Is it usual for G&T children to get little recognition at school?

[Singlemum1985]

My DS is a summer born child, infact a week later and he wouldn't have made it into this year group. He is 5 and in year one, I have been told that he's G&T and various tests put him in the 99.8th percentile for Reading, Literacy and Mathematics. That being said, it hasn't made a blind bit of difference at school! He's either bored or frustrated most of the time at school, although he always does what he's asked he's stopped volunteering any extra. Since the 'tests' and me, poking my nose in as she seems to view it she only ever points out the negative. I'm kind of at the point where I'm just wishing away the rest of this year and hoping for an amazing teacher who he can connect with in Year 2!

Over the last few weeks DS has mentioned a few different things regarding awards and I'm starting to get just as frustrated as he seems to be! Firstly he said that he isn't allowed to know how many stars he has left to earn on his reward chart, but don't worry about it mum as I'll have loads to get! Why's that I asked, he said his teacher never lets him answer a question as he already knows the answer! My point is, how is he ever going to be able to earn these rewards if he isn't given the same chance as everyone else! Secondly he came home (and this is entirely my fault) with a message to say his teacher had said to tell his mum its no good always getting all your spellings correct if you don't know what they mean! As he rarely has to learn his spellings (even though they are differentiated) I forgot to check he knew what compose meant (the phone rang and we never re-visited it) - never mind he could define and spell onomatopoeia! And finally, DS told me last night they have a new teddy in his class they can bring home when they have done excellent work. (Suzie) got it today for remembering Capital Letters, Finger Spaces and Full Stops without being told, that's great I said maybe you'll get a turn next week. His response broke my heart, I won't Mummy - I always remember my punctuation and nobody ever says anything - yesterday I did two pages of writing and used lots of adjectives and (Zane) got a stamp for writing three sentences. Now I'm not saying that both of these children didn't deserve a reward, of course I'm sure they did but despite him being bright he still is just a five year old little boy who craves some attention and recognition of his own!!

Am I expecting too much or being over sensitive? Sorry for rambling away I've storing it up!

References to "effort" in this context annoy me a little because experience suggests that in many cases it is about visible struggle.

If DD spent two quiet minutes achieving something whereas child B spent five minutes and punctuated that with lots of loud sighs etc. then who made the most effort? DD, a child capable of quite fierce focus/concentration, might have squished more effort into her two minutes than child B did in their five. But child B showed signs of struggle, so they'll typically get the sticker.

Stipek is one of the more authoritative (and reasonably sane) voices on some part of this territory and they wrote this shortly after the turn of the century:

"A related counter-intuitive finding concerns the effect of praise. In some circumstances there appear to be negative side effects of praise, at least for older children and adults. Praise for successful performance on an easy task can be interpreted by a student as evidence that the teacher has a low perception of his or her ability. As a consequence, it can actually lower rather than enhance self-confidence. Criticism following poor performance can, under some circumstances, be interpreted as an indication of the teacher's high perception of the student's ability."

"Praise and criticism can have these paradoxical effects because of their link with effort attributions, and because people perceive effort and ability to be inversely related. Recall that if two students achieve the same outcome, the one who tried harder is judged by children over the age of about eleven years as lower in ability (Nicholls & Miller, 1984a). Research has shown, accordingly, that children approximately (but not below) the age of 11 rate a child who was praised by the teacher as lower in ability than a child who was not praised, and they rate a child who was criticized as higher in ability than a child the teacher did not criticize (Barker & Graham, 1987; Miller & Hom, 1997)."

In DD's case she figured that out earlier than 11 and my response was to turn it all into a running joke: "You got a sticker? Ack.. were you having an off-day then?" etc.

JemimaMuddledUp well said! This was exactly my argument when I went into see his teacher this morning. When I was faced with the response 'DS completes everything that is asked of him including his extension tasks with such ease that other children are often more deserving'! I was so ready after reading your reply that she was literally left dumbfounded! I very calmly replied that 'If the work was sufficiently differentiated to meet his needs it would require him to make enough effort to deserve a reward'! I don't hold out much hope that it will make any difference but it was immensely satisfying to say the least!

I really just find it so sad that my five year old has just resigned himself to the fact that this is just how it is!

The obvious solution is to give all children challenging work. I've spent most of the last 10 years thinking that this was the end of the story and that any teacher who didn't do it was either incompetent, lazy or had a particularly challenging set of low ability / badly behaved children to deal with.
However, I've recently realised that everything from the first day of primary school builds towards GCSEs and they are at set point - Summer term of Y11. For most, these exams offer differentiation i.e. if they try a bit harder there is more to learn, so the system works. However, if you could do these exams years early, then the pace of learning feels slow, and there's nothing you can do about it, except learn non-curriculum stuff.
The thing with learning outside of the curriculum, is that its not what the state pays its teachers to teach. Since it takes time to teach anything, it would be a brave teacher who decided to invest time in teaching the most able things that they will never be examined upon when the time could be spent enhancing the performance of any other sub-group.
So, its up to us parents to provide this by all means that we can.

PiqueABoo its funny to see you write turn of the century and mean 15 years ago. I initially thought you meant 1900 -1914 (and I thought it incredibly enlightened for anyone to be considering such things back then!)

You are probably right to use the term, but its the first time in my lifetime that I've seen it used for the 21st century!

Oh I'm very modern In truth it does take some quite conscious effort having lived more of my life in the 20th, but DD is pure 21st and I keep tripping over things where I have to adjust what I say for her frame of reference.

I think a lot depends on the particular school and the teachers. I cannot say I have had that problem with DS (currently in Year 2). From what I have seen, they are quite good at recognising and praising the children as the individuals they are.
And whereas DS has received recognition for writing a two pages story, another child in his class also gets praise for writing 3 sentences all by himself.

DS keeps telling me stories like he answered a very difficult question that no one else knew, and that earns marbles for the whole class. Other children also get the chance to earn marbles by doing different things, and at the end of the week if the jar is full the whole class gets a special treat. I thought it sounded like a fantastic idea, because that way other children do not resent that someone else is able to answer or do something they cannot, and actually gives them the feeling that they are all part of a team and can contribute in different ways according to their best abilities or effort.

More recently DS came out with a little toy as a prize for having completed his sticker chart. I was surprised as I didn't know they still did those in Year 2 as he never mentioned it or completed a sticker chart before. In reception they only needed 10 stickers and they were awarded more easily for things like good behaviour, answering a question correctly, having made an effort in something difficult for them, etc. So he got little prizes almost every week. In Year 1 it was more difficult to get the stickers, and he needed to collect 20, so the charts only got filled once a month or so. But this is the first chart he showed me since he is in Year 2, and he explained that when they do something really good they are given the choice of getting a sticker for their chart or getting marbles for the jar, and they usually choose to get marbles so it takes them longer to fill the chart.

Anyway, it seems like you might not get anywhere with this teacher given her attitude until now. Hopefully his Year 2 teacher will be better at not overlooking some of the students just because they are bright. Failing that, if things get worse maybe consider a different school?

DS is in a small state primary, so there are some good ones out there.

I hope things get better with your DS's school soon.

Ellle, I knew your ds's school was a good one from your past post, but
THE SCHOOL/ TEACHER SOUND FANTASTIC !

Do not take it by heart, he sure deserves a praise however many times for the doing less well children they deserve it a little more frequent to encourage them too.
My daughter used to complain that she was never picked up at school even she knows the answer too, her teacher gave the chance to five other children who didnt get the correct answer then he answered the question himself without letting her speak. It happens all the time. Its hard for my daughter as she felt very unfair by the time. Things get so much better this year that I cant ask for more is instead of mixing the whole class then the children are divided into group. Even within her group my daughter given her own work. She still hasnt found them as challenged however she doesnt complain they are boring or too easy as much. She sometimes still receive a sticker. So I would say def mixing the class isnt working well for an above average child.

Thanks irvineoneohone, I only realised how good this school was after reading other people's experiences here. At first I just assumed all schools were the same as ours, being that DS was my first child to go to school and the only experience that I had.

Greenleave that was so unfair for your DD. I remember when DS was in Year 1 I helped in one of the other classes at school for a little while and noticed one of the boys seemed to be quite bright. Then I saw a pattern, whenever the teacher asked a question to the class she would choose child after child (who didn't give the correct answer) until this boy was last, and then she would ask him, and praised him for his contribution to the class. I realised that the teacher knew that this boy would know the right answer to the questions, so she would often choose other children first to give them a chance of saying something, but would also let this boy give the answer at the end, especially if no one else had got it right.

Yea it was quite a bad year in year 2 when there were we were frustrated and wanted to move her. We thought initially the teacher wanted to give her friends a chance and thats absolutely understandable. However she was hardly ever picked. She shamelessly(in a good way) still raising her hand everytime. I think the children still know who knows the answer and who is doing well in the class even how much the teachers trying to hide it. There was a maths lesson when the year 6 were helping her class in yr2 and she was faster than any of them and even challenged them back. Then just last week in one of the computer lesson there was a question of calculating mean of 5 numbers with couple digits after decimals and she said the whole classjust said Xxx, cone on you can give it a go and you could beat the computer.
We forgot about year 2 and what happened now as she hasnt complained again. What did the teachers do differently, they separate her in a group. Then now within the group she is given her owm work.

I would say that it is absolutely normal for gifetd children to be ignored. I've been seeing alot in the media recenlty goo.gl/5Pbb4t and goo.gl/t148LT. We are seriously thinking about going down the homeschooling route. We are however, concerned about delivering a narrow curriculum for our two children?

Tbh I haven't seen any proper differentiation during the whole primary years (secondary seem worse).
Teachers have told me that they are struggling as it would mean a TA with dc1 to do done work one to one and they can't do that as it takes the TA away from the children who are struggling.
Rather I have found that they generally 'hold the child back' until they hopefully are caught up by the other children.

Yes you can try and fight your dc's corner. But be aware that you will have to fight with every teacher. And you might not go anywhere when there is such a gap.

HappyNevertheless - holding children back is what I've seen too. The major flaw though is that its only ever a short term fix, because as soon as they move onto something new, my DC have learned it quickly and again have to start waiting.
Primary school was worse than secondary, IMO, because primary is more about learning skills whereas most subjects at secondary are delivered as a series of topics, so there's something new every few weeks unlike whole years of waiting at primary school.

How far through secodnary are your DC, HappyNevertheless? Have they reached KS4 yet? I am hoping things will improve next year when DS1 gets to year 10.

I would agree with there being a problem with differentiation at primary school. The answer is frequently more sums/or write more sentences (on the same theme rather than a new topic when that is finished). Frequently a child completing more questions and getting them all right (or nearly all right) shows nothing about the child and teaches them nothing-it just keeps them busy. Primary school (due to the numbers in each class) is a lot to do with behaviour management and keeping them at the same level/on the same topic. I feel parents (esp of certain backgrounds have more ability/chance to teach their children if their have the time. Parental input is so important.

Parental input would have been the death of dc1.
I purposely wuthd information from him (eg doing long divisions ahead of time) because it basically out him in a more difficult situation than he already was.
By the time dc1 was in Y5, he specifically said he did not want to do more maths at home because it meant there was nothing g left for him to learn at school.

So teaching as In Talking about things, visiting museums or reading yes. Teaching as in learning new concepts, methods etc no. This wasn't good for us.

HappyNevertheless: not too sure about other subject however in term of maths then its very easy to be ahead even without any parental or with very little parental input. For example many children in my daughter yr3 class is still learning times table while some others finished it from year 2 or my daughter who isnt any exceptional in anyway learnt it all in 1 go by end of year 1 and all we did was sticking the times table in the kitchen. Boredom kills joy of learning, my daughter now loves her writting lessons as writting is the only thing the school cant restrict you. I has no boundary and freedom of using imagination, complexed words, sentences excites her. She used to love maths however not soo much now even sge has stop complaining. She is being given different homework, excercises however it doesnt require any of her effort. And I dont think her maths is that good, it could be much better.
I switched my focus on her hobbies and extracurr activities for her being a little stretched, having no boredom.

Lesson for second child...private!

Private if available/affordable has been okay for my DS.

green I agree, you can still be ahead even wo any parental input.

The problem too is that, even if they do something new, it takes dc1 a lesson to u set stand it all whereas all the others still take 2 or 3 lessons to get their head around it...