Finding support/extra resources for children who can easily do their schoolwork?

[tealandteal]

I’m not sure if this is the right section but I have just received DS’s school newsletter and they will be working on addition/subtraction and counting in 2s/10s. DS is 5, a summer baby, in year 1 and currently waiting assessment for ASD.

The issue is, he can already count in 2s and 10s for as long as I am prepared to listen to him. He can do his 2,3,4,5,7,9 and 10 times table to 12, understands negative numbers, square numbers and cub numbers. I do not understand some of these things but he absolutely loves it. He watches numberblocks, plays with a number blocks set he has and is always asking me maths questions. Some of which I have to use a calculator for.

He is on a par with some of his friends with reading I think, he will read Matilda or similar books to himself and has just learnt to read in his head over Christmas.

I have tried asking the school but they don’t seem to be able to offer him anything extra/different. Is there anything I can ask for or any phrases/advice? Are there any websites or apps anyone can recommend that he might enjoy? He doesn’t understand why his friends aren’t as into as he is.

Same situation with my dd

Have you looked at khan academy or khan academy for kids? Both are free.

I'd also focus on his social side as this is when they really start developing socially, which will help in later years.

Relax and give it a few years and things may start to be more opportunities to learn sideways eg giving presentations, becoming a class leader, house Captain etc.

Learning isn't just about the academics

Firstly, school ought to be stretching him and sometimes I wished I had pushed my son's school more.

Could you get a tutor? My son was much happier once he had a tutor. He used to get fed up that school (even the extension work) was very easy (as he loves learning) but once he had a tutor who stretched him he relaxed and accepted that school was more a place for socialising.

Also have lots of books and other stuff at home. I found school easy but read well ahead of my age at home (factual books as well as fiction) and feel like that was a huge part of my education and satisfied my thirst for learning and intellectual stimulation

I also agree that stretching him in other ways is key. Learning to find something harder and persevere is important - so things like sport etc outside of school would be good.

She already gives presentations, reads to the class, is a class leader. She hates being a class leader (but the school don’t know this as she would never make an issue of it). She sees it as the teacher getting away with less work - not needing to help those themselves and not needing to challenge herself. The teacher praises her for how good she is at explaining the work and giving different ways of doing something.

A tutor for a few years we could afford but not for the next 12 years.

@2cleverlovingchildren - I hope that you challenge her misconception that the teacher is trying to 'get away' with working less. It's useful for children to be able to explain and justify their methods or choices to others. It's far more work for the teacher to monitor a child explaining to others than just to do it herself. I would encourage her verbal skills, particularly an ability to articulate the thoughts of people who don't agree with her, it's useful to develop social skills at this age and will help with 'balanced argument' writing later.

I would agree the teacher isn’t ‘getting away’ with it. But I would argue a proper planned challenging lesson to all students needs takes more effort and time than her constantly supporting others after a few mins of easy work.

Is he happy with telling the time (and figuring out how long between 2 times)? Money? Simple fractions? I suppose these are a few everyday things that could be interesting for him.

The school recognise they aren’t challenging the top or supporting the bottom effectively (as inadequate in OFSTED). But they say that these new practices are going to take time - which I appreciate - however in the meantime she will go on to not challenge her as focus for the school is EYFS, reading, then SEN, so challenging the top is lower down their priority listing and this is having an effect on her school attitude towards learning and now is realising all the differences between herself and the students in her actual school year (eg. The work they do, the language they use in the playground, the games they want to play when they come round for tea, their use of table manners, the classes they’re in outside of school for swimming etc.). She realises she has more in common with the older ones. She’s kind and caring to younger one. She likes her year group but feels more appreciated by the older year children.

@2cleverlovingchildren my post was in response the op. You already have two threads to talk about your clever daughter, hopefully we can help op here.

If you can stretch to a tutor for primary I would do that. Now my son is in secondary he is finding the teachers are good at finding ways to stretch him and the handful of other children who find even the top set work quite easy.

The teachers should be stretching children at primary though and it does really frustrate me that they use the brightest ones to teach their peers instead. fine for a bit but not for most of a lesson. My son lost.a lot of respect for teachers who thought that was ok.

Didn’t realise you’re restricted on contributioning on MN.

Totally agree with secondary school teachers knowing better how to stretch and the lack of respect that children get for their teachers when peer support is used too frequently.

Tutoring can be quite expensive, and it seems it would be required for many years. I was hoping school/ us as parents would be able to sort something.

Children can have Sen and still be top academically in a class the two aren’t opposites

I understand that. Just she really doesn’t have any SEN.

Thank you everyone for your advice I will check o it the resources mentioned. My DH left secondary teaching 3 years ago and we have talked about the difference in differentiation across the class in secondary and primary. The whole of DS’s class must read the same book for example, which we can easily help with by giving him different books at home.
We are working with the school and SENCO on the social side, and he has swimming and taekwondo on the weekends as he does struggle more with physical stuff like balancing. My worry is that he will be bored and become switched off if the academic stuff does not challenge him a little.

You're not wrong to worry about that @tealandteal. It's an absolutely legitimate worry and it's frustrating that so many schools don't meet the needs of their brightest children. Frustrating on an individual level but also at a national level as we should be nurturing our brightest talent.

I think it will be a combination of pushing the school to stretch him and also finding ways to stretch him at home.

We play lots of strategy based board games too which my children love and make for good family time.

I would suggest finding mathsy things that aren't going further into the curriculum as they just get further ahead.
I've got a decent, but not unusually brilliant, mathematician who is a little older. He loves maths puzzles - suduko, logic type things, a rubix pyramid at that age, rubix cubes in a couple of years, puzzle games like Rush hour. Board games - hive, catan(not yet). Probably Rummikub if he would practice for long enough to beat me. Droughts, moving onto chess.
NRich has some fabulous resources.
Maths brains are also often good at music, because they can make all the fractions fit properly.

Basically take maths sideways, away from what school will do

Thanks, some good tips of things to focus on. I think I tend to focus on the maths as I am not strong there so don’t have as many tools on how to help him. He does have drum lessons and I hadn’t thought about it like fractions (I am also not musical!). I will try some of the things suggested here outside of school.

Cuisinaire rods, Nrich (as per pp).

I highly recommend Beast Academy Online: beastacademy.com/online
The company behind it - Art of Problem Solving - is used by just about every US Math Olympiad contestant.

I could and probably should write a book about all of this but I will just jot down what you can expect.

They will have "behaviour issues" because they are frustrated. Usually children need lots of repetition and reinforcement - your child will hear something once and understand it. Hence they will be bored at the fourth or fifth time they hear the same thing.

They will not be able to write to their satisfaction because their brain is developing quicker than their finer motor skills.

When they are about 8 they will be able to cope with what much older children can do but the school can't move them up because emotionally they are still 8 so they will not fit in well with the older ones.

Be prepared for them to be able to outwit you or a teacher and earn a label for being "difficult". It is really annoying to be bested in an argument by a 7 year old because their logic is better than your own!

It gets better they older they get.

I’m assuming this is a state primary? If it’s a prep, then different set of issues and you’ll need someone with that expertise.

I get a bit tired of ‘but what about his emotional / physical / social development’ stuff. Yes, that’s important and I’m sure you’re working on it. But children like this enjoy and to some extent need the intellectual stretch sometimes, too.

My experience was that school won’t give this consistently - some teachers in some years will be good at having enough extension activities, but mostly it’s ‘read your book when you’ve finished the extension work’.

So I used other things to provide the sort of intellectual stimulation they wanted outside school - music lessons (singing, theory, instruments), chess club, any kids events I could find on science, maths puzzle club when we found one locally - and just went with school being for learning the basics, some good stuff through topics and assemblies, socialisation and a bonus if they got something stretching and interesting to do. They did things like sport, dance, drama etc too, as those develop different skills.

This was OK for primary, as the short days and little homework meant there was plenty of time for all the other stuff. We decided to go for an academically selective secondary, and that has been absolutely the right choice.

Yes just a state primary, we live in a small village so no choice as such, without sending him further away from his friends. I think we will look very carefully at secondary but for now will try to find ways of keeping him interested in learning.

She sounds immature and like she needs to work on her social skills.