School for the gifted

[NameChangedNoImagination]

If there was a school for the gifted, would you send your child? I would have loved one when I was a child. Where learning is accelerated to your own pace and where you have time and encouragement to study special interests.

I disagree that a Comp would be able to cater for extremely gifted children. How on earth could they teach someone in a class that was 3 years ahead of their peers.

Three years ahead isn't that unusual at all. There is more of a gap between my dd and her peers, and yet she is thriving in her state comprehensive. I guess it depends on what the parents are looking for though. It is immensely important to me that dd is appropriately challenged and stretched, but I'm not one of those parents who believe that, just because you'd be capable of doing GCSEs in primary school, that's what you should do.

If you want accelerated progression through exam hoops, I guess a dedicated school would be the best way to go. Personally, I see next to no value in that, other than the boasting rights. I want a much broader, richer education for my dd, and that includes mixing with people of all different abilities and learning to value the special qualities in each of them.

I agree with you Alexa. I did well at school, went on to study medicine and am now a consultant. But I went to a comprehensive school and mixed with people of a wide economic and academic background. I think there is too much stratification in society as it is. I wouldn't be much of a doctor if I saw myself as different from patients and all the other professionals I work with just because of my academic ability. We need to understand each other and recognise the similarities rather than focusing on what makes us different or 'better'.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.medicaldaily.com/why-smarter-people-are-more-likely-be-mentally-ill-270039%3famp=1

I'm a psychiatrist and have serious reservations about that article. It fits a cultural stereotype and minimises the many studies that have found no correlation. And even if it were the case, putting academic high achievers with vulnerable mental health in a highly stressed environment with huge expectations can hardly be expected to lessen the risk of these incredibly serious life long and life changing conditions.

The social price of taking someone out of "normal" life and surrounding them with only 0.1% or 0.01% of society is vast. Especially if you also remove them from the family home. I find it so difficult to believe that anyone's intellect needs such special treatment that the price would be worth paying.

Ask Ruth Lawrence. She's the archetypal child who was "stretched", accelerated and enabled to reach her intellectual potential - admittedly in a different way what OP is proposing, but to me it still has the basic pattern of the child's intellect being seen as the most important thing about her. She's been cited as saying she wants her own children to grow up "naturally" and "normally". I think she may have had siblings too. I wonder what they thought of it all.

I disagree that a Comp would be able to cater for extremely gifted children. How on earth could they teach someone in a class that was 3 years ahead of their peers.

Of course an academic comp can. When your top set will pretty much get a straight run of 8/9’s with the rare 7 then you have a cohort already working at the level of selective schools and can easily stretch your very top pupils even further.

And even if it were the case, putting academic high achievers with vulnerable mental health in a highly stressed environment with huge expectations can hardly be expected to lessen the risk of these incredibly serious life long and life changing conditions.

Why would a school for the gifted be hugely stressed with high expectations? In the OP I said moving through the curriculum at own pace with time to pursue special interests. Also I didn't mention but I would envision specialist emotional and social support provision. Surely that's a much less stressful environment for a gifted child?

Apples but for some children all 9s would be underachievement and not nearly reaching their potential. In that way can't we conclude the school system is not 'for them' in the same way it's not for children with profound IQ differences in the other direction?

if it was like hogwarts then yes, definitely.

My view is that a supportive directed and nurturing education like that should be available to everybody regardless of academic ability.

Bally I do understand that, to a point.

The thing is, I come from the opposite end of the scale as in I was not challenged. So I was moved up a year top of the class without even trying, did my work in 5 minutes at the beginning of each lesson then worked on personal projects for the rest of the time, and I'd say there was a serious social impact for me NOT being around people like me.

I have learned to be lazy. I have learned to think I can do anything without trying. I do now have work ethic but it's taken a long time to get it. I learned I was weird as fuck and never fitted in. I learned that I was too ambitious. I learned I talked too much, felt too much, questioned too much, was too much. I grew up being profoundly different and as a consequence thought there was something wrong with me.

Emotionally I could not adapt to the school system. It doesn't suit many gifted children because they are so different. it's endlessly boring and pointless. I was sitting in school age 7 designing new school systems. I'm sure there are many children doing the same now.

Only now as an adult I'm getting back into my interests. I have lost 15 years of time I could have spent working on something important and fulfilling. I don't want these outcomes for other children who have potentially something important for humanity, who can use these gifts for the greater good.

I think we lose a lot of gifted people to mental illness, drug addiction, depression and apathy. This is not good enough. I see gifted children as an unserved minority. Because they can 'do well' at school it is perceived there is nothing wrong, when all too often there is. Maby gifted children are adept at hiding their difficulties.

I think it's a tough one. I totally agree about the socialisation though I personally only really succeeded in developing reasonable social skills when I was happier academically. I think that's as much about personality as IQ though. My sister has an IQ at least as high if not higher than mine but had a totally different experience both socially and academically. Oddly, I survived a pretty miserable school experience without many long term probs whereas she had a superficially much better experience but was much more damaged by it I think. So I suppose I think learning to manage your feelings is the most useful thing whatever your IQ. For me my emotional well-being is tied very closely to intellectual stimulation but I don't think that's inevitable at all and is actually maybe fairly unusual.

kalidasa I'm the same 're intellectual stimulation and emotional wellbeing being tied together.

So I was moved up a year top of the class without even trying, did my work in 5 minutes at the beginning of each lesson

In that case you went to a truly appalling school and were not well served by your education, but I would hazard the issue was the teachers and lessons structure rather than your classmates. My DD comes home absolutely buzzing with ethical debates she's had in RS, cross-referencing with political stuff she's heard on the radio and her knowledge of dyslexia and autism... I don't think anyone should consider themselves above able to learn from that sort of thing at 11 or 15.

Can I ask, have you now found "people like you" whose company you enjoy?

In that case you went to a truly appalling school and were not well served by your education.

This was across three schools, two private, one grammar, that get excellent results.

Can I ask, have you now found "people like you" whose company you enjoy?

No.

I think we had a similar school experience NameChanged though probably quite different personalities. I was miserable and lonely for a long time at school but actually have not been held back by it longer term whereas you clearly have been. I'm sorry to hear you don't feel that you've found a peer group. Do you mind me asking what you do? Do you have work you enjoy?

Do you mind me asking what you do? Do you have work you enjoy?

I run an online business. It's profitable and I'm doing well. I like to apply my intellect to new ways to make money and increase my monthly income, but it doesn't fully scratch that itch. I'm outearning anything I'd make in employment without years of training and find work environments too stressful anyway. I also can't manage working full time. So a job is really a no go for me.

I hope to branch out and become an entrepreneur. The strategy of that is exciting.

I do have a few friends who are a little more like me, but it's not easy. We're living vastly different lives and I am very focused, borderline obsessive when it comes to what im doing at that time. My friendships tend to be project based if I'm honest, like we're working on something together. That said, I do have a few long term friends, some gifted, some not. And I don't always talk projects with them

Why would a school for the gifted be hugely stressed with high expectations?

Because the type of parents who would choose to send their kids to such schools would be the ones who tend to focus too much on the academic ability of their children instead of looking at development more holistically. The ones who emphasise difference instead of trying to help their children see what they might have in common with others. The ones who assume that their children struggle to forge friendships because they are gifted, rather than trying to address their poor social skills. I can't think of a worse environment.

I know quite a lot of gifted people with very gifted children. Some of them would love the idea of a school like this, but I profoundly disagree with their approach. I want my dd to have as normal a childhood as possible. She has a formidable intellect and I want her to fulfil her academic potential, but I also want her to be well-balanced and happy in other aspects of her life. Giftedness is just one aspect of who she is, and I don't ever want it to dominate her whole identity. She is so much more than that.

Marking my place as interested.
Dd is 5 months, having a gifted baby is weird. She’s starting waving now too. I was thinking about gifted should, obviously a long way off but did any of you notice early signs? And what were they?

Started+ my poor grammar! I am not gifted 😂

I can’t believe that a school like this doesn’t exist in the UK. And I agree that this isn’t an area that is covered by high pressured, high achieving private schools or super selective grammars. In the States there are plenty of gifted schools, often several in each state. There is demand in this country, and I’m so surprised that supply hasn’t caught up with that.
The needs of highly gifted kids (I was one, and am mum to a DS who seems to be cut from the same cloth) just aren’t catered for in many regular school environments. I’m sincerely glad for those posters who are very gifted and had a positive school experience, but my sense is that is not the norm. And even less so for the 2e (twice exceptional) population.

Leapfrog uk attitudes on this whole issue are very different from in the States. For instance, I would never use the term gifted about myself or one of my children in a real life conversation, not even with a teacher. There's a lot of discomfort with the whole issue. Anyone who does talk about their 'gifted child' sounds instantly ridiculous to a lot of people. It's a v British attitude and partly explains (or is explained by?) the very different educational arrangements. Not defending it, just giving some context!

And apologies if you are in the uk and are well aware of all that!

I am in the UK, and yes I completely agree with you. I’d never use the term gifted to describe my DS in real life, even though that’s what he clearly is. It’s a little sad really. That and the fact that I can foresee the same frustrating educational journey that some of my friends had. I was lucky enough to go to an incredible school for sixth form, and then to Oxbridge, but I imagine many truly gifted (more gifted than me) and certainly many 2e children would have flamed out of school before that stage due to boredom/ behavioural issues/ lack of challenge leading to an inability to tolerate failure. We need to move forwards in this country. The school system is so backwards looking in many ways (and of course incredible in many others.)

By the way @AlexaShutUp I respectfully disagree with you about the kind of parent that would seek out a school like the one OP was describing. Pushy parents would head straight for the academic hothouses, but a gifted school that OP is describing would genuinely cater for the different learning style typical of many gifted children, and also give them an opportunity to find their tribe. Which if we are talking about children many standard deviations above the norm, just isn’t going to happen in mainstream education. And I wouldn’t foresee only socialising with gifted children. There’s a whole life outside of school, and I have no desire to shut my child away from any of that, just to cater to his different educational needs- which is surely all any of us want for our children.