Son is bright

[Rizzoli123]

I have a 6 year old son.

He is in a private school. The school test them every term to see if they are hitting targets in Spag, maths, reading, writing and comphrension.

He is hitting all his targets in fact he is excelling in all aeras. He started year 2 in September and by the end of October he was already hitting his end of year targets. His reading age is 9ys and 7 months. He is 6 in March.

My question is what do I do to support him and further his learning so he dosent get bored in class. Teacher is giving him extension work but he still has to do the year 2 syllabus obviously.

I know he is bright but when at home all he wants do is sit in front of TV. I get he is working hard at school but i want him 4o do a little more and learn at home and as well as school. We have the 11 plus books (teacher recommended) and he has answered some questions.

Also could I get a child mensa test?

There's nothing wrong with a bright kid still doing their year group curriculum since so much of it can be accessed at different levels. They will still learn.

You say that there are 14 children in his class. How many classes are there in his year group? If it is just the one class, what sport, drama and choir opportunities do they provide? Or is the school more focussed on academic opportunities?
How much of an outlier is he in his class/year group? If he moved to a bigger school, might he have more co-curricular opportunities in school and be more likely to have other similarly bright children at school with him? That can be hugely beneficial as then you have other children to do extension work with and see yourself as normal rather than unusually bright and therefore run the risk of having a real shock when you stop being a big fish in a small pond.
DC1 was always bright. She was in a 2 form state school so had a year group of 60. We were always quite matter of fact about it explaining that she probably would be as DH and I had always been bright. She had half a dozen others in her year who were of similar levels, with one being amazing at maths. There were also some children in her year who weren't academically bright but were brilliant artists, something DD was distinctly average at, or talented in other ways. I made sure I sang their praises and also made it clear that, whilst being bright opens many doors in life and tends to make school easy (at least if you are NT), being artistic, for example, opens other doors which DD would remain firmly shut for DD. We always made it clear that we were proud of her but that it wasn't the be all and end all. We did use it as a lever to insist on music practice every night as we pointed out that other friends were needing to do spellings and school homework which she either didn't need to do (spellings) or took her less time than it would for others.

He won’t lose his love for learning and he won’t get bored at school, things are different at school now and usually learning is more tailored to the child rather than the whole class. My DD’s have always been given appropriate work to suit their needs, Dd1 was given loads of opportunities to do extra work and as she got older was able to use her skills to help others (and even help teach a school STEM club). Dd is now in her final A level year and doing great. I have never pushed her at home and she has never lost interest in learning.

Totally agree that playing the piano is a lonely activity. More fun to learn an orchestra instrument and make music with others.

In our school all middle class girls learn the piano in year 2 and their parents let them quit in year 4 or 5 as it's hard to do well unless you practice a lot. there are instruments that are much more fun to learn such as the flute and even violin.

At 6yo, learning should be kept fun and/or follow their interests IMO. Ideally the learning is done by stealth.

I think you should work on the reading at home. Do you have a range of texts available? I'd be testing out different genres, non fiction, comics etc. If all that fails, audio books in the car are great, as is reading to them. The books I read to my DCs or buy on audio book are always above their reading level, so they get exposed to the trickier language and experience more interesting and emersive stories. I also encourage (but don't insist on) playing video games over TV as part of their screen time, as there is often a fair amount of text in them (stealth reading!) as well as requiring them to think strategically. Gaming gets a bad press, but in moderation and with the right games it can build skills as well as be fun.

Logic and word puzzles are a great relaxing activity. You can buy age-specific puzzle books online. My 7yo DD enjoys these, and in fact happily does the 11+ verbal and non-verbal reasoning 10 min tests for fun. As mentioned by a PP, toys such as Gravitrax are also excellent for logic.

Agree with PPs about learning an instrument and concentrating any efforts you do put in 1-2-1 on areas he's weakest in (for us, this is art, writing, and things like tying shoe laces for DD1. DD2 is maths at present). You want a rounded person, and DCs often avoid doing the things they struggle with, especially when used to excelling in other areas.

Lastly, provide what they need to follow their own interests. DD1 is science-obsessed. She spends hours pawing over her science encyclopedias and asking questions. We support the interest with books, a telescope, trips to an observatory, chemistry sets, coding robots etc. She is also really into her swimming, so we helped her secure a place at a swim club and shuttle her to and from training.
DD2 is younger (5yo) but gets through books at a rate of knots. I just make sure she has enough at the right level. She also enjoys gymnastics, so we prioritise that too.