Primary school experience

[Inyournewdress]

I don’t personally label DD ‘gifted and talented’ as a category, I am not sure exactly what it means and I think she is maybe just a bit ahead of schedule and has a good memory, along with obviously being bright in several ways. There are definitely aspects of development where she is behind her peers, either because she hasn’t picked something up as quickly or because we haven’t given her the exposure we should have. I just wanted to post here because I don’t want to be seen as stealth boasting or anything.

We have just been allocated our third choice of primary school so I have been looking at their curriculum. I have noticed that in maths DD has a good grasp of everything covered in both Reception and Year one. She is also a fairly fluent reader. My mum is a retired junior school teacher and thinks DD’s reading age is at least 8. We didn’t actively teach her to read through phonics or anything, she just picked it up.

There are definitely gaps in her knowledge and understanding and she does need to cover this early curriculum in a systematic way. So that is good. I am just wondering though if the pace of learning and the learning focus on any given day will be boring or frustrating to her. Should she just reinforce or should she be stretched a bit? In your experience can the average primary school be trusted to handle learning well for pupils who are a bit ahead?

Thanks for any advice.

How is DD getting on now, @Inyournewdress ?

I'm in Scotland, so slightly different, but my approach is that at this early stage, I'll only get involved if DD1 is unhappy about it – not just because she's working below what I know she's capable of. Last year, in P1, I did ask to have a word a couple of times when there had been multiple complaints of boredom in a particular subject, one of which she was actually quite upset about. DD1 still had a great year overall and loved her teacher.

This year's teacher is more experienced and has already commented on the need to give DD1 a suitable challenge, so I'm hoping that won't be necessary this year.

She does also do multiple outside hobbies, including music and an extra language, as well as some sports that she's middle ability in and will have to put the work in to really progress.

DD2 is thankfully still at an excellent nursery who are happy to run with it when she goes off piste. Managing the extracurricular stimulation for two of them next year is going to be challenging!

Thanks for asking @skkyelark. It’s funny you should say that about when to complain because I have found myself in a similar place. DD is not complaining so I am just letting it ride right now. She still isn’t drinking and going to the loo as she should but there are slight improvements, still not really bonding that much with other kids but again gradual improvement. She goes in happily and seems to like the teachers and staff. So I think..just let her find her feet. I may book in for a little chat/update with the teacher at some point soon.

It’s hard with extracurricular as I haven’t wanted to put too much extra strain on her with adjustment to school, but I would like to. I think that is so good that you are doing the sports, I am going to take that on board because when so much comes easily to them it’s really important to do something that requires real application.