Starting school as an advanced child

[Mummymegs]

Reaching out to connect with other parents of advanced kids. My 4 year old has just started reception class. She has a reading ability beyond her age (at least year 2 standard according to my retired teacher friend). She could pick any book from our bookshelf and read it herself, and her maths is very advanced too.
My question is how to get the school to recognise her abilities? Her nursery report mentioned she was academically advanced and I have told her teacher that she can read. She is only on week 2 of school so I know it takes time. Her first reading book is a picture book which I know is compulsory as part of the curriculum framework, but I just want her to be challenged. I feel a big responsibility as she has so much potential, so I want to do the right things.

She may level out, she may not (my DC hasn’t). For primary school, the key thing is for her to be happy at school and for you to provide the challenge and stimulation she needs yourself.

It’s really important that she do stuff she finds hard if that doesn’t happen at school, and learns to practice and improve, rather than just do things well effortlessly. That could be football, or coding, or drama, or another language, or learning an instrument - I’d wait until she’s past the first term of Reception tiredness, and then see what is available locally, and what she enjoys.

The entire first time until Christmas is settling in.

It’s very interesting reading about other children who were so advanced at a young age, and then things flattened out.
I had this with my oldest. Learned to read on his own pre- reception, winning chess tournaments, skipped grades in school (not in the UK), etc. As a result we took him out of his school and into a highly selective private school, as we were concerned he was bored. I was very careful not to label him gifted, but others around us (grandparents) did.

Fast forward a few years (he is 13), and he is bright, but perfectly normal (admittedly in a class full of bright kids). And he is aware himself of the change, as i remember a couple of years ago he said to me ‘mummy I ve become stupid’, which i obviously found very sad, and is not true, but it is true he is no longer exceptional.

I actually felt guilt that it was something i hAd done wrong and we had taken a wrong turn somewhere- hence it is reassuring to me to read about others experiences here.
But he is happy, and sports are a big part of his life and how he now defines himself, hence my advice to do other things and not put all her eggs in the ‘clever’ basket.

Thanks. That’s exactly how I feel too. She has a lot to learn in other areas, and will get most of her academic learning at home.

Thanks she does a dance class and loves art as well so these are things I’m trying to foster as she shows interest.

Thanks. Yeh I’m not worried about SEN. She has been surrounded by teachers growing up so any issues would have been flagged. Also nothing was flagged at pre school and there are no other markers. She just has a really good memory and a natural interest in numbers and reading which have been nurtured at home.

My group of adult friends is formed of women who were considered very clever when young and now have a feeling of being underachievers because we’ve all lived quite normal lives. None of us runs anything or is considered particularly brilliant as adults. A few went to Oxbridge and were deeply average while there. One of my children is clearly pretty bright and knows it but we try very hard to not make this their ‘thing’ as I want them to feel like what they end up doing is enough, even if they don’t end up running the world.

I remember the Child Genius series on C4 a few years ago where parents and children were saying it was very hard as they got older and others ‘caught up’ with them and they lost what was special about them.

Sorry, OP, this isn’t aimed at you! It just strikes me reading this thread about how many kids who are clearly very bright and eat up ideas and knowledge when they’re small end up in the same place as others. My mother was a primary teacher and when I was young the thinking was that children should not be taught to read before school as it would mean they were bored while everyone else learned. And she was slightly horrified when I basically taught myself by sight anyway. I ended up on free reading very quickly and I don’t remember it being an issue really other than finding any class that involved ‘reading along’ torturous. Now my concentration is shot and I can barely get through a Marian Keyes.

Dont mean to derail the thread but “deeply average” at Oxbridge is still in the top 0.01% of the population! 1/3 of people fail to get Math and English GCSE, forget about top A levels and then pass the Oxbridge admissions test. Sound more like a self- belief issue than not being bright enough?

We’re all quite bright! We’ve all had a measure of life success. Just not the high life achievers that we all felt our early promise should have set us up to be. I’m not exactly sure what that might look like in a way that would feel my 10 year old self would think ‘of course I do that’.

Thousands of kids go to Oxbridge every year - a tiny percentage of the population of course, but it’s definitely ‘small fish, big pond’ time and many graduates don’t lead any sort of remarkable life afterwards. I suspect most people I know as an adult would be astonished to find I did. The calibre of the kids on here that are heading off there now (according to their parents at least!) sounds quite remarkable so maybe things are just adjusting upwards and the current cohorts will all go on to change the world.

Stretch wider than deeper or else she will be permanently bored at school.
So get her to use her reading skills to read a recipe and her number skills to do the weighing of ingredients.
Expand writing skills by writing a shopping list, and then reading the labels in the shop. Help her with finding the correct money to buy it.
If she finds an interesting plant or insect etc find a book in the library to find out more about it - can she draw it, write a description, measure it etc
Teach her to play games -draughts, chess etc. Orchard games have some great educational games.
Get her to follow instructions when building Lego etc

Thanks. I think she is going to be like my sister who breezed through school and has a good memory, so things like academic tests were easy. As an adult she is still intelligent but probably levelled out a bit.

I’m just going to keep nurturing her interests at home and encourage her to participate at school. She does a few extra creative hobbies at the moment but I know she has an interest in languages.

You don’t do anything to get the school to recognise her abilities. The teacher will determine what level she is at - there will be a wide range of abilities in the class but most end up at same level in time.

I’d leave learning for school and concentrate on the lateral stuff she can’t do at home.

I had one that was very advanced academically before starting school. Had a good grasp on reading, maths, comprehension was great, they were great verbally when they talked (I say when as silent 95% of the time but excellent advanced vocab when they chose to speak the other 5% of the time), did Lego building a good decade beyond the age on the box in record time. BUT they couldn’t ride a bike. Swimming was not at the level it should have been at that age. Wasn’t really confident with physical activities. Social skills were average. Completely shit at art.

So, the minute they got to school all academic stuff was left for the school, we did zero extension at home, but rather filled their time with swimming lessons, martial arts, a team sport, play dates and learning an instrument. We left the art, that would have been a road too far🤣. Would they have preferred to have done academic extension stuff at home instead of what we had them do, you betcha, but that would not have produced a well rounded child.

We didn’t need to academically extend at home as they were never behind, or indeed average at school, and eventually as they went through high school they then self-extended once they hit the specialised subjects. Did well, got into challenging uni course, career. Plus, as well, they still do team sport as an adult and are physically fit and physically competent as opposed to someone who hides under a bed at the thought of sports.

The descriptive part and interpreting the pictures without words/clues is important to develop other skills which might come later. I was told this when mine were little.
Don't see it as a political attempt at equality by slowing down the brighter kids to the norm. We had a Dad who gave this speech at the school gate on a regular basis.

Thanks that’s an interesting perspective! She is really into art which we do a lot of at home as it’s my interest too, and she loves her dance classes. We haven’t really focused on sports or swimming yet as she isn’t too interested, but I know she would benefit from them.

Swimming might be a lie saving skill.

@Mummymegs Having been there, some time ago, I think that most of the advice is good, but do watch out for signs of boredom or cruising; there's a fine line between having an easy ride through school and not ever learning to work hard. As someone who suffered quite badly at university from having had the second, I think that this can be the single biggest problem.

With that in mind, finding something which rewards application and needs persistence is important. Music lessons can be really good for this; my child also did drama lessons and speaking. And as @HoppingPavlova did, also co-ordination stuff, although with less overall success!

@HarrietBond I had the same crash at Oxbridge, and it took me a while to recover from it. For this reason, we went for a selective school, in the hope of both teaching work and not being exceptional earlier on.

BUT not all children do level up. When primary school decided to evaluate our child in Yr1, their maths age was 4 years above the class and their reading age was 6 years above; this remained the same until reaching a 14+ reading age at the end of primary.

DD was the same, and also didn't show her skill at school for a while which I was frustrated with at the time. Turns out she's autistic but we didn't know that until year 8. I would leave it for now, the school environment and learning how to be with others is enough learning for the first few years.

She started being challenged and taken out for intervention with other higher ability children from about year 2 and much more so in year 5 and 6 ( what there was of it as that was the COVID years). She's at Secondary now, academically top 5 in the school, top set all the way through, invited to take Further Maths, invited to the Gifted and Talented group after school where they do all sorts of deep diving activities, research projects, trips to art galleries, guest speakers.

At home is what made the difference, I think and is applicable to all ability children, I never really exposed her to 'harder' stuff school wise but broader things so if she was doing a term on Great Fire of London, Egyptians, Tudors etc then we watched documentaries or went on visits to relevent museums and stately homes this gave her great understanding and context which she then used in her school work.

We go to the theatre alot and moved from CBeebies types shows to musical theatre, children's Shakespeare and now she loves proper Shakespeare and drama.

When reading I made the mistake of letting her access books of her ability level like Harry Potter before she was socially ready, they were so exciting she didn't want to read others so missed out on the Worst Witch and other series and really it ruined HP for her as she didn't have the life experience to relate to the characters like you do when aged 11 reading about an 11 year old.

If I was to do it again I would have her read the more age relatable and easier books and supplement them with a wider range of non-fiction, poetry, playscripts, comics, beautifully illustrated classics. To enjoy books as they are.

I'll go against the grain and say keep a careful eye in how she is.
My daughter was in a similar position, she was very soon under stimlated by not being challenged by the work she was given and overwhelmed by the classroom environment when there was nothing to keep her busy and distracted.
The school's policy was not to go 'above criculum level' and develop sideways instead. But they quickly ran out of work for her. With hindsight I should have expected them to provide work at the level she needed as a reasonable adjustment due to SEN or moved her to a different school at that point.

@Mummymegs

I'm a trained teacher as is my mum.

We didn't realise my child was asd. They didn't get diagnosed until they were a teenager.

Also my child's school were really inflexible about my child not using phonics but learning by sight. They disliked me being a teacher and didn't want to listen to anything I said about my child's learning. I wasn't a pushy parent either.

" Soul-deep boredom" -I don't think I've heard that feeling described so well! For me, it got worse as I went through primary school, and by Y6 I often just could not bring myself to walk through the gates into school, and ended up going home to have a day's uninterrupted reading!
You'd hope that if OP's DD really is that far ahead that the school would notice and challenge her accordingly, but I wouldn't bank on it. I have worked in several schools, some of them ranked as outstanding, and there are teachers who seem to feel threatened by clever kids, and who can be disparaging towards them. Remember that some teachers are not top of the academic pile themselves, although they may have degrees, and they don't always understand how dull the school day can be for those who finish every task quickly. Especially if the child in question is a quiet, well-behaved girl, who is not kicking off because they are bored.
I think OP should flag up to the school now that her DD can read already, but not expect too much in terms of alternative provision.For example, she'll probably have to do phonics along with everyone else. Make sure you provide her with a range of books ( there won't be much choice of challenging reading material for a competent reader in a reception class), and keep talking to her about everything.
After half-term, ask for a meeting with the teacher to discuss what they can do to challenge her. Keep an eye to make sure they deliver what is agreed, and maybe speak to the Inclusion manager/Phase leader just to make sure that she is on their radar. Be aware that schools have lots of parents telling them that their little darling is special, and you don't want to antagonise anyone at this stage.
I have a very gifted family member, who grew up happy and reasonably successful, and her mother has always said the difference between her daughter and most other children was the amount of extra-curricular activities she could happily handle, and indeed immerse herself in, and the level of independence she demonstrated from a a very young age.
Get your DD playing an instrument or 2, get her doing physical activities, keep her busy as much as you can.

In our school after a while they split them for reading and phonics into different groups based on ability. Some groups were far more ahead than others. They do cater for differences in children but just give it time 😊

Yes definitely, I’m not the type to ignore it! From some of the replies I feel my post may have come across not as I intended.
I know there is still benefit to the picture book and all other areas of learning in the classroom.
We’ve been going through the picture book tonight and she is very good at describing each page. We’re just going to work on extending her vocabulary whilst doing it I think.*

This is great that you're supporting her to describe the pages in the picture book. So if you asked her what's on the first page and she said there's a boy standing by a tree, you could encourage her to extend her vocabulary to the tall, brown haired boy wearing a bright orange jumper, stood close to the tall tree with dark green leaves. You get my gist!
Just encourage her at home and she'll continue to thrive I'm sure.

My son started school gifted and being able to read and was awesome at maths too and his school were really good. As he went through the school and then adjoining junior school, he'd go to the year above for maths lessons and further on in junior school he went to the nearby secondary school. He went to uni but he seemed to enjoy the social side more than the academic side!🤣🙄

I would say you have a long time to go - the main thing at 4 is their well-being. Think how long there is to go before GCSE’s and A Levels! Our middle one is cognitively gifted (now in Uni). Emotional well-being is so important in very able children - I find with ours that there is very little time he is ‘contented’ - always striving to learn or get involved in the next thing. Lots of extra curricular stuff worked well for him - always needed to be busy with something. For us school took care of itself in lots of ways - in secondary he was differentiated for by the teachers and they have sets anyway. The teachers would prepare challenges for him so he didn’t finish the work too quickly and talk to the others and distract them.