Does 'gifted' stay with a child?

[Mayhemmumma]

My DD is a great pupil, loves school (yr1) and tries really hard. Has a good memory and concentrates well - all things I think help learning.

She's been on the school gifted list since reception, for writing and communication.

My question is whilst at pre-school and reception she got a lot of 'wow' reactions and was ahead of her peers, is it likely that her classmates will catch up with her and it'll even out? Will she maintain her 'gift' for writing or in other people's experience does it change?

She's very young. I have no complaints, she enjoys school so much and is learning new things- like athletics and French and has an impressive enthusiasm. Could it be that she's just a super keen learner and this may or may not continue?

Very possible to be gifted with a LD. It’s called 2e.

Interesting. My DD was very much a "wow" child in early years at prep school. She is now in Y9 and is still bright but I don't think she is in any way outstanding.

I think you can break it into a number of different strands about what makes a 7 year old child stand out, and what is interesting is which of those play well to early years/early skills acquisition but not much further, and which of those continue to convey advantage.

Middle class/academically inclined parents - tick: still there, and I get the huge importance of a supportive background which values education etc, but that doesn't actually get your homework done magically or impart stuff by osmosis - attitude and self-motivation becomes much more important.

DD is old for the year and a second child so all the "kit" needed to improve - eg books for an older reading age, harder puzzles, games which stretched her etc - were already just lying around at home. Plus she has a 2 year older sibling who she was always running to keep up with (mostly successfully). I think that was a huge help. She had a friend who was medium young for the year, and the oldest of three, who always used to seemed really young to me in comparison to DD - her friend defaulted to watching younger tv programmes with younger siblings and played slightly more babyish games). But both the age in year and the impact of sibling position really unwinds as you get older I think, (and I think that may have been key to give DD a perceived "boost").

Underlying brightness - tick and still there. She is at an academically selective school and is performing well.

"Up and at them" attitude - hugely contributing factor for a 7 year old: hand up constantly, wanting to know why, happy to join in anything with no self consciousness, highly collaborative, everything very interesting as it is all new etc. We still see hints of these and it is not uncool to do well at her school, but I'm not sure many 14 year old girls really operate on the "sitting in the front of class with hand permanently up" basis. Plus they have to do, in detail, many more subjects that they simply are not interested in - even the liveliest peppiest 7 year old does not have to cope with a diet of Chemistry/Latin/Geography etc

Hard to say. I was pretty good at school and I think it did last. However the private schools which are academically selective at 5+ don't have a gifted list as such and those are the schools of which i have experience and I suppose most children are fairly bright to get in there in the first place. Also it may just depend on personality - one of mine seemed more advanced (reading at 3 etc) than another one and yet they ended up with almost identical exam results and both lawyers. One sat still and read more at 3 and the other didn't sit still for a second and ran around chatting.