Son very gifted at maths - state vs private academic school

[Peaches212]

Hi,

We are SW London based. Son is 6 years old, in Y1 and attends a state primary school. His maths tutor (who we brought in recently to help keep him sane) has assessed him as being 6 years ahead in maths. He is also a good few years ahead in reading (e.g. his favourite books to read are Harry Potter).

The kid is incredible at maths - he is a voracious learner who can do amazing mental maths and pattern recognition work. He also has a great memory. Maths excites him more than anything else. He is likely to be able to do GCSE maths within the next few years.

He is generally bored at school. The school try to help by giving him workbooks and 1 hour a week's lesson with the maths teacher but they are overstretched as it is. We are wondering if a private academic school like St Pauls would be better for him? It would be murderous financially so I guess it's about the value add. I'm trying to work out whether a place like that would really be able to accommodate and nurture his love of maths much more than leaving him in a state school to teach himself soon using materials like NRICH? We are not interested in having him in an "elite" school for the sake of it. We are just trying to find him a place where he can be challenged, happy and thrive on his own terms.

We are having a meeting with his current school soon to discuss what the limits of their offer to him look like.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

No, I didn't pay so my child's needs could be ignored. I paid for the small class sizes, school values, social opportunities and because of the lack of social problems that were present in the state school. No regrets.

Most of gifted kids turn out to be just smart at the university level or after.

Actually a fair number who have found school a doddle struggle when they first get to university. They can't get away with just coasting anymore and don't realise this until they get back their first assignment with a mediocre mark. Then they realise they have to actually put time into it if they are going to get the top marks again.

If you want a school that is used to dealing with maths outliers, then I would look at schools whose students often end up scoring the highest in the British Maths Olympiad and associated competitions.
https://bmos.ukmt.org.uk/home/news.shtml contains some of that information.

@ChocBananaSmoothie At least for my son (I assume similar kids may be the same), mental and emotional health is inextricably linked with correct academic provision. Of course extracurricular and social outlets are vital too, but things go really wrong if you don't have the academic stuff worked out.

Also, imo, correct academic provision for profoundly gifted kids shouldn't involve them just teaching themselves the material (even though such kids are perfectly capable of doing so, and end up doing so much of the time).

Agree. I have seen too many of these kids end up with disabling mental health problems, so academics as part of the big picture, sure, but I do think they need to be kept an eye on later on in teen years and young adulthood.

One thing that helped mine was being advanced a couple of years in school. They were actually socially happier with that too, once it happened.

The SEN system is broken. Everything you write and so much more equally applies to pupils with SEN. As I said, everyone should have their needs met, but pitting gifted pupils against other sub-sections of pupils, especially SEN pupils, isn’t the right way to go about it, and doesn’t help your arguments.

Giftedness is a SEN though. However, having had two in giftedness programs and one who is very intelligent but just couldn't fit the system due to learning disabilities, it is a doddle to have an academically gifted child compared to a child with learning disabilities. Gifted children should be provided for but think those with learning disabilities do need more resourcing between the two. It's so much easier to accommodate profound giftedness than learning disabilities. It's also a whole different experience as a mother. You constantly get affirmation and your back patted over what a wonderful job you have done with your gifted children. With the other, there's not much support and no-one pats your back over how much more effort and stress you have just fighting to help your child get by. You're either invisible or looked down on. They've been such different experiences.

Giftedness is a SEN thought.

Legally, no it isn’t. Case law demonstrates that.

Fair enough. With my personal and professional experience, I do feel that learning disabilities and developmental difficulties do require much more funding than children at the other end of the spectrum (though there can be overlap).

I can't speak to how broken the SEN system is, and I feel very sorry for anyone who is on the back end of that. However, for very good reason SEN children are in a protected legal category. I would also like to see profoundly gifted children in a protected legal category because they have needs which if not met can be devastating. My father was profoundly gifted and he had no help with it. This resulted in the most terrible mental health, resulting in his early death. So it's not all roses for kids like these, or their families.

I'm not advocating diverting money away from the SEN programme to give to profoundly gifted kids. I'm saying there needs to be greater funding to education because it's badly needed, and I really despair at how our money is currently being spent.

We switched our son for these reasons at Year 3 to the independent sector and it has been brilliant for him. It is not an "academic" school but is an excellent all rounder and has the resources to offer him challenge and stretch in academics but also loads of range in terms of other activities so he's developing in a rounded way with music, sport and academics. He is also among lots of other children who have similar interests, which is very rewarding for him. Superacademic schools can have, in my experience, an unfortunate effect that as kids move through the year groups, extra curriculars are not valued in the same way as academics and kids slowly drop them at the expense of continuing with hobbies and interests they enjoy, which may be a consideration if this is something that you might be keen to avoid.

Superacademic schools can have, in my experience, an unfortunate effect that as kids move through the year groups, extra curriculars are not valued in the same way as academics and kids slowly drop them at the expense of continuing with hobbies and interests they enjoy, which may be a consideration if this is something that you might be keen to avoid.

This has absolutely not been my experience of a highly academic school. Quite the opposite! The school is really keen on children broadening their experience wherever possible and in fact hands out 'merits' based purely on extracurricular engagement rather than academic work. The rationale for this is explicitly that they do not want to incentivise excessive focus on academics.

I can’t say I recognise this either

Loads of encouragement to expand into many areas

Some of the best gifted interventions, e.g. acceleration, are free. They basically come down to teaching kids stuff they don't already know rather than wasting their time on a treadmill of repetition. It is the rigidity of the system and ignorance/prejudice that stop them being used.
Prof Karen Rogers estimated that a fully funded gifted programme costs about 28-30% more per child than a "standard" education. They're needed by about 2% of kids. So having a fully funded gifted programme would only add 0.6% to education spending. The G&T programme in British schools, at its peak, never received more than about 20% of that level of funding - it was never properly funded, and by targeting anything from 5% to 20% of kids, too little was spread too thinly. We should also distinguish between cost and investment. "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest" (Franklin). Investing to educate our brightest children properly would pay for itself many time over if we took a long term view and were willing to wait 15+ years for the return on investment.
I agree that learning disabilities and developmental difficulties do require much more funding (greater numbers, higher spending per child, and no free effective interventions). But that's a separate issue - we shouldn't rob Peter to pay Paul.

The schools are generally very keen on extracurriculars particularly before Y11.
There's a subset of parents of children in academic schools who don't want their kids "diverted" away from academics into music or sports. That's cultural - the parents tend to come from particular countries or subcultures where academic success / getting established in a profession is culturally important and a single-minded focus on academics / not pursuing hobbies/sports/music is seen as a price worth paying.

That’s great - fantastic to hear my experience is not replicated elsewhere. The merits approach sounds very constructive

That’s interesting - absolutely recognise the observations about some parents’ values influencing their child’s choice of extra curriculars rather than the school. I may have been unlucky and of course, my experience of this issue is rather ahem dated!

@EctopicSpleen I'm interested to know which cultures you have in mind here. Both DD and DS went to independents and as we are in a big city they are very culturally / ethnically mixed. The orchestras, sports teams and extra curricular clubs were made up of a mix representative of the school which includes Chinese, Afro-Caribbeans, various African nations, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans and White British / European. I do not get the impression that any parents are pushing their kids towards academics to the exclusion of all else

It's a really good school. They have a huge programme of extra-curricular activities, and it's not just limited to things that will directly benefit the students themselves. There are obviously all the choir and orchestra and drama and art and sport and obvious stuff. They also run a ton of extra-curricular academic things which are mostly totally outside the exam-based curriculum. But they also run a lot of opportunities to help out. DD has done French club and book club at local primaries where she has been to run sessions every week for a term or more, and you can also do things like visit at a care home, take part in eco centred activities aimed at improving the local environment, take part in fundraising for local projects, all kinds of stuff. It's all valued. It's expected that everyone should want to give something back.