Bright child - what to ask prospective primary schools?

[Schoolchoicemission]

Hello, I’ve posted another thread on this as I’m struggling to choose our first choice school for our DD.

She is very bright (reading fluently now at 3.5, among other things). I have visited both schools and asked them what they do to differentiate work for kids in the class (without giving details about DD specifically) and they both gave what sounded like good answers about teachers being experienced at pitching levels appropriately and there always being a range, but it was quite vague. (In both cases I was on a tour with other parents we know and didn’t want to come across like a knob, so didn’t really press further, but I can call them).

It’s obviously too early to tell whether DD is just on the bright side of normal/an early developer or more unusual and in a way I don’t know the right questions to ask to get to the bottom of which one is likely to be able best to support her.

For parents with bright children, how has this been catered for well in primary school and is there anything that would be useful for me to ask about specifically?

I think DS would count as gifted (has Oxbridge interview next week). Reception-y3 were ok, he went to a small village primary so spent yr R in a yr/yr1 class and yr1 in a yr1/yr2 class and yr3 in a yr3/4 class. However in yr 4 he moved to a yr5/6 class where he spent 3 years going over the same work. At the start of yr5 we seriously considered going private (state to 8 and all that). It was around this time that we started visiting secondary schools (yr4/5) and DS could do all the puzzles and games left out for the visiting year 6s. The school tried....I think there was a G&T programme in yr 6 with several local primaries, although feedback from that was that he "stood out" in that group too.

Luckily he went to superselective secondary where he has flourished. IME yr 4 onwards is the challenge if they have effectively completed the primary curriculum (my experience is 6 years old).

Good luck

I would say it has to be taken on a personal basis. It depends how the specific child learns and a good teacher will see that.

Also, there is so much to be learned in reception and year 1 - not all of it is reading, writing, maths. So your child might be busy learning these skills as well, skills like independence, socialising, and things like that. I would probably wait and see how it goes when she’s actually in reception.

Sorry didn't answer the question.
I would ask " how are the most able challenged at the top of the school?"

For reference DS could read simple CVC words in nursery, knew his alphabet and digits 1-20 by 3 and colours by 18m. He never used incorrect pronouns I remember at just less than 2 him describing olives as "marmite grapes".

Just enjoy reading with your child, encourage her but don't push her on.

And provided the school has a good, differentiated curriculum, a really important thing in primary as PPs have said is being part of things - learning routines, socialisation, how to deal with things not going your way, what to make of children not finding things so easy academically.

You can also stretch a lot with extracurriculars.

If there are particular milestones that you're heading for - say 11+, but aside from that, then GSCE and A Level, it's all about getting the child to peak performance at the right time.

For the very few who can jump a couple of academic years, it's not always ideal for them socially.

Help your daughter to have insight into her own ability - to be savvy about it - to take opportunities to stretch when she can - and to enjoy every aspect of school life as fully as possible.

Ask if they set for maths and English .

I dont know. Ours has been frankly awful!
Dc1 could read cvc at 3.5yo but i didnt teach her any diagraphs so she only continued at school. However her pace would have been 4y3 month starting then straight to diagraphs and onwards very quickly but school never checked if she could read so started a-z. By end yr r with no help from school at 5y0 she could read chapter books. Maths has been harder. But basically is being slightly stretched as a younger one in year. Several years ahead now reading. But we have had lots of issues with social skills and dc isnt really interested in the other kids .
Imo she would have been better in a smaller private school where she could enjoy being recognised as bright. State focus on the average and below. Ideally we would have had several reading books at once instead just 2 a week.

Thanks all for the replies. Just to be clear, I’m not worrying that she’s too smart for school or anything ridiculous like that (and lol at the reply that basically said she’s nothing special!). She certainly has much to learn in the way of social skills as thanks to covid she hasn’t had the opportunity to mix much with kids her own age (until she started nursery in September).

My issue (and the reason I asked the question) is that I’m trying to decide which of two schools to put as first choice for reception, and I just wondered if some questions around this might be a useful differentiating factor. It basically sounds like it’s probably hard to know much in advance and maybe not that important anyway, which is good to know.

Go with the school that you like the feel of.

@akiehan

I'm going to sound like a bit of a knob writing this post but so be it.

I am very intelligent (straight As, first class degree, PhD etc) my child has just started reception and has always been well ahead for their age. Honestly I didn't look for anything special in their school in terms of academics. I had nothing special myself, standard small town primary and low rated secondary. However I still thrived academically and I feel my children will too from that respect almost regardless of where they go. I think there is so much more to school on top of the learning part and whilst their results/grades are of course important I'm sure they will achieve this regardless. So I picked a school based on how it felt, the attitude of staff and the wider things they offered. It's a tiny one form entry and they have settled in so well there. I think I'll probably become a bit more picky once they get to secondary in terms of academic achievements but at primary level it really wasn't my main concern. I feel like they have the rest of their lives to learn everything they could ever want to and the speed at which they achieve one thing and move onto the next (like reading) doesn't matter as long as they get to where they need to be at an appropriate age so they aren't held back at all.

Totally agree with this. School is about far more than academic progress. My dd had read novels before she started school. Remember her reading Heidi before she even started. I didn't encourage it much but she was very hungry to learn so l helped her but it was like she was born knowing how to read. I was the same myself at hat age but like me she just went to the local school and enjoyed all the various activities. The teachers varied in how they stretched her but she always had lots at home to engage with. I would be more interested in the atmosphere of the school.

The year before DD started school, I was at the reception class Christmas production. The narrator was a very able reader, reading from the script. That told me what I wanted to know - that they would give opportunities to those already reading, not regard them as a nuisance.
There is a large element of pot luck - DD was stretched very well by some teachers, and not by others.
We were particularly lucky that there were three fluent readers in DD's reception class, so they were a group for literacy - much easier for the teacher to differentiate for a group than for one child. They did sit through the phonics sessions on the carpet, but those are only short and it wasn't a problem.

Akiehan has nailed it. Choose a nice nurturing school and let her develop alongside her peers.

We found that for DD, who was always much further ahead for reading, her primary school annoyingly put a ceiling on what she could read. So you could perhaps ask about children who are very able readers.
For example, could they take in books from home once they’ve gone through the school’s levels (age appropriate of course). For DD, the Harry Potter books were ‘’gold’ level (the highest year 4 level) and she was in year 3 and just finished silver. They said she couldn’t go onto year 4 books until she was in year 4! I’d be wary of primary schools that seem to put a ceiling on any learning. It would ring alarm bells for me.

In later primary, the school brought in the Accelerated Reader online system, which DD cheated at (they all did to win the prizes!) and which for DS, didn’t capture his imagination at all. So you could ask about the reading system each school has.

Personally I'd go for the smaller of the 2.

My daughter is very clever. She's 2.5 and desperate to read her older brother's reading books. I'd be surprised if she isn't reading by the time she gets to reception. We're not 'teaching' her though so it will depend a bit on how much she picks up when we read with her brother.

She'll go to his school which is tiny (1 form entry even though in Lewisham) I feel the small class will help her most because they will have the ability to be flexible and stretch her where needed.

@OhPleaseJustLast

One practical question you could ask is what phonics scheme they use and how they approach it. Ours has just moved to Read Write Inc, which is a whole school approach- they are supposed to put the children in groups by ability rather than class. As a result, my ds in reception, who was reading fluently when he started school, is in a phonics group with older children.

I’m not 100% sure what I think about it, to be honest. At this rate he’ll have ‘graduated phonics’ by the end of reception. At that point the children start doing ‘English’ instead of ‘phonics’ from what I can make out, and I worry about how they will differentiate when he’s basically doing a different curriculum to the rest of his class. But I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it- for now he’s happy and stimulated, and I’m happy that they are allowing him to work to his potential.

My DS was the same. Finished RWI at end of Year 1, ahead of his peers, but then they didn’t know what to do with him, and he ended up sitting alone with spelling words to write out for handwriting practice every day of Year 2. It was very irritating; I would ask them now what they plan to do next.

My DS is gifted in maths. He’s in year one and they are definitely not stretching him (awkward as well as I work there) however I know they are stretching him in non academic ways. He is learning social skills, is developing his interests, having experiences he may not have had in another school. It is a small village school and incredibly nurturing. My DS stretches himself at home (at this moment in time he is writing out squared and cubed numbers on his board). I think those other things are so important that I am okay at the moment with him doing work that isn’t stretching him. He isn’t complaining about it and until he does I won’t say anything.
Most people have given some good questions to ask and I would agree really, how do they stretch the more able, are there other opportunities for children to excel in (music lessons, plays, sports clubs), will they keep you informed of progress and ways you can help at home.
We have just enrolled DS in piano lessons as a way of finding other things that interest him and maybe stretch him. You don’t want your child to be bored, but there is so much more to school than just the academics, especially at primary school.

Well that’s rubbish, @HelloDulling!

I’m not too worried for the next couple of years. The school is small with 2 years per class past reception, so next year he’ll be in a year 1/2 class. So I would imagine next year, if he’s finished RWI, he’ll do ‘English’ with the year 2’s who have also finished the scheme (there are some of this year’s year 1’s in his current group). He’ll be ok for the next few years, it’ll be year 5/6 that will either be a challenge, if he’s still ahead, or perhaps they’ll have all levelled out by then. He is a September birthday so the oldest in the class, and I recognise that that can make a huge difference when they are tiny that then becomes less of a gap as they get older.

Thanks for more replies and really useful info. I found that all the schools I’ve visited have really focused on reception (as have I really), so good to have some points to ask about further up the school.

Re size, one of the schools I’m considering is 90 pupils, 3 form entry, and the other is 120/4 form entry, so not small! If it was 1 form entry there would still be 30 kids in the class so she’s never going to get much individual attention I wouldn’t have thought. I might ask them though if they ever mix classes for extension work, as I can imagine there are likely to be at least some others in her year at a similar stage given tue numbers.

*Personally I'd go for the smaller of the 2.

My daughter is very clever. She's 2.5 and desperate to read her older brother's reading books. I'd be surprised if she isn't reading by the time she gets to reception. We're not 'teaching' her though so it will depend a bit on how much she picks up when we read with her brother.

She'll go to his school which is tiny (1 form entry even though in Lewisham) I feel the small class will help her most because they will have the ability to be flexible and stretch her where needed*

Sorry I think this terrible advice. I work with children with SEN so not the same, same sort of incidence as G&T. Children who lie far from the average (either side) are better off in a bigger school as more likely to have peers on a similar ability. The phrase "big fish, small" pond springs to mind.

Hi OP

I also have an early reader. She was reading and properly understanding Roald Dahl, Charlotte's Web etc in the summer hols before she started school.

We mentioned this in her first couple of weeks, the teacher looks skeptical, then quickly confirmed to us this was the case and said they'd not had a child starting reception at that level before so they'd have a chat about what to do.

This is a small state primary near to a RG University, full of children of professors etc so I assume a much brighter than average cohort

Anyway they engaged DD, brought over books from the juniors site so she could choose stuff beyond eg flower fairies, and gave her flexibility when she wanted to take a book outside at playtime rather than making her run around.

They made a reading bingo chart for her with different reading material types on to complete each week, eg poem, non fiction, leaflet to get her reading a wider range of things.

During phonics she was allowed to do her own reading instead.

She's in yr 3 now and also bright in other areas and regularly notes she finishes her maths way ahead of others and gets 100%, so maybe we need to ask if she's being stretched enough there. The pandemic has obv disrupted her schooling so this kind of thing hasn't been as easy to track and identify.

She's doing a musical instrument, she's been enjoying learning other languages at school and after school clubs. And her teacher has noted she's way above the expected level in each of these too . However she's she's normal girl who needs cuddles and treats and to be treated like the 8yr old she is, which we do. She spends her spare time reading or doing Lego and as she's self led in both of these I think she stretches herself as much as she wants to. Maybe we'll have to keep an eye as she gets older and possibly distracted by more teenage pursuits, but for now she seems to be having a nice happy childhood and it doesn't seem right to stretch her iyswim? My brother was exceptional academically and was stretched, and had a miserable childhood of being an outsider and now I think he has a fairly miserable adulthood without any of the social skills and experiences which make life so fun. He earns good money but I don't think he's a happy person at all. I'd much rather DD was a bit more 'normal'.

Thanks. Yes @Neurodiversitydoctor I’m sure that’s right re sizes and definitely what we would go for. As I said both options are big anyway which is good.

@NarcissistsEyebrows your DD sounds lovely and the school sounds pretty good. It is fully my intention for my DD to have a normal happy childhood. Im speaking to both schools options this week so will feed back what they say in case anyone has any insights.

@Schoolchoicemission

Hello, I’ve posted another thread on this as I’m struggling to choose our first choice school for our DD.

She is very bright (reading fluently now at 3.5, among other things). I have visited both schools and asked them what they do to differentiate work for kids in the class (without giving details about DD specifically) and they both gave what sounded like good answers about teachers being experienced at pitching levels appropriately and there always being a range, but it was quite vague. (In both cases I was on a tour with other parents we know and didn’t want to come across like a knob, so didn’t really press further, but I can call them).

It’s obviously too early to tell whether DD is just on the bright side of normal/an early developer or more unusual and in a way I don’t know the right questions to ask to get to the bottom of which one is likely to be able best to support her.

For parents with bright children, how has this been catered for well in primary school and is there anything that would be useful for me to ask about specifically?

What do you mean by reading fluently? Do you mean she can read stage 12 OTR books at aged 3? Or picture books and simple words- the two are very different. My daughter could read words and knew all the phonics but aged 4 but reading a roald Dahl by herself and understanding it all - no way.

My 10 year old had a reading age of 18. It was an exceptional primary school and very driven. Secondary she went to all girls grammar and then when we moved to local secondary which is outstanding. In year 9 she did some GCSEs level 9 and in year 10 she is doing a few more and an a level. They didn’t believe she was gifted when she arrived in year 9 but within weeks without her saying anything the head rang me.

@IAAP I’ve answered that question already on the thread. I’m not interested in getting into a competition about whether she’s brighter than anyone else on the thread’s child. Perfectly possible she will end up totally average. But at the moment she’s in a very different place from her peers at nursery (not just in reading) and the only reason I’m asking about this is that it might be something to consider when we choose between two primary options.

What is the pastoral care like & how do they deal with bullying.
Success at school is about enjoying the social life.
No child will succeed if they are unhappy socially.
-Speaking from experience

@akiehan

I'm going to sound like a bit of a knob writing this post but so be it.

I am very intelligent (straight As, first class degree, PhD etc) my child has just started reception and has always been well ahead for their age. Honestly I didn't look for anything special in their school in terms of academics. I had nothing special myself, standard small town primary and low rated secondary. However I still thrived academically and I feel my children will too from that respect almost regardless of where they go. I think there is so much more to school on top of the learning part and whilst their results/grades are of course important I'm sure they will achieve this regardless. So I picked a school based on how it felt, the attitude of staff and the wider things they offered. It's a tiny one form entry and they have settled in so well there. I think I'll probably become a bit more picky once they get to secondary in terms of academic achievements but at primary level it really wasn't my main concern. I feel like they have the rest of their lives to learn everything they could ever want to and the speed at which they achieve one thing and move onto the next (like reading) doesn't matter as long as they get to where they need to be at an appropriate age so they aren't held back at all.

I agree with this. I think it depends on your attitude to schooling. My bright kids went to a distintly average huge local primary (4 form entry) and although they haven't been stretched at all academically and were abit bored by the learning, the experience of being at such a huge school, with a diverse co-hort of kids has been great for them and they're confident and happy. My eldest started school ahead of his peers and gradually sank to the middle of the class, just meeting age-related expectations. As soon as he went to secondary he just flew - top sets with a hunger to learn. I think bright kids just find their own level. If the work the teacher sets is borning, they'll find something else to do (my little one helps the less able kids for example). They'll always be challenged in other areas (sport say, or art - in a big school there will always be a kid somewhere who's more gifted than yours in another area).
If your child's ahead in reading then they'll still have fun learning all the other stuff and as long as they can sit still on a mat without disrupting the rest of the class, you don't need to worry too much if all you're after is a broad education. If, on the other hand you want your bright child pushed to produce exam results, then you might need to re-consider private school.

I think year 3 onwards is where kids can become frustrated if they aren’t challenged enough. My DS1 could do simple additions and subtractions before starting school. I had nothing to compare it to so didn’t know if this was normal or not. I’m thr juniors they set for maths and he was really challenged in the top set. He got in a grammar and was doing maths GCSE level work very early. He’s got an interview for Engineering at Cambridge tomorrow so it’s clear he is near the top of his cohort for STEM.

The year my youngest left the same junior school they decided to no longer set for maths. I dread to think how that might have affected DS1’s love of the subject, and his progress, had he had to go at the pace of children of average maths ability. He loves his maths and physics and I do put that enthusiasm down to some fantastic teaching at KS2 level.

Anyway what I’m trying to say is that at infants level there are a lot of other skills they learn apart from the academic side of things, so I wouldn’t worry too much about early KS1 stretching as if you don’t feel like she’s challenged it’s easy enough to do more challenging stuff at home. It’s much harder to do this when they get older and learning more complicated stuff unless you are very capable in that subject yourself.

There are very few perfect pupils, ability-wise. My son might be great at STEM but he’s a bit awkward socially and his handwriting is terrible! There are skills to work on however good they are in one particular area