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.

It's especially infuriating at primary, IME. DS1 is extremely good at maths and has/has no areas of weakness across the curriculum, he just got A* in all his GCSEs (which were to be honest an exercise in tedium and repetition for him). He has never had any social issues either, he is kind and good natured. Never once in detention or given any kind of demerit.

The school didn't even try to keep him occupied in maths, they did nothing with him from year 4 (when they assessed him at level 5 which was at that point in time the highest reportable level). I was so cross I felt like pulling him out of the SATs as I really felt the school shouldn't take credit for his learning in the tables. But I didn't, of course...

teacher your school is how Dds primary operated. Strictly speaking, no her needs weren't met as fully as the rest. But for a cohort of one, they did everything practically possible. I'm sure if every day she'd had a lesson catering to her, she'd have progressed more. Instead she just had fun, working independently at whatever challenge she was handed at the start of classroom maths lessons.

So yes, maybe with more individual attention she'd have done all the interesting none nc stretching work, and gone higher than she did in the nc. As it was, she slowly progressed through a lot of ks3 when they ran out of ks2, and still got all the fun stuff to fill in the time. Which is more than fine by me. Sitting gcse early is only something I'd consider as a last resort to force a schools hand.

Lurked - but there's another poster who is on here from time to time - not sure if its good etiquette to name her so I won't - and she did put her Dd through GCSE in year 6 (A*) and even then she couldn't get the school to recognise that her DD's needs weren't being met by regular classwork.

var think I know who you mean, at least presuming we're talking about the same poster. I'm not suprised, unfortunately, schools either want to provide or they don't. Although I got the impression her dds secondary were at least letting her learn independently, so it had done some good.

I considered it as worth a go if dd hadn't got a funded place at hers, and she'd ended up at our catchment state. Not cos they'd suddenly be on board, but in the hope it would prove she didn't need to consolidate l4. I was referring more to getting it early on those lines, rather than just because she can iyswim.

On the other hand, many children who have the potential to do well at maths A level (A or A) could be taught in one-on-one tuition to get an A in GCSE in year 6. Yet teachers/academics/parents would argue that this is not in their best interests.

So why, just because a parent chooses to pre-teach the child the next five years maths curriculum at home, should a school be asked to use their scarce resources to deal with the consequences? Particularly since a primary school usually doesn't have staff who are qualified to teach maths extension work going beyond or deeper into KS4 material.

I'm not denying that there is a problem with differentiation in some schools but one has to look for constructive solutions (or home educate). There are many things that could have been done at home instead of pre-teaching GCSE, things which are much more relevant to higher level maths and are completely outside the school curriculum (coding, ancient languages, mandarin, chess, go,...).

Prof, we've had a similar experience than what I've had with dc1.

I haven't seen any enrichment activity days for any of my dcs until inY6. and then it's something organised by the local secondary school, very clearly there to try and convince parents how good their school is.
One big problem IMO is that it's a 45mins once a week for about 8 months. 3 children go there, there is no swap around. So you are either in or out.
In a class like the one dc2 is in, it means that even some of the high ability students are missing out because it so happens that the general level is high and therefore there are more of them than usual.

I haven't seen ANY enrichment activities otherwise, whatever the subject...

Out secondary looks very similar in that respect.

disqui having had a very hard think about what I want for dc1, I'm actually going on along your lines.
I HAVE retained information from dc1 when he was in primary, which was met with a lot of surprise from teachers. But my point was, if he is bored now and I teach him more, he is going to be more and more bored.

After reading this thread, I'm now thinking that doing his GCSE early, Alevels early blabla will NOT make such a difference for him in his adult life. Actually you might end up in a situation where he has done all what he can at lets say 15yo and then has to wait a few years before contemplating Uni. Not sure of that's positive really.

The problem is that the whole ethos is school is about teaching at the level of the child and following their pace. That's what parents are being told and that's what we expect. What it means is that for some children, they should be doing their GCSE in Y6. we are 'pushed' to think that this is what should happen because you are just following this lead and thei abilities. But is it? (see above). And then when it doesn't happen (various reasons we've talked about) we feel they have been let down when actually this might be a better outcome for them iyswim.

Lurkedforever1 - I understand what you mean, but I think that's exactly what happened to the other poster's DD. As far as I remember, the secondary school just decided to make her do the same as everyone else in Y7 and to hell with the fact that the child already had proven beyond doubt that she'd mastered the work already (unless an A* doesn't indicate that you probably have understood and can do the work?).

WoodHeaven - as far as I remember, last year when DS2 was in Y6, there was only one enrichment activity until the last few weeks (i.e. after the SATS) and then there was quite a few of them (inter-school challenges sort of thing)

A question for the other parents:
I think most of us have experienced times when the teacher is basically denying that your DC can do something, or are telling you that they aren't as advanced as you think.

I've got a degree in maths, so it drives me crazy when it happens because I know what being able to do and understand something looks and smells like. I can see plain as day that they know it. If they were telling me that their English wasn't as good as i think, i might believe them, but I know they are lying either to me or themselves when it comes to the maths!

So, my question is which is better:
(a) when the teacher tells you that your DC aren't as good as you think
(b) when the teacher tells you that they do know their stuff but that just means they'll be tutoring the other students for the foreseeable future? (or some other busy work).

I think I prefer (a) because its more honest, even though I find it really hard to take that they can look me in the eye and tell me without any expression of regret that they intend to fail my child.

I mean i prefer (b)!

I have been told that dc1 would have to learn to wait and still do his work seriously. In the very first meeting with his form tutor.

I felt really gutted tbh and it demoralised dc1 a lot. So here it is, we know you know but we are not going to do anything about it (with the underlying idea that anyway you are probably thinking you are better than you are anyway..) :(:(

But the first option is just as crap. It's lying.

var what a shame, I thought it had at least resulted in being excused from the monotony of class lesson material.

dis it's not that simple. I never set out to cover nc material. Or to teach her beyond the usual things any parent does with a toddler. She just happened to have more ability and interest than the norm. Course I've answered questions beyond age related nc content, but I've never set out to teach it. She's always kind of done that herself.

Her primary, who on paper would send many mumsnetters screaming for the hills kept me in the loop as to where she fitted in to the nc. Not vice versa.

I knew how shit our state secondary is, but did the whole positive open eve with dd in case she ended up there. My experience left me vowing that if she ended up there, I would for the first time bother to teach her the nc content, and at least have the bargaining tool of some proof she did actually 'get' it. As apparently Dds primary school were also wrong about where she was up to nc wise. If racing through ks4 and aiming for a-level content from school was the only hope, then it would be their fault, not mine. Perhaps if they'd wished to avoid that situation, a teacher that doesn't try telling potential pupils they don't understand a textbook they've pounced on with joy, and a hod that has a party line about all kids needing to consolidate l4 might be a start.

We were just lucky that come offer day it wasn't necessary to go and buy a ks4 course guide and crack on.

var b) every time. Just annoys me that they can't even offer
c) we can't logistically teach at your dcs ability and age level. But we'll leave them doing their own thing so they aren't bored out of their brains

If a teacher is honest enough to say b) then you have a good case to argue for c). (I'll even send in the materials!)

I would like to think that some schools, faced with a true 'outlier' (a 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000, rather than a 1 in 100 with some similar peers) would go for a
d) The logistics of this are hard. We want to do the best we can manage, and would like to work in partnership with you as parents as much as we can. Looking at the whole child, we may not always focus on her strengths, and when we are focusing on the 'not maths' things that she find hard, that may not always also allow us to precisely meet your child's maths needs due quite simply to time and effort constraints. We may well not get it right every day, however hard we try. We don't want her to become isolated too much within the class, so when there is some more open ended 'group work', we would like her to be part of that whenever possible. We will try to ensure that she can access her own level work as much as possible, and are actively seeking advice from outside school. Please keep us informed of what her maths interests are outside school so that we can tap into those, and we will all need to look out for opportunities for enrichment that are genuinely at her level for her to access.

But it still doesn't change the fact that there are SO MANY demands on every teacher's time that providing perfectly for a cohort of 1, precisely and consistently every day, is not logistically going to be possible.

The other thing - and I hear entirely how annoying the consequences of this is, especially as I often sit on the other side of the table - there are more parents who claim that their child is 'exceptionally gifted' than there are children who are exceptionally gifted. The initial scepticism about high ability that almost every parent of a genuinely high ability child encounters is part of a (sadly necessary) screening device - and it can be really difficult to negotiate with a parent the scenario in which a 'gifted new pupil' ends up on the SEN register for learning difficulties (been there, done that), or in a lower maths group, or just turns out to be, well, average.

But every school should 'play fair;', and make this initial period as short as possible - I too have encountered the 'no, really, he / she can't REALLY do that' [usually meaning 'we never asked so we didn't find out - the 'we only do number bonds to 20 so we haven't discovered that he can mentally calculate with 3 digit or negative numbers' thing], but to be fair the school in question was very quick to respond once they had done a full assessment.

I can't imagine any normal parent with a school offering d) would get as far as even hearing that response, because you wouldn't even be raising concerns warranting an answer.

Certainly something in the fact parents who overestimate make it harder for the genuine.

Var

A teacher once told my dd that she was counting the music wrong.
She was swinging i.e purposely holding back on the beat.
When dd told her what she was doing the teacher told her to stop being silly and sit down.
OK she was only 6 at the time, and I'm not even expecting the teacher to understand what she was talking about, but to belittle her like that, was so wrong.
This teacher continued to tell us that dd had no particular talent for music, but did have a pleasing voice
Obviously, we never expected dd to be taught at her level because state schools tend not to have specialist music teachers and of course, little time is devoted to it.
I'd love for all children to learn to play a recorder, not pressurised to be fantastic but to read music and experience the subject from an early age.
That's another thread though

I don't think it has to be 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000 to be an issue. I think the key is the "1". So, it only has to be 1 in 30 for a one form entry school to cause an issue.
I should know where Ds1 and Ds2 are percentage-wise, but I don't. I know they are both very able, but I don't think they are going to turn out to be the most clever people I've ever met. Without having ever really discussed it in detail with the other mum, I think there is a boy in Ds1's year at secondary school who is just as able, and I would bet that there are another one or two around, maybe even as many as a half a dozen. So, why doesn't the school bunch them together and do something for all of them?

Lurked - but there's another poster who is on here from time to time - not sure if its good etiquette to name her so I won't - and she did put her Dd through GCSE in year 6 (A) and even then she couldn't get the school to recognise that her DD's needs weren't being met by regular classwork.*

Thats a bit pointless, in what way would that meet her needs?

I think most of us have experienced times when the teacher is basically denying that your DC can do something, or are telling you that they aren't as advanced as you think.

but this is absolutly universal, all children perform better at home with Mum, than in a class at school, and often parents just don't get that their "genius" child needs more practice and to become more secure at something.

In fact, he kept lapsing into telling me how my DC might help the others "by inspiring the less able".

and this is actually one of the best ways to develop a child's understanding and communication.

There is no point in getting on your high horse about strategies which have shown to be good practice. You might not personally like them, but it isn't up to you.

we can't logistically teach at your dcs ability and age level.

why would anyone say that? There are no logistical issues at all.

Has anybody any experience of a G&T child's needs being partly met at school when the parents aren't on the case? Or don't even see has needs to be met.
I ask for my dd friend who I feel so sorry for. I wish I could do something to help but if I push her mum anymore I'd lose her friendship and she still wouldn't see it.
I thought of chipping away carefully at the girl, very slowly over time and got as far as buying her some books and pretending I'd got it wrong again and bought them for dd by mistake.
I had to stop though as they were beginning to smell a rat.

Ooh, are we talking about the learning pyramid?

It's unevidenced bollocks, btw.