I think I belong in here?

[greathat]

DD's (in year 3) school thought she had high functioning autism so got the ed psych in to have a look at her. She's come out 99th centile on the Bas3 test, but it says she has asynchronous development and is emotionally immature. Although it also says she will benefit from spending time with older children as she will struggle to be patient with people her own age. The ed psych has recommended that the schools meets with me to discuss how to support her.

My question is that the school has a reputation for being very poor with more able students - its been flagged up repeatedly bu ofsted. Can anyone recommend what I should be saying when I go in please?

The Ed Psych should have given you a huge report. You should be able to take that to the school and show them. You are going to have to be very clear with them about your child’s requirements.

Do you have an option to change schools? It sounds like the psych is suggesting you move her up to the next year. Would she cope with the work?

The report basically said the school should be following its gifted and talented policy and should consider enrichment, acceleration and extension. I've been asking for extension and enrichment for a couple of years and the occasionally do a bit with her before it tails off. Then her behaviour deteriorates, I go in again And we just cycle round.

The reports all a bit vague I feel I need something more concrete to go in with. She'd be fine with the work in another class it's the behaviour that worries me, but then she does work better when the work's not too easy...

And she will probably respond better in that environment if she can relate to the kids better. What kind of behaviour do you think might be a problem?

Only thing that came to my mind reading your OP was, yes, she may benefit being with older children, but does that benefit them?
I've seen that happen with my ds. He definitely preferred older company. But it was only because he didn't have to deal with immaturity of others, including his own. Being with older children is easier. But does that benefit her in the long run? Doesn't that mean she is always expecting other children to accommodate her needs, but not other way around?

Behaviour wise she just loses interest and starts messing around a bit - not a lot she's still had an excellent report but she stops listening properly. She's also a perfectionist and can get very upset when she unexpectedly gets things wrong

I don’t think the other children would change to accommodate her needs? They will be her peers mentally. Unless she’s doing something incredibly outrageous that they would have to deal with but the idea is that this will stop that behaviour. By the time she leaves school and goes to university it will all have equaled out so will be irrelevant.

The other option is to keep her in a class where she isn’t being challenged, where she’s acting out and presumably doesn’t get along that well with the other kids, otherwise I guess the older children preferance wouldn’t have been mentioned? I think it would be bad but to make a pretty strong change at this point.

She generally gets on on with the kids in her class, but isn't very patient if they're playing something she has no interest in. All her friends were into monster High earlier this year and she had no time for it, so she'd just take a book and sit on her own and read instead.

My ds was very similar when he was younger. He was isolated because he wouldn't join in if he wasn't interested. He had a break though when he found like minded child in his year when he was in yr3, that they shared similar interest. The other child wasn't academically able, but had similar personality. From that point, he started to get mature, started to think about others' feeling and to learned to compromise.

I don't think school would agree to move up a year just because she will fit in better with older children. You might get lucky, but still, she needs to learn to deal with different kind of people with different interest and maturity.

No I'm not planning on pushing for her to move up. I was more considering the possibility that the school might find some activities where she could talk to older kids too.

DS’s psychologist said she recommends starting a lunch time club with the gifted child as president. Is your DD into something older kids might also enjoy? No reason the school shouldn’t go for it.

School clubs and outside school activities are good idea. Do they have any clubs that she is interested at her school?
My ds found older friends through school clubs and outside school activity too.

It's unlikely that older kids at school will engage with a younger child.

I totally get you, my DS is often choosing to be on his own when in social situations because other kids don't play like he plays. But our way around it is to get him to join in sports, extra curricular stuff like coding club, chess club, and orchestra (which is fab in our school). He is now in year 6 and things have settled a lot for him since year 4 as the work is getting more challenging and there is more 'mastery' approach in the classroom, more extension work, more challenges, etc.

I would personally say that social skills and being able to play with others/communicate well with others is an essential skill to get on in life. If you focus only on the academic side of her development it may not help her in the longer run.

Yes she's got extra curricular stuff, swimming, brownies, musical school. It's mainly the lack of challenge in her lessons, particularly maths that seems to get her wound up

Unfortunately I have found that some teachers are much better than others to 'get' that a child needs more challenge in maths otherwise they just switch off. I see that you have spoken to the school before, can I ask of the ed psychologist was a private assessment or was it pushed by the school?

The ed psych assessment was organised by the school. They thought she had high functioning autism so wanted the ed psych report done in the hope it recommended the add assessment as they said it would cut a year off the waiting list. She does have some asd traits, but I found a table on the net comparing asd and gifted and she had more of the gifted ones

Teachers always do this! They think everyone has ASD.

I think you should see an independent psych with experience with gifties. They will know what the best next step is and they will deal with the school for you.

I think it really doesn't matter if the child has more gifted traits or asd traits. Lack of challenge need to be addressed, but the behavior issue needs to be addressed if she gets wound up and start acting up if she is bored too.

I think it really doesn't matter if the child has more gifted traits or asd traits.

I may be wrong but I thought the way you react to traits would vary depending on whether they come from giftedness or ASD? DS has developed a lot of anxiety and fears. Psych basically advised to steamroll them (with love of course). I imagine the advice would be different if they were coming from something other than giftedness?

But can they always define the difference between if the child is truly gifted or 2e?
My comment comes from my own experience. My ds isn't diagnosed properly, even though he was referred to testing since 2. It's inconclusive.
So, my comment is somewhat biased.

I guess it depends on the child? The psych I went to has 30 years experience with gifted kids and she said forget completely about ASD, it’s absolutely just giftedness in DS’s case, though they do appear to overlap a lot hence the confusion. DS is quite sensitive to smells and sounds, but there are other factors that she thought ruled out ASD.

I’m no expert on ASD though so I’m not sure what the advice is on dealing with symptoms. I have gleaned they it involves a lot more patience and acceptance than I was advised to use with DS (and it has worked wonders in our house).

I guess maybe the point I’m getting at is if it is giftedness and not ASD the sensitivities will often disappear or become very manageable if there’s a sticker chart or offer of chocolate. (That’s not true for everything or everyone of course.)

I am not sure either. My ds's sensitivity to certain things have disappeared over the years, but there are some remaining. The teachers say they don't suspect anything of him, but I clearly see them at home.
Guess everyone is different. That's why I just think trying to figure out certain traits of one child is due to giftedness or asd doesn't really matter here. It needs to be dealt with at school either by giving her a adequate work if that's the root problem, or with the help of senco how to manage her behaviour.

I think it does matter. The way the school handles it is surely dependent on what’s at the heart of the matter? And I wouldn’t trust the school to know how to handle giftedness given what the OP has told us. I would be getting support from someone with expertise in the area. That’s just me though.

But she already had ed psych report, so she has an ammunition to demand adequate adjustments according to her needs.

Yes, but I’m just wondering if the ed psych is a specialist in the area, or has enough experience. If so, I’m not sure why the OP is left hanging. In my experience they usually give pretty clear instruction. I wonder why not in this case.

Maybe it's because the situation is not so severe. For example, DS has physical dyspraxia, but it's very mild, so his occupational therapy report was quite vague about what the school should do about it. If it was very debilitating dyspraxia I am sure the report would have given clearer instructions for them to follow.

Private reports cost a lot of money. And schools don't actually have to implement it at all. It's recommendations. It's the same if a child has dyslexia. If it's very severe a specific course of action will be prescribed, if it's mild then it's up to the school to decide and some are not pro active about it at all...