomy within the curriculum between 'old fashioned learning-and-calculating-by-rote' and the idea of applying even quite simple maths to sophisticated and deep problems.

Schools are still, to an extent, grappling with these as well as all the other changes. Those in upper primary at the moment have been doing quite a lot of 'filling the gaps between the old and new curricula' (so, for example, the current Y3 were taught the old Y2 curriculum last year for their Y2 SATs. Y3 teachers are currently teaching not only the new Y3 curriculum but also the bits in the new Y2 curriculum that were not in the old one IYSWIM?)

Provision for the more able is also in some flux. Those schools that only extended through acceleration are having to re-think, while those who always did broadening and deepening are in a better position BUT that is less 'visible' in terms of 'objectives' to a parent.

mathshubs.org.uk/what-maths-hubs-are-doing/national-curriculum-assessment-materials/ are quite interesting, as the linked materials do try to exemplify what the difference between 'being able to do column addition' and 'mastering / understanding the concept of what addition is in depth'. They are, however, just one view - one of the challenges of teaching in primary at the moment is the state of flux, which as I say I hope will be short term, as a 'generally accepted norm' will emerge from the current 'every school for itself' scenario.

TheFallenMadonna - now I understand! That post was directed at Bertrand. Sorry i should have made it clear.

"Well maybe your DS is fine bert because you have ensured he is"

No- he would be fine anyway, because he would get the As he need for the next stage in his life if I did nothing. I have provided the other "stuff" that his school does not have the resources to provide, but which I think are important.

My post, btw, is not intended as 'an excuse' - my (very able) DS is one of the guinea pigs for the new Maths / English GCSEs, and I know how frustrations as a parent the 'well, it's new, we don't know yet, we're doing our best with what we know so far' scenario is.

It's just that, with anything new, it takes a little while for 'the words on the page' to turn into 'what is actually done' and, especially relevant to this thread, 'exactly how we apply it flexibly to children at the extremes of ability'. This applies at both extremes - the 'not leaving the least able behind' is a good principle for those 'somewhat below the norm', but for a child just learning to subtract 1 from a number in upper primary, it is irrelevant. Equally, the 'broadening and deepening for extension' is fine as a general principle for the 1 in 10, even for the 1 in 100 level of ability with imagination and sensible use of already-available resources, but becomes irrelevant for those of the 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000 level.

I can tell you what is happening in France.

Children who are ahead and G&T (as in 1/100 and over, not the 1/10) are moved one, two, three years ahead to match their academic abilities. It doesn't solve the issue of 'spiked' abilities but, from my experience, it doesn't stop these children who are really really gifted to suceed VERY well (I was in class with a few of those). They do stay in the normal school system whoich means that they have to up their games on all subjects, not just the one they are good at (YOu also need to remember that children doing their Alevels there will do a hell of a lot more subjects than here. The 'maths and science A level' includes french, at least one foreign language, history and geopgraphy etc etc. So a lot more than just the 'science' bit)
When children who are gifted (1/10000) are moved well ahead of their years, they also received very regular support from a child psychologist (as well as advice for their parents).

Any child with non academic abilities (sports, music etc...) is going to a special school catering for their ability (ie you have a school for gymnastci, one for music, swimming etc etc). There they are receiving both a very high training and hours at school that allows them to train. That's where all the top athletes are going. They are still expected to get acceptable Alevels.

Now, this is a system that is VERY elitist and caters very well for children who are G&T. In some ways, you can it has been designed for that. So what it doesn't do is to also cater very well for children who are at the other end of the Bells curve which of course is a major issue.

As far as I am concerned, and from my experience with dc1 only, the issue is that we have a system where
1- having a child who is G&T and really several years ahead is seen as a problem and not something to look forward to (From comments by several teachers and HT). I think the attitude of the teachiung staff has a really big influence on things (just as they have an influence on how well girls do in maths etc...)
2- the children are supposed to be working at their level but some actually aren't. dc1 was never given work at his level. So, yes he is progressing according to the 'charts'. Yes he is doing very well (the 1/100) but actually he could do better but that will NOT be visible from results at school as school is in effect withdrawing information from him. And let's be honest, you can't expect children to progress in maths or in science wo proper input from an adult.

So Yes I can see with, from a teacher's pov, HT etc..., high abilities are well catered for. What I would argue is that they are not always catering at the level of the child (various reasons for that but I believe one of them is the strain teachers are under which means they have very little time to differenciate that much, just for one child).
That's why these children who should be well catered within the normal secondary school system are often doing much better in private/grammar school system (Again various reasons for that, incl having a smaller range of abilities to cater for).

disquit I fully agree with your post and this reflects my experience with dc1.

I aslo agree with you re issue with MH when children/young adults are put under such pressure. Again, having been though a highly selective process (much much much more selective than what there is in the UK), I know what the cost can be in terms of health (both MH and physical health).

I'm guessing though teacher he didn't need to spend the usual amount of time learning to tell the time when he was introduced to it?

I could see the logic of working on the weaker areas instead, but logistically would be a nightmare. Eg if dd had worked on other subjects in class maths lessons, instead of doing her own thing, she would have needed more teacher input. And the end result wouldn't be accurate. Dd didn't have the maturity or the ability to be a genuine l6 in reading in y6 sats. She has the memory and the intelligence to have got it if either school or I were that way inclined. Instead of sensibly saying only covering the aspects she was ready for and not sitting the paper was the sensible route. And so I do see how some able kids can have missing gaps, dd could have raced through English without truly understanding the basics, and then running in to trouble further down the line. But her maths ability is different.

Don't want the nc planning round the needs of the most able. But the aknowledgement it's not enough, and the general practice of not confining them to the nc level would be a start.

One of the reasons I have so valued the education provided by my DS school is that it will not allow pupils to focus exclusively on their bright spot.

That's great. But why do the English have an education system that requires most DC to focus exclusively on their bright spot, post-16? It's something of an international anomaly, this early specialization.

disquisitiones: More generally, anxiety and mental health is an enormous issue amongst high achievers and one which has massively escalated in the undergraduate population over the last 20 years. A highly competitive environment of high achievers is not a good environment for the mental health of many "gifted" children, many of whom are perfectionist and particularly prone to anxiety.

I think this paragraph has annoyed me more than any other post on this thread!

Yes there is a high positive correlation between high ability and anxiety and other mental health issues, often borne out of perfectionism. But how can it not be blatantly obvious that if you spend 10 of the first 15 years of your life being made to re-do and re-do the same old stuff that you have completely mastered and being told that you will not be considered for release from the tedium until you have demonstrated mastery and moreover you have not demonstrated mastery yet because once in a while you only get 97%, then it does tend to make you rather anxious about being perfect!

Wood, I was age accelerated (England), and went to a private school on a scholarship, so in theory I was 'well catered for'.

In the event (I know that this is anecdote not data), it was the worst of both worlds. I was still at the top of the year above, so was still not necessarily accessing what I needed to access to make the full progress that I could have done, AND I was socially isolated due to being accelerated.

The issue with age acceleration is that 1 in 1000, 1 in 10,000 children also progress faster, so essentially their age acceleration, to keep pace with this, would increase each year (so if I started secondary 1 year ahead, and had moved up every time i needed to access the next year's level of work, I could easily have ended up 3 or 4 years ahead - and that has a knock on effect in terms of broad curriculum coverage as well as social isolation).

The able mathematician I referred to above was age accelerated by a year, but still had to have completely different provision for Maths.

DS, in Year 1, was offered acceleration into a Y3/4 class. Which would have been absolutely fine academically, but I refused it on social grounds and we moved schools to one that could differentiate better for him within his own year group.

What I also find interesting is that both the able mathematician and I chose to 're-set' our age acceleration before going to university (both Oxbridge) at the 'normal' age, choosing once older to work with our 'age / social' peers rather than remain with 'academic' peers.

WoodHeaven - the acceleration of DC in the French system is controversial and unsatisfactory, not some sort of ideal solution. The better private sous-contrat schools try either to avoid acceleration by increasing enrichment or else try to send their pupils abroad for a year around Seconde/Première so that they can repeat a school year without doing so within the same system. Taking the bac at 16 or just 17 tends to disadvantage DC down the line (HE and adult life) and is increasingly recognized to do so.

State schools, where enrichment is much less, still accelerate pupils who are gifted but this is more of an unavoidable evil - the "least worst" solution.

Lurked, with the time issue - actually no, still not very good at it, especially with an analogue clock and into words...it's that 'logical maths into illogical word description of it' that is the issue. In what other context is 5, 10, quarter, 20, 25, half, 25, 20, quarter, 10, 5, o'clock a sensible counting system??

So, just to be clear, what I am saying is that a system that hides behind concepts like mastery as a way of holding children back from letting their brains work and their natural curiosity expand is exacerbating and existing mental health issues and in some cases causing them too.

And, if you are looking for a reason to give G&T children the same attention as everyone else, then that one should be enough on its own, without having to consider what they could do for the country's future GDP.

"a system that hides behind concepts like mastery"

One specific understanding of the word 'mastery' - as I say, a buzzword in the 2014 curriculum and associated educational conversations, but not well defined within them - is linked to the type of Maths teaching seen in very high performing education systems in e.g. Shanghai, Singapore.

As those systems have used the concept for much longer than the couple of years it has been ' a buzzword' in the UK, it would be interesting to know whether it has a link to mental health and other issues in those countries? What is very true is that those jurisdictions do perform extremely well in terms of maths, including for high achievers (possibly because only the high achievers are tested, but that's another debate entirely)

Dd had her actual maths lessons out of year group, until she ran out of year group top set. She then had her own lessons. Both the above were also mixed with getting on with her own maths work independently, but sat in her year group maths lessons. As said, the problem isn't solved by just one removal up a year or even 5, as the most able progress quicker. Dd enjoyed maths with older kids at primary, but she still wanted to play age related games with her classmates, and discuss age related topics. You'd be constantly moving. Dd is confident and pretty mature, it would still be a social nightmare if all her classmates were years older.

No baking to do today so I won't be around much, but as someone who has close family in the French system, I would home educate rather than put my children through that particular mill. And I am not, in general a great believer in home education.

var couldn't agree more with your post of regarding the mental health ramifications