I am being unreasonable to expect only parents with so named 'G&T children to post on this thread

[virgo]

...I have 2 children ds and dd. DD has been 'officially' lisetd (for what that is worth) by the school. I never would have dreamed of posting on this thread if she wasn't listed as such.

As a mum I think both my children are fantatsic and 'gifted' in all sorts of ways - as I am sure we all do.

Isn't this topic supposed to be a helpline for parents of these listed children to give them ideas as to what the shcools ought to be doing and what as parents we can do to help these children achieve their potential.

Every now and again I look on the threads to see if there are any useful postings and it seems to be full of threads about 'is my child gifted???' 'he's reading ort dtage 8 at 2 is he gifted?'etc etc

peppered with postings from other irriated parents...

We'd not even considered this about our dd - the teachers at shcool call you in and tell you about htis list and that your ds or dd is on it - FULL STOP. You don't tell them, they know their job...

So I've got a G&T dc....he's not,..he's very bright and works really hard but not G&T. However I am really proud of him and I think this thread should be more about bragging!!!!
Let's all have a mass brag in...competing to see how fantastic our dc are. I fed up having to keep quiet at school!

Why do you have to keep it quiet at school Ingles2. If he was really good at sports everyone would know!

At DS's school that one of the teachers read out the g&t list for year 7 (based on CATs tests)in one of the classes.

My DD10 is g&t for maths so goes out for extra maths to stretch her.She is not a genius but very bright and a very quick thinker. Her teacher told me today it has done her a lot of good, as she seems far more focused in her work. I think it has given her something to aim for in the rest of her work.

At my dd primary school they plan to call everyine gifted and talented as they say that every child must be gifted at something

At the school I teach in we have a G and T register but it terms of actual cogntive ability I don't think we have anyone who is truly gifted.

But I do think it is important that schools are made to offer some provision for their most able pupils as too often the most and least able get negelected as schools make a scramble to turn those Ds into Cs.

LOL at thread title!

Xenia ds1 is working to the top of grammar school levels now in yr9...
He could no doubt have been hothoused as youngster, however I was too busy working (single mum) to keep him in yoghurt and books to bother hothousing him.
And what does it do for kids, going to Oxbridge aged 12/14/16 really anyway.

I am happy bragging btw he is awesome

Am I fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOL

??? how does it not make sense?
I was addressing it to Xenia

LOL

I wasn't saying he wasn't bright because I don't know him but there's a difference between the top 15% who went to grammar school and university who mostly are just fairly clever and then the genius type children who are what I would term "gifted". What most of us want is our children fulfil their potential and if they're quite clever then I think it's good if they';re stretched and in a class with other children who are too so you get whole class teaching at a high level. You can do that by setting of course in some subjects. It's not so easy to have huge mixed ability across one class and ensure the top and bottom are adequately dealt with I suspect.

I chose to pay so my children were educated in those kinds of very academic schools and then they also get very good sport music and all those other things too but if the state system is trying to get the best out of clever children I'm certainly not against that. Might be simpler just to give them a voucher to the best local private school which gets the most children to Oxbridge though. That's probably a cheaper option for the state too than the G&T programme.

Well being identified under NAGTY is supposed to identify you to the Russell Group universities and therefore make it one step easier to getting in, assuming all grade points are met, therefore bypassing the class issue - assuming the G+T process is fair.
The new system of taking the top 10% of every school regardless of achievement levels, could undermine the RG universities committment IMO.
I'm not vague on ds's abilities, he is truly exceptional I know that he is. My point is that to allow him to achieve what he is capable of - (if this is truly what the govt and education sector desires) then a solid identification and enrichment programme needs to be available.

I think you'll find a lot of parents on Mn with children designated G & T don't post on these threads either, virgo
That might be

because they know they'll get flamed regardless of the subject and wording of their thread

or

because they have various misgivings about the whole concept and agenda of G & T, especially at primary level

Or because as well as having children who are identified as G&T, they also have a child or children with SN and their attention and priorities are focused on the latter rather more than the former.

Absolutely dino

Yep...
I'm lucky though as my SN child gets all the support and aid in school she needs, she has resources chucked at her left right and centre.
DS1 gets nothing special at all

I don't think my local school does G&T (or if it does it doesn't tell anyone about it). ds had some maths enrichment last year, but I only heard about it by accident, and he says he doesn't do it anymore. I was more interested in whether they would support him with his dyslexia in any case (they don't). dd always gets very glowing reports and is apparently good at everything. I don't think she is "gifted" but she is bright. ds I think probably is gifted, but in his own very quirky way, which probably won't really come out until he gets to learn in a much more self directed way (maybe at university). I'm not sure that there is any particular purpose to pushing the gifted child too much - whenever they do profiles of very gifted children as adults it doesn't seem that it has given them any particular advantage. I do think that academic children do better in academic environments, but think that is about interests and support rather than IQ (and think the same is true for musical / sporty etc children too).

I saw an article about G & T recently which suggested that a pupil identified as G & T in a top state school might have an IQ of over 150 whereas having an IQ as low as 105 would not preclude a G&T label at the poorest schools. But both pupils would qualify for the extra lessons and camps that they put on.

Is there any big research study that follows G&T kids I wonder? Just, my cousin was clearly G&T but also Sn and they couldn't ID him as both (ASD, you can be both) yet he's in a Russell Group Un i now and classed as extremely gifted in music; I was on a SN scheme at school, and also ofered a Russell group place a few years back (although possibly because my Tutor at the time- also a NAGTY big bod- was also head of subject there).

I'm sure there is a palce for G&T- I had what would be classed as that clases in english at primary, as I fin9shed all the class workbooks for the school within a year- I just wonder whether the G&T kids do go on to these wonderful things? Lots of kids I knew who were G&T level at schoola ren't doing much now, though a few are heading back into education etc.

I think one way to assess is look at who went to university when I did in 1983 when about 15% of people went there which presumably is the grammar school 120 IQ lot and they have all earned a lot more than their peers who never went to university. If however you look at some genius children who are a bit weird and have no personal skills and I have worked with many adults of that kind they don't always do so well and don't always form close emotional relationships or have the skills they need in the world of work. Conversely some very very clever people are also good with people so you can't generalise at the very upper end anyway. I know studies of the Ruth Lawrence, ches prodigy and music genius type people don't always find they have very successful life outcomes.

Whereas children who are quite clever (which is probably G&T in many schools or get into state grammars where there are any) tend to do better over their lives in terms of career success and income.

What you want for these brightest children in the class is to take them from the class and educate them with other clever children so they don't get bored and they don't think they're brilliant. They aren't. They are just very clever, most of them in the top 10% and it's better they are educated at least at 11 if not 7 with other very clever children rather than having a huge shock at 18 at Oxbridge when they realise they might have been top of the school but that there are lots of other clever children out there.

I'd never heard of the Russell Group until this thread and I'd been to one of the universities without realising.

I know what Xenia means about being the big fish in a small pond thing - the number of freshers who would be introduced by their friends as the "brainy/gifted/top of the class" in their school, but actually were just the brightest of a not great selection. They struggled in first year and many dropped out.

But like I said, in Scotland we're more progressive and inclusive in our education system so we have "more able" and not "gifted" - far more realistic

we thought ds1 might level out
his first school was in special measures with loads of kids with ESL and 70% below poverty line. Teachers resigned it was dire. But he excelled there.
Then we moved to leafy Hants to a very good village school
He also rose to the toip there
And to top catholic primary in 11+ area in yr 6 - he excelled there and now at the grammar he is top there too.
However he is passionate about art more than anything - I was going to put my foot down and insist that he focus on maths (in which he is truly special but has little interest in oddly) chinese and that genre...
But observing him of late...
He is an art boy - so my dream of him keeping me as an aging mother is dashed, knowing he will still be living at home peddling paintings on fairground stalls when he is 40

Yes but you can do both. My brother was brilliant at literature and won prizes but also enjoy medicine. I might have been a musician but it's been a really nice hobby instead. Much nicer to be able to buy and hire your own orchestra etc and also have a good standard of living. Sometimes it's good for children to keep their arts etc hobby as a hobby although there's nothing to stop him becoming the world's best art dealer and keep himself that way.

I think in terms of universities if you can avoid the ex polytechnics that's a good starting point as employers know which those are even if they have the best lecturer in whatever it is in the UK. Then better to stick with the top 20 whether you call them Russell group or not simply because then it makes it easier to get a job in those careers where a good degree helps at the start. Also try to copy the private schools where no one unless they're really not very academic does the non-GCSEs with studies in their title. Make sure they all do English, maths, history, French etc really proper subjects that employers value. Some but not all state schools have been getting good results by putting children in for GCSEs which are hardly worth the paper they're printed on.