Shitty shite: Gifted & Talented

[MamaG]

shite

That was a joke.....which will have me sought for and killed.....sorry.

I thought most comps did set actually.

Parents who so want clever children stretched and have money can just sit them for aademdic private schools so they're educated with the rest of the upper 10% which helps in a number of ways those children because they realise they're not "gifted" ridiculous word but just reasonably clever so it helps bring them down to earth a bit. It also means the whole class is at the same level so you're not coasting and it also makes lessons fun and you have that lovely bouncing of ideas off each other, fairly high level debate etc. The bigger academic private schools also have music and sport which fosters those talents extremely well too.

Arguably the best special needs provision is available if you can pay too. So is the answer for all mothers to try to earn a fortune so they can buy these privileges or should they start a communist revolution to ensure it's available to all or even worse abolish what there is that is good in state and private so everyone has what is worst?

The best SN provision depends on what level though xenai. There isn't a private school in the land that would take a non-verbal 8 year old in nappies. Well there are, but LEA's pay the large amount of money it takes to send them there (the private oneas are usually residential) so you're usually talking a battle of many years to get the placement.

Agree with Fio.

Oh Xenia - it's sooo easy for a mother of a special needs child to earn a fortune. Give us a break.

So what exactly is your solution Xenia?

ds1's provision is hugely expensive (although difficult to get the exact figures from the LEA). If he was in residential (which would be the only way I coould earn a fortune because there is no out of school childcare for him) then it would about 100 grand a year I think, I may have that wrong, but I'm working it out from the cost of adult provision (that I'ev looked at recently).

It was a thread about G&T not SN. Obviously SN is a very broad term. Ruth Kelly is paying for some residential care but that's I think for dyslexia. Some parents do pay for residential places for more difficult needs but I imagine many don't want to be away from their children anyway even if they could afford it and I know some SN children taken out of private schools and put in the state system so it's not a straight forward choice by any means.

The solution for clever children is to issue all parents with childcare vouchers they can spend at schools of their choice so if you have a clever child you want educated at a grammar school state or private then they apply to those.

Very few parents pay for residential care. It's funded between the LEA and SS usually.

It's become about SN because there is a suggestion that children with SN automatically get extra help when that is very far from the truth.

How awful that jealousy lurks about others children. They are just children and if their abilities are greater than others then this should be recognised quickly and celebrated surely.

This education system wont give them a fighting chance unless the parents push for help.

xneia- I've just checked out the cost of our local senior boarding school that is aimed at children with SN & challenging behaviours- some of the children have learning difficulties, some don't; the fees are £73,206 - £219,540 per year- that's not the sort of school fees that parents pay for! It's local authoriity funded. It's a totally different ball game.

But if it's the top 10% in each school what are we celebrating? Personally I think if any child achieves in a piece of work relative to their abilites that should be recognised, whether its an average piece of work from a generally poor student, or an excellent piece of work from a good student. If they're working hard and achieving for them then recognise that.

I have no idea if my son is G&T, but his teacher says he is hitting all the milestones of 2 years above his age, and I really recognise the comments about the need to keep bright (is that term non confrontational?) children occupied, as he will become disruptive at the drop of a hat if a tiny bit bored. My problem is as we are an army family and move really often I have to go into the school each time and try and alert them to this without sounding like a bigheaded pushy mother, and not alienating them or making his school life difficult.

Kerrymum - just seen your post, but off to bed now, will respond in the morning!!!!

i'm not sure if the g&t label is any use. my ds, 14yrs, is in the top 1% (from CAT scores) and already has a scholarship to a lovely school. he was invited to join some g&t scheme. he hasn't 'though. he really just wants to play computer games and mess about with his friends. he sometimes feels unhappy because when he gets an "a" grade, he thinks the teachers prob expected him to get an a*. also he does get bored with the level of science he is being taught but would hate to go up to the next year. no matter how well he does it's treated as 'though it's easy for him. i actually think he'd be happier if he hadn't been put through those tests (which they all had) and hadn't been given a special category.

There is no way the academic needs in terms of support needed are in any way on a par with a child with "any SN".

I have 1 of each, I work with both of them at home, and its completely without comparison. One has an unsupported attention span of seconds. If I want him to match words and pictures I have to say "look at the word" before he can even do that. Even though 3 of us have been workiing on this for weeks we're still not sure whether or not he can recognise words. He cannot play unsupported let alone work unsupported. He is in a class of 6 with 5 members of staff present every time I've been in there (which is quite a lot recently). Sometimes one child requres 2 members of staff to complete an activity. The last lesson I attended involved 2 students & 3 adults.

Children who are G&T do not remotely need that level of support. I can direct ds2 from afar- "hey ds2 why do you do x, y, z" I only have to guide him I don't have to sit next to him to stop him standing up and running off, I don't have to physically prompt him to teach him something, I don;t even have to be sat next to him. Stretching ds2 should not require extra funding - in ds1's case it is absolutely essential.

Incidentally I've taught in Japan and I'm not sure the school system encourages or celebrates intelligence. It encourages rote memory (telephone directory learning I used to call it). There is essentially a grammer school system. I taught in some comprehensive equivalents and saw behaviour that would not have been tolerated in a UK classroom (such as playing cards & reading comics during lessons- I was told I was not allowed to discipline I had to make my lessons so interesting that they would put their cards down- I eventually found 2 succesful lessons - animal noises (to a bunch of 18 year olds) and wordsearches).

The biggest difference between the UK and Japan was that every child leaving school had something lined up before they left- whether that was a job bus driving, or setting off to the top University.

"The academic needs of a highly+ gifted child are on par with any child with special needs."

I soooooo don't agree

your average g+t kid can go to the toilet unsupervised, ask directions, go shopping without being ripped off. They can almost certainly feed themselves.

Sadly this is not the case for other kids with special needs

(I KNOW this is a sweeping generalisation re kids with special needs. I KNOW. But-seriously. the two are NOT the same)

Absolutely agree Fillyjonk.

I have one who is both SN (medical) and for want of a better word 'talented'. Without attention to her SN she can't access the facilites which enable her to achieve her potential. That has happened and to an extent is still happening now.

So no, I don't agree that they are on a par either.

And China may encourage intellectually gifted children - they also pretty much cast out the disabled.

There's a very big difference between say quite clever like the girls at North London Collegiate where my daughter went and the girls there who will get 11 A* at GCSE and 6 As at A level or the actual occasional "genius" child you get. I just can't imagine sending my chidlren to a school which didn't at least set and let those top 10% be educated with others at that level. It must be boring for the children anyway. If I had a really genius type child that demands very special help certainly. I was put up a year at school which worked out fine. I went to university when I was 17 and because of the private school I was in which wasn't very academic I still found the lessons a disappointment. If everyone is going to be lucky to get 2 A levls a C or D grade and may be 2 other girls might do reasonably well you just don't have the debates in class or other people to talk to about stuff and I am by no means particularly clever compared with lots of people I've worked with over the years.

Most chidlren don't want to be different. So putting them in a very academic school if they're quite clever means they don't have to be different. 100% of the class will go to top universities. No one is a nerd for doing well in class. You're all the same. You still get the clever/work/cool issues and you still get groups of different kinds of children but at least they're all about the same and all work at a similar level. No way would I or any normal child I know have wanted to do extra work in the summer holidays or be singled out as different. Clever children learn how to hide their interest in work, of course they do and nonchalantly talk about the parties they've been at whilst working hard on the side because they secretly love the subject etc.

'The academic needs of a gifted child are on a par with any child with special needs.'

It is a fact that a large proportion of adults in our prisons have some kind of sn. Does having a sn make someone immoral - definitely not. Does having sn mean that you are failed by the educational system? Yes, often.