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?

That’s interesting @CurlyhairedAssassin. One of the schools I’m considering is an infant school, very relaxed and play based which seems lovely. The junior school though is a bit of an unknown. The other school is a primary school and while I perhaps didn’t like the vibe from the early years as much, the KS2 provision is much more of a certainty.

Honestly? All I can tell you is what to watch out for/avoid/question:

1. schools going on about mastery, especially in maths. In my experience this is a concept that should be excellent, but has been repurposed to avoid allowing brighter children to move on to more challenging appropriate content from higher up years, by saying they must cover the reception content umpteen ways. Given the reception content in maths is extremely basic, there's simply no challenge for a more able child.

2. schools that pride themselves on closing the attainment gap. This doesmt serve g&t kids well as the only way to close that gap is for the kids at the top to make a lower rate of progress than the kids at the bottom, which essentially means holding the more able back.

3. schools that go on about "looking at your child in the round". This is another excuse used to avoid talking about your child's strengths and how they will be catered to.

Questions I would ask of a prospective school:

• what reading level did your best readers leave reception on last year/in a typical year?

If its yellow/blue or lower I'd be worried, as a good early reader like your DC will often start reception on that, they should have at least a couple of kids getting to green/orange.

Also be prepared. In the UK reception is "child led" and "play based". This is all good but imho it can mean that expectations are low, the separation of reception from KS1 means a different kind of staff choose to work in EYFS, and there can be a sweeping allegiance to the view that these children are "too little/aren't ready which doesnt always acknowledge the minority of children who are absolutely ready.

@wiltonian she’s reading picture books atm. I started properly teaching her in September with her baby sister’s books (Spot, Mog etc) and she’s now reading those easily and moving on to eg Julia Donaldson.

Properly eg when she started was she sound out the phonemes and blending the word? Or learning whole words by sight recognition?

Thank you @DeepaBeesKit - really helpful post.

She started sounding out phonemes and blending. We used to play a game where I’d basically do that orally and it built from there. Her progress has been very rapid (it seems to me anyway) to the point where she doesn’t really need to sound things out anymore (obviously anyway) except when it’s an unusual word.

She sounds like my nephew.

Honestly? Just accept that she won't be "stretched" in reception and focus on them at least acknowledging in the first term that she can already read (believe it or not, plenty of schools try to keep the whole class on the same reading level as long as possible & target pink in term 1, red in term 2, yellow in term 3, which totally disregards the typical age & ability spectrum in reception.

Get them sending yellow/blue books home quickly, that way she at least has something to read and enjoy and isnt stuck reading the tip tap/pit pat books the whole first term.

My 9 yo daughter is exceptionally gifted and is well beyond her peers in many subject areas. She attends a local school.

Although she finds many things very simple she still enjoys her history and geography classes.

One thing I love about her school is that they encourage pupils to do presentations in front of others or sometimes the whole school which I find is great in building their confidence. She's also joined a few different clubs and has even started her own which is helping her with building leadership skills.

Outside of school, she learns an instrument, is in a team sport, belongs to Cubs, is learning a foreign language, and has a tutor who stretches her to her full potential. This is unfortunately not possible at school as her interests/levels are GCSE/A level standard.

She has other hobbies as well... she is endlessly challenging herself and never gets tired or bored.

To answer your question - I've never really asked school. I've had in the past wondered whether I should, but to be honest they wouldn't know what to do with her as she's so advanced.

If your daughter is advanced I would try and give her as many opportunities as you can in many areas and find something that she really enjoys and let her explore. If she asks a question look it up in a book together, find ways to collect information from various sources and make it a routine.

I wouldn't rely too much on school - especially state school. They are designed to help the less able to meet national curriculum standards, so by the end of KS2 they have a higher pass rate.

With the reading, we've always read more challenging/suitable books at home and let school decide what was best for our daughter and that worked well for us.

You could write to them to say your daughter has read the school readers and add which books she's been reading at home.

If your daughter starts to have behavioural issues due to boredom or other sensory problems that is probably when you and school need to arrange a meeting to discuss how to go about it.

I would tend not to judge a school solely by whether they're differentiating each of the 1000 kids in school, but the amount of opportunities and teaching of growth mindset.

I wouldn't worry about Reception - it's mostly play based and self-directed.
Bright children don't get bored in Reception as they can challenge themselves during play. Bright children who find play difficult usually need extra support with social/play skills.
I wouldn't stress about what books are sent home, you have plenty to read at home.

Totally agree at the comments above about the importance of being socially able/comfortable at school. An academically able child will do well anywhere.

We moved DS in year 1, for a number of reasons including that he wasn't particularly happy. What quickly became apparent is that in his old school they were all expected to progress through work at the same speed. Once he'd finished the first part of a worksheet, he was expected to sit there bored and staring into space until everyone else had and he could then move onto the next part.... He was amazingly excited at his new school that he was allowed to go at his own speed and do all they work, they had extra work for those who finished quickly, and if he finished that he was allowed to get a book and sit quietly reading it. Based on that, asking what happens for kids who finish all their work might be quite informative.

I'd also add that checking on the KS1 Sats data might help, it's not published naturally but lots of schools do put it up on their website. With Covid, latest results are 2019 but looking at the % meeting / exceeding expectations would give you some idea of how many peers your DD would have. You can look at KS2 Sats data for the same thing here www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/ .

Nothing at all. State primaries do not cater for the brightest, I'm afraid. Let her go through the motions and maybe have a private tutor to challenge her. Offer lots of extra curricular activities and make sure her social skills develop nicely, she learns empathy and most important of all, that she learns she's not the best at everything so get her to do orchestra or competitive sports where she is not top. She needs to learn to strive otherwise it might all level out at the latter part of secondary.

I'm afraid you might find that while primary class teachers will love talking to you at parent evening and she'll get glowing reports, they will also try and keep her down (tall poppy) so that she doesn't overshadow the middle of the road kids. Also, be prepared for some bitterly competitive parents who will feel rather challenged by your dd, you won't know what has hit you, unless you yourself are also a competitive parent, in which case, you'll be fine. Try and get your dd into a great grammar or highly academic private school for secondary. There is nothing more demoralising for a very above average child than not getting the recognition all kids deserve because they are seen as too big for their boots by local primary school teaching staff and brought down a couple of pegs. Very bright kids, not just bright or a bit bright but unusually bright kids don't always have the easiest time at primary. This is a huge shame as they spent their formative years in that environment .

Just thought I’d update on the thread as I was alerted to a new post.

I asked both prospective schools about how they approached differentiation and how many kids they tended to see who were in a similar position to DD, and what they did with them.

The lovely (and close) infant school was totally stumped and said they’d never really had a child on this level when starting, but that teachers were used to differentiating and it was all play-based anyway.

The other one, which is less convenient for us location-wise, seemed much more switched on and said they had 1 or 2 kids each year starting at this level and gave me some info on what they did with them, so we’ve gone for this as our first choice. In most other respects the schools were equal so it was a useful thing to think about. Guess it remains to be seen which one she gets an offer from and what it’s actually like.

Sounds like @TimsTelephoneManners you are speaking from bitter experience. I hope this isn’t the case for my DD. We are not in a grammar area and independent school is not an option.

Thanks for updating @Schoolchoicemission, I hope your DD gets a place at your chosen school and thrives there. It's good to know they were able to answer your queries and enable you to make an informed decision.
As for the PP, this may occur in some primary schools (I haven't been in all of them) but I wanted to reassure you it is not the case in all primary schools. Yes, some primary teachers struggle to stretch gifted children but there are also those who will go out of their way to give gifted children learning opportunities that broaden and deepen their understanding and enthuse them to investigate, explore and learn. I have known many such teachers in my years working in primary schools, some of which would go home and study new content at the weekend just to ensure they could stretch their exceptionally gifted child, others who would call specialists if the child had a specific area of giftedness to support them in providing good learning experiences. I really hope your DD gets to experience the latter!

We got lucky, at a small school with Reception, Yr 1 and 2 all in together, so it was easy for the teacher to extend DC in years R and 1. Now in Year 2, DC is working in the class above, year 3/4, and we’ve ditched our morals and we’re headed for private from Year 3 to give breadth, subject specific teaching, languages, etc as a way of stretching.