Y1 child very gifted at Maths

[ILJG]

Hi,

Writing here in the hopes of getting some guidance on how best to approach the situation of our son abilities in Maths. We live in the UK and DS just started on Y1 this term. He was born late June 2016, so on the youngest side of his class. Just to explain at what level his Maths are, after an half term on Y1 he can menthally do things like:

• add and subtract numbers up to at least 10,000;
• knows numbers up to the trillions;
• do complex multiplications, like calculate 15 to the power of 3 (15x15x15);
• does divisions and simple square roots;
• knows timetables up to 12, to the point that does 60s time attacks on doodle timetable with at least 15 answers, all correct;
• he understands the concept on infinity. Once I asked him what a number divided by infinite would be, and he not only gave me right answer, he also explained how he deducted it;
• his teacher recentelly taught him prime factorization, 2 days after that I asked him if he could determine the prime factors of 540, and it took him about 20sec on his way to school to do it menthally;
• and yeah, ha knows what a prime number is;
• the speed that he learns new Maths related things is staggering. He just understands the concept behind it, sometimes wiithout the need to give written examples. I taught him successfully negative numbers in about 10sec;
• and I could go on...

So, he has some serious brain horsepower when it comes to Maths. He loves all things that are logic based, and this was all mainly led by himself. He really enjoys Maths, likes to watch Maths related stuff on Youtube, loves all sorts of STEM toys too. On all other areas of learning he appears to be remarkably average. He is socially well adjusted, has plenty of friends and loves school.

In class his teacher is giving him some extra Maths work for DS to feel challenged, which is a good thing. However, it appears to be without any "structure" to it, just some random Y4, Y5 or Y6 subjects that teacher thinks will keep DS busy. Teacher must also not be too sure on how much DS knows, and since his "home learning" so far did not follow any formal structure, DS definitely has some basic knowledge gaps. For example, he can add numbers up 10,000 mentally, but he doesn't know how to do it in a piece of paper.

Both me and my wife were quite acomplished academically in Maths, both top of class, myself more naturally gifted, mom relying more on grit and work ethics. We both have Masters degrees in a related area. We came to the UK less then a decade ago and DS is our first child. He always realized he was quite able, after all we did teach him a few things when he asks about them, but only in lockdown during reception did we realized how far advanced he was in relation to his peers. At the time we sought advice from school on if we should stimulate this further or not, and they just said to continue to do the same. And so we have been doing, at his own pace. But being perfectly honest, it is becoming very disconcerting to see a 5 year old doing maths often quicker than his very accomplished mom, and with a speed not far from my own.

The main driver for this post is that both me and my wife had no contact with UK school system until now, so we are a bit unsure on the best way forward. The teacher his willing to give him extra work, however we feel it may be good to try to baseline his current level of knowledge to assist in developing a more structured learning plan. I read online we can get him tested by an education psichologist, but what sort of result will we get from it? Surely it will measure his ability, IQ, but will it identify learning gaps on specific maths topics? Also, how should the school assist? They have an appointed SENco, however online I find mixed answers on if this person is the best route for getting the necessary support for a gifted child? There are also council educational psichologists, shall we give it a go at that? We just had our parents evening and teacher mentioned Potential Plus UK as well. Pretty hefty fees in their assessments though, but we may be willing if its worth it, did anyone used their services that can offer some insight? And apart from the obvious short term benefits of getting the assessment report, on a longer term is there any benefit in having this certificate for ingress in schools in the future, etc? What about thoughts on joining Mensa? Any other advice on how best to take advantage of DS amazing ability?

Thanks a lot in advance

*Get him a private tutor to start going through the GCSE maths syllabus with him, or if that's too far ahead, start on the early Key stage 3 syllabus and work up to the GCSE syllabus.

Then enter him privately to take GCSEs maths.

Next do the same for A levels in all the flavours of maths.

Then you can sign him up to do university courses he can study online at a distance. Either through a MOOC like Coursera or EdX or through a university that does online learning.

Let him do all this at a reasonable pace, so if he wants to take 3 years to do the GCSE then all well and good, if he thinks he can do it in one then why not, as long as it doesn't stop him doing other schoolwork and taking part in things like social and extra curricular activities.

Getting through that he can also do online masters courses.

That should keep him busy for a few years!

I think this would be beneficial as an after school or Saturday school activity, to allow him to still continue normal social development, making friends with peers and taking part in all the fun things kids do growing up.*

The problem with this approach will be when the dc is deciding what to study at University. Mathematics departments really don't like potential Maths students to have super early entries to GCSE and A level because at some point they will stop doing Maths and that becomes a problem. And if the dc has been doing on-line Masters courses then what is left to do at University? Seriously, there are plenty of ways to stretch and enrich a super bright Mathematician other than early entry exams. Why not try coding, learning a musical instrument, honing problem solving skills.

@beeswain
* at some point they will stop doing Maths and that becomes a problem

Why would they ever have to stop doing maths at any point?

@ironorchids I meant the point in relation to early exams and what a dc wants to study at University. Maths Professors that we spoke with when ds was a teen were explicit that they would not like to see any gaps in Mathematical education if a dc wanted to study Maths. Of course if the dc wants to try for Oxford/Cambridge in the year they take A levels then that's not a problem. But admissions were fairly explicit that they wanted 3 or 4 A levels all taken at the same time. When ds was interviewed at Oxford one college was indeed interviewing a 13 year old. But the discussion of attending university early happened up thread.

I haven't read all the replies, but have you exposed him to problem solving? Does he know what to do with the numbers he really enjoys?

I would also expose him to new concepts he's not seen before such as geometry, statistics and algebra. If he can do simple algebra show him more complex ones.
Questions need to be "higher order thinking" - being able to apply, analyse and evaluate what they already know rather than just remembering. Look up Bloom's Taxonomy.

Also take a look at Junior maths challenge past papers and see if he can work towards it.

I just saw that he doesn't write his working on paper - I would work on that first and foremost, as this will be required in later years. Then when this is sorted, I would look at the things I mentioned above. Good luck.

@extrastrongmints

"the advice now is"n’t too accelerate them but to go for depth/mastery"

Mastery as a brand of maths instruction was adopted with no evidence of what its effects would be on high-ability learners.
See: mccourt, dracup1, dracup2 and in particular Dimitriadis which notes that :

"ignoring the acceleration aspect of provision in order to adapt to the mastery initiative could mean insufficient and incomplete development of mathematics potential. This concern has also been highlighted by practitioners who felt that the mastery initiative lowered the ceiling for gifted mathematicians"

There is overwhelming evidence for the effectiveness of acceleration (e.g. study1, study2, study3). Evidence-based approaches first accelerate, then enrich.

My experiences mirror those of TupilaLilium and Mama1980. The UK school system has an extremely rigid approach to learning, limited by chronological age, and "mastery" has made this worse. If the school will not accommodate his needs, try to find a school that will, or consider home/online schooling.

I was watching a programme on a maths genius, he had A* Alevels at 13. He went to cambridge to talk to a professor who told him that he should not be racing ahead (was doing a degree at OU ) and he would prefer him to stretch himself sideways. He would be better going to summer schools. He did get a 2.1 from open university at 15 but he struggled with explaining how he got his answers

so you watched an unnamed programme about an unnamed maths genius and an unnamed maths professor said, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, that he shouldn't rush ahead. Well, that settles it.

He went to cambridge to talk to a professor who told him that he should not be racing ahead (was doing a degree at OU ) and he would prefer him to stretch himself sideways.
There is an assumption that oxbridge academics are experts in gifted education. Generally speaking, they're experts in the subject of their own research. Teaching is a secondary concern. Most don't have a teaching qualification, nor do they have any training in evidence-based practice in education in general or in gifted education specifically. Thus, they are just as ignorant of the research on acceleration as the average UK school teacher.

There's also a massive conflict of interest: since the 2010 equality act, it would be illegal to discriminate on the basis of age, so universities can only dissuade students from applying, not (legally) discriminate once they've applied. So when they say "he should not be racing ahead ... and he would prefer him to stretch himself sideways" what they really mean is : "these DBS and safeguarding checks are going to be a massive pain in the arse (and they might turn up that conviction I had 10 years ago which I didn't disclose to the university) - so it would be much more convenient for us if you twiddled your thumbs for 5 years and came back when you're 18."

He would be better going to summer schools.
University maths departments are generally not keen on gap years because skills go rusty. They want to see evidence of continued/continuous study. Summer schools typically last about 3 weeks. What is a kid who has done A level maths going to do for the other 49 weeks of the year?
Pretending that occasional summer schools can fill five years in a critical period of development of a teenage mathematician, while simultaneously insisting that unaccelerated students have no gaps / evidence of continuous study is just hypocrisy and buck passing.

Bit of an update, think it is a fair thing to do considering this happened mostly due to your assistance. Son had and HLP assessment by PP and is in the highly gifted spectrum, and on average 4 years ahead of his peers. Currently (unsurprisingly) being held back by a language barrier, and that is the most urgent thing to address. There was a big surprise on the results. His best score was not maths! It was his processing speed, max score. Now is getting the official written report, and on with having some interesting discussions with his school.

Thank you all for your guidance on this matter

I hope all is going well at your end, OP. I just sent you a PM. I have a 5 year old son with similar ability.

That's astonishing! I'm normally a bit meh about the whole idea of gifted children but that is really something else.

I came on to say please try not to send him to university early. You will ruin an important social experience if you do.

Hi all,

A bit of an update on where things currently stand. Reports received and school report shared. It got a lot of attention from teacher and SENCo, which is good. We have a Beast Academy account (it's really good, thanks for the tip!), and teacher accepted for it to be used during his maths class, so our son feels pretty challenged at the moment on all subjects and is happy in school. We had the meeting with school and PPUK and it was really positive, we could tell SENCo and teacher took the report in careful consideration and asked further information on some of the techniques recomended, as well as other specific concerns they had. As far as maths is concerned, they will now try to set up occasional maths sessions with Y4/Y5 class for our son to get the academic peerage, and start the discussion with local secondary schools to get some support in the coming years. There's no guarantee this will happen yet, but at least the will and drive is there, and we did not have to escalate the matter in any way. PPUK assessor actually expressed her amazement on how accomodating the school has been, so everyone is pretty happy over here at the moment 😃

Hello - also clicked because my son has an aptitude for maths and is a similar age (but not at your son’s crazy level!).

School won’t always push extensively but that can be a good thing - they like to make sure there’s no silly knowledge gaps and that your kid can actually explain what they’re doing and how they got the answer they did.

Things at home that have helped and been really fun - maths festivals for kids - they run an annual one in Oxford, I’m sure there are others, online modelling games and programming apps, sudokus, 3D logic puzzles, etc. We’re both arts- background parents so we’ve had to do a lot of adapting, but I’ve noticed a definite ‘Spock-like’ tendency to be bothered by illogical nonsense in ours(!) so I’m super cruel and insist on reading nonsense rhymes and stories with proper magic in them just make sure we’re not raising a monster!

Thanks for all the resources on here. DC is chafing at the bit at year 2 maths and I’ve tried to talk to her teacher but because DC has never said anything she had no idea, and hasn’t done anything about it (was near the end of term when DC confessed how frustrated they are). We did the Whizz assessment and their maths age shows as three years ahead. I’ll speak to their next teacher in the autumn and in the meantime they are thrilled at the online maths classes they can do. Also, as they’re still well within primary levels of understanding even if ahead, I hope they can provide some more stretching stuff without it being too difficult. Fingers crossed.