School haven't told us DD is G&T. Why?

[MaQueen]

Apparently DD2 was G&T at primary school. We were never officially told, but a friend (who was also governor) told me in passing.

DD2 passed the 11+ with a really high score and is now in Yr 8 at a grammar school. She's really flying academically, with 7.9s virtually across the board in all subjects in her exams at the end of Yr 7.

Anyway, she came home yesterday and mentioned she'd seen her form register and next to her name was 'G&T'.

I just wondered if it's normal for schools to not officially notify you that your child is G&T?

I would imagine that if the school had felt it was important they would have informed you. Personally I believe that labelling any child as "special" whether it's in a positive or negative way can have far too much impact on how said child is treated or indeed pressured to perform in the way the label indicates. There seems to be far too much emphasis these days on compartmentalising our children from far too young an age. Once I realised this was happening in my sons school I whipped him out and have been home educating since. In my view there is nothing more satisfying than seeing your child developing and learning at their own speed, excelling at what interests them and what will be relevant in their adult life. I certainly wouldn't have/didn't worry about what group an overworked and tired system decided he fitted into. I could figure that out myself quite easily :-)

But balloon a lot of the so called snipy comments (on this thread at least, I don't know about others) came from people like me who have been "that" child and wanted to sound words of warning about why this system of labelling is so flawed. About why it's probably best that children / parents dont know, or at least that there is no great benefit to the label.
Particular issues with bright kids, yeah, I get that, and I was horrifically bored at one school then got moved up a year which was even worse. I shopped around for a school which would stretch every child, and so glad I did as DS comes home thrilled about the "extra challenges" he gets set. He has no perception of being brighter or "special", but the teacher knows what makes him happy and has made an effort to meet his needs as well as those of all the other children in the class.

No idea why you weren't informed but I'd certainly question both schools, neither have given you full information which you should have.
It's unlikely you need to do anything extra as such with DD, but that's not really the point, keeping details from parents is not what I'd expect from a good school.

Yes although working with unis sounds like a great thing. What if that kind of high level academia isn't the right thing for that 'g+t' child. What if all they drum into you is the positives of such career paths and fail to mention the negatives. What if that child is heavily steered towards a career that is fundamentally not right for them.
Kids should be encouraged to do what's right for them, not just what somebody else thinks they are clever enough to do.
Op believe me your as throwing pebbles said above your dc is better off without this label.
(And I'm not in anyway being snipey, I'm speaking from experience.)

scared ds wasn't pushed in any direction, didn't go to uni at eighteen, he even turned down Cambridge (admittedly I winced at that decision) He got his degree and his masters funded by his employer who he joined at 18. He's just started a second degree again funded by his employer.

That's worrying that a Governor told you. Friend or not thats a breach of confidentiality.

I know yr 5 dd is because she goes to g&t workshops at a local grammar, invite only.

She may thought the OP knew, or that she had a right to know,.

If she thought op had a right to know, she should have raised the point at a governors meeting, not conferred upon herself the right to tell her.

Granted have clicked on from active threads and haven't rtft but is it just me who finds this whole need for recognition of offspring cleverness a bit distasteful?

I'm old so we never had G&T labels but I would have been one. As would most of my class. We were an unusually bright lot. Some of us have done amazingly well. Some not so much. Hey ho, I guess it matters not a jot.

I'm just glad my parents didn't go around braying about how bloody clever I was.

As long as the teachers know, so they can make sure the kids are properly challenged, I'm struggling to see how such a label would matter.

They told us the day dd left the school to be H.ed after y3.
It was only in passing that "we will lose her off the G&T list.
We already knew though, it was pretty obvious, people used to stop me in the street and tell me.

If she operates on a 'what she thinks parents should know' then she should not be a governor.

I would never have been on the G&T list given that I'd never heard of the word snitty before this thread!

Sometimes it isn't a need for recognition, but more of a need for an explanation about why your DC finds school so hard to cope with. Having had DCs that were genuinely off the scale, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It worked out in the end but 'clever and able to work within the system' would have been way easier.

Sometimes it isn't a need for recognition, but more of a need for an explanation about why your DC finds school so hard to cope with. Having had DCs that were genuinely off the scale, I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It worked out in the end but 'clever and able to work within the system' would have been way easier.

I don't understand how the governor would have had the information - governors should see anonymised data only. Children aren't named in discussions. You might talk about the % in a cohort who are above national expectations, or who are SEN or who are Pupil Premium, but you don't usually name names. So that bit is odd.

Re the telling you or not - there's no requirement for a school to have a G&T policy, and it's much less of a thing than it was a few years ago.