Is my 5 year old gifted?

[SayWhatNowYall]

Confused by the whole ‘G&T’ thing, as it doesn’t seem to exist in our area. However, DS appears to be extremely bright. At 5 y/o he is free-reading, his vocabulary and communication level is (according to his teacher) university level. His general maths ability (as far as we have introduced maths) is at least y3 level, but in some aspects (e.g. conceptual understanding) is at secondary level.

He has lots of friends, is very happy at school, and fits in well. The only area he struggles with slightly is handwriting.

I’m confused about what to do about year 1. He’s spent the summer reading chapter books and doing complicated division. Although he was given higher targets in his report (which he mastered by the second week of holidays) he will go back into a phonics group (top groups) and will doing fairly basic maths (number bonds and place value, etc.) as the school doesn’t appear to allow kids to be taught above their year.

Any advice?

There should have been a proper handover from the YR teacher to the Y1 teacher, but even so I would sit tight for a couple of weeks and give the Y1 teacher time to suss him out. You might be lucky and he’ll be kept busy and challenged. More likely he’ll be bored, in which case I’d first encourage him to start approaching the teacher to ask (politely) for more challenging work. Only if it’s clear they are not providing for him despite his best efforts do you need to go in. They’ll be more likely to work with you if they’ve seen it for themselves first.

I have a feeling I was that child. And though I did get bullied a bit at school (due to the demographic of the area where we lived + my own lack of social skills), none of the other glum predictions came true: I cannot recollect ever having been bored in life, out of school or in, and I never gave up on my dreams. There were too many exciting things to learn.
A couple of things really helped:

being taught that learning wasn't something that had to be set for you by a teacher and rewarded by a reward scheme, but something people did for pleasure

being taught that there were different kinds of learning- academic, crafts, physical skills like swimming and fishing- and that they were all equally valuable

being allowed to experience imperfection- I was never going to be any good at playing the piano or woodwork but they were still part of my life

being taught that I had to behave at school even if I already knew some of the things discussed

what would have helped further:

being told that for most people social skills, like playing the piano, is something that can be improved with practice- and being taught a few tricks to start with

To me a lot of being bright is having a very good memory. And also then the ability to transfer what you know to different things. My dd is bright and only needed to revise ince she hit 2bd year uni. But she did. Her maths teachers were always telling her to ask for extension work but she never did as she didn't like being singled out. It really hasnt mattered.

🙄

I agree what has mentioned by some. Lot of nice things for a bright child to learn outside school; music, languages (and I have s soft spot for Latin). However it's a really long time to sit in school from 9am till 3om if you haven't got anything "interesting" to do.
My sister-in-law solved it many years ago by keeping her daughter at home for weeks on end and also byletting her skip 2 school years. This was a different time, different country where there is/was no concept of homeschooling.
Niece is now a lovely, social adult, working as a doctor in her spare time (has other interests in her main time...)

Hi Hive,

Have a look at this little fella's Video 🤗😜Sorry it is bit too long😋

Although, I am quite surprised at what he does at this little age but need your insight feedback after you watch this video.

NOW that you have watched, here is my query:

He turned 2 this week and as you can see in the video, he has a great memory and learning power. The nursery that he started going to about 2 months ago has a policy to just work on life skills for the babies/toddlers in group 0-3 years which seems like a wide age group to be honest as they can't give targeted learning needs to everyone as they are caring for kids aged from 0-3.

Not that I am overly worried or obsessed about his learning but should we not try to nurture the natural talent he has ie strong intellect, memory and brain power.. please advice!!

Can you imagine how boring work would be if you were doing tedious admin everyday when you were capable of doing so much more.

Oh, yes. Only too well!

In my experience, G&T programmes (haven't they been scrapped, now?) were a box-ticking excercise for the school to show Ofsted that they were offering extension work to the brightest kids in particular areas - maths, English, science, sport... However, when youngest ds was entered into the Maths programme, all it meant in practical terms was being offered several Saturday mornings per term when you could pay (about £30 or so) for your child to attend an extended maths day provided by the LEA, about an hour's drive away across the county.
Ds declined, as it always clashed with his football!

@SayWhatNowYall

Not sure if your still around as the thread is a little old now. I was in G&T classes at school and they were really poorly organised. As a previous poster said, just a way for the school to tick boxes. I was ahead for my age but it evened out by the time I started high school and I was just a regular kid. If he absorbs information as you say, maybe get him started on a second language before he gets older. It will open up a lot of opportunities for him later on.

DrNeh, you are clearly keen on teaching your child and have asked for advice on nurturing his intellect. I too was keen on teaching my dd, as I believe education, as well as genetic intelligence make up ability.

There clearly is a strong father-son bond, but teaching a child involves listening to them. Just try writing one letter and ask him if he knows what sound it makes, in a way that lets him know you are genuinely interested in what his answer will be. Give him time to answer and ask him if he is still thinking or should you tell him.

Use lower case letters and letter sounds rather than names. Try writing and sounding out simple CVC words, where each letter makes a sound; ie, d o g rather than c ar. Then draw that thing or hand him a toy dog so that he can make a connection of letters making words and meaning things in a fun way.

For maths, play games: You have two sweets, if I give you one more how many will you have? Cut out different shapes, put them at the far side of the room and get him to run over and get the triangle. Play shops. Bring teaching into play and play into teaching.

As for nursery, his social skills are every bit as important as his academic skills. There are a lot of hours in the day and very few of them, (made up of a few minutes every now and then), are enough to teach him academic things. Children needs a good balance of meeting other children, playing in the park and even being left alone to just daydream.

should we not try to nurture the natural talent he has ie strong intellect, memory and brain power. Giving him a love of learning, the realisation that working at things will improve his ability and the humility to realise that he was one of the people lucky enough to get a good education, is a far better plan.

This is hilarious! I'm waiting for the story about the time he split the atom ..

My advice is to let him be a kid. Does he get chance to just play with age appropriate toys, play in muddy puddles, go to an adventure playground, the park, feed ducks, build a den, climb a tree, be 5? Instead of thinking about Latin maybe just maybe let him be a 5 year old.

Both ds were on the G&T register, both refused to go the extra lessons etc. I told them it was their choice. If they wanted to spend break and lunch with friends, then that was their choice, after all it was them at school, not me!