Shitty shite: Gifted & Talented

[MamaG]

shite

I was having an interesting conversation with a friend recently and somehow she managed to weave in the fact that her child was in the G&T programme. I was first amazed and how she managed to drop it seemingly innocently and then I so desperately wanted to tell her that my school don't have one and I was sure if they did my DS would be on it. You know how protective yo can get of your own kids. I stopped myself cos I was brought up right.

It's an interesting point about wanting to boast about your kid. My DS did something really well recently and I so badly wanted to tell someone but other that my family it feels wrong to boast. I have on MN though at times because it is anonymous. Go on ask me so I can tell you .

Dros, I am exquisitely interested in your talented child.

Spill.

jellyhead: so does that mean that you think the present-day system of SATs, so you do know how clever/average/dense you are, is an improvement?

Drosophila: do tell.

Oh I can't

There's an educationcal column I think in today's Telegraph where the lady looks at entrance papers to a grammar school, sums, NVR etc and compares with fairly meaningless SATs and wonders why the Gov doesn't just set children the 11+ papers. But I've never seen a SAT so I'm not really qualified to comment on them.

My ex husband used to get sick of all the parents at his school who thought their children were brilliant. It was if some parents couldn't see their child wasn't very clever and/or naughty. The self deprecating or rather child deprecating parents are so much nicer.

Gifted and Talented is a bit of a naff monika, isn't it? But where do you go when society has decided that the 11+ is non PC.

From my perspective, knowledge these days seems a mile wide and an inch deep.

Agree Sobernow. Why is it considered showing off if you have a child who is G&T and want to discuss the problems that arise from it?

I would be banned from Mumsnet if I transferred some comments I have read on G&T threads to the SN threads.

I think it's great to show off about your kids - more parents should do it. The problem I have with g and t, is that I think that some children that are called gifted are not - they are bright. And there's a difference between a bright child and a gifted child.

Bright children will usually do well even in spite of having a crap teacher. Children with learning difficulties will often not do well even with a good teacher unless their specific needs are met.

I think boasting is always a little distasteful and I have done it here and in RL. II have done exactly what someone did below balanced it with a negative. DS is an atrocious writer and I find it so much easier to say that than wax lyrical about his achievements.

When I was growing up modesty was cherished. I notice it at work too colleagues boasting about their own meagre achievements. Sometimes I join in but it feels soooo wrong.

Sobernow that is awful. How mean of them.

Kerry mum I quite agree - gifted children very often will become bored and disruptive when not stimulated. My point was that some children that are labelled as gifted are not - they are bright and there is a difference.

God, that's fecking terrible, Sobernow! I would have killed the woman.

Unfortunately, (and I was a bright kid and so is mine), society at large has a problem with bright kids.

But we have crossed the Rubicon. Having done away with Grammar Schools and the principle of the 11+, we are left with a half-arsed solution to educating bright children within a comprehensive system.

I think the problem is the term Gifted and Talented. It sounds like a Lighthouse Family song. Can the educational system not just pick out kids who are bright in certain areas and encourage them without labelling them?

Apparently children at DD's school who passed the initial assessment (gen knowledge test) to be selected by their teachers to apply for audition (how many steps are we away from the real thing) for Junior Mastermind were told to shhh about it.

IME this secrecy doesn't apply when someone is selected to try out for regional/national sports teams.

Sobernow - I am a pacifist but I don't know how I would have stopped myself punching those mums. At least now you know what sort of people they are - saves wasting time on them.

Your DD sounds lovely.

One reason I'd never have let my top 10% (which is not G&T in terms of any normal use of the word) anywhere near a state school. They need educating with other children with that ability in classes all working to the same level from age 5, segregation all the way rules..... but sadly often only if you can pay for it.

Is David BEckham gifted and talented? Hell yes I would say and not bad looking either.