Gifted - what should you expect from school?

[NT2018]

DS is 7 and in a prep school. Age appropriate in all subjects.

He struggles with the organisation and physical work of writing. Ed Psych found high giftedness in all domains with average processing speed.

It now seems likely he also has dyspraxia and that may explain his writing and executive function difficulties. Awaiting formal diagnosis by OT and paeds consultant.

The school has had the EP report for 3 months and have acknowledged receipt but they’ve basically been very silent. I was expecting some positive communication about how they could work with us to develop DS’s potential as there are only 12 in a class but it’s just business as usual…and for DS that means ‘normal’ streams in most subjects as he can never do well enough in written work or timed tests to make the cut for the ‘higher ability’ classes.

What is reasonable, if anything, to expect schools to do in terms of developing high learning potential kids especially when they may not be demonstrating it in a traditional academic sense?

Or in your experience, is it mostly up to parents and families to develop these children outside of school?

Does the school set, having ability classes at age 7?

It sounds like they need to offer support to help with the writing. Most subjects are assessed on what is written - whether the child writes it, is allowed to type or has use of a scribe.

is your child doing a sport or learning music to develop new skills that would help develop them?

This is slightly confusing.

EP reports I have seen don’t normally identify students as gifted. Can you expand on that a bit?

presumably if he has difficulties writing his giftedness is clear when interacting verbally?

in this sort of situation there may be things that can be done to support developing his writing - there are various intervention programmes that are possible. Are his difficulties with the physical act of writing or with organising his thoughts?

Slightly different here. DD is 9, not necessarily gifted but dyslexic and her written work does not reflect her potential.
School don’t go beyond the standard and don’t seem to be keen to demonstrate her ability. This is state thought with over 30 in the class.
But we have recently started her with an amazing dyslexia focused tutor who is working with her to teach her ways of showing her greatness and finding strategies that work with her brain.
We’re then taking that to the school to request changes - for example, she can perform much better on tests if she can read the information out loud to herself. So that’s something we’re requesting for assessments - a room where she can read aloud.
You would hope they would be trying to do this themselves at a private school though

Agree not sure what “giftedness” is being defined by in the report. Ds has dyspraxia and his thought process was both too fast and disorganised that he could not easily get it on paper, and he had physical barriers to doing so. That did not make him gifted as such even though his reading age etc was in advance of his age, but with a spiky learning profile which required alternative ways of accessing information and expressing it. They do not necessarily need to be in higher level groups to do so but be taught with greater awareness and sensitivity(which will be variable).

The six domains of giftedness are

• Intellectual: High cognitive capacity, including abstract thinking, logical reasoning, and rapid processing
• Academic: Exceptional ability in specific subjects like language arts, science, or mathematic
• Creative
• Leadership
• Visual/Performing Arts
• Psychomotor: Exceptional athletic or physical skill

Your child is gifted in all six?

Thanks for replies all.

He was assessed using the WISC V assessment tool which I understand is the global Ed Psych tool for children.

The scores he achieved put him in the highly gifted range across the domains of verbal comprehension, visual spatial, fluid reasoning and working memory. His IQ is 148. MN was great at helping me unpick the report and I’m in touch with a charity called Potential Plus. It’s all been ratified.

I wasn’t expecting this at all. I went thinking he would be diagnosed with dysgraphia and this came from it.

Yes, the school are already streaming by ability.

He is a great verbal communicator but can’t achieve the same comms in writing. Apparently, that’s the dyspraxia.

Maybe if and when accommodations are put in place, he’ll be able to demonstrate his ability…I don’t know.

We’re doing fun things at home that he’s curious about and interested in but I don’t know what he needs from school. Maybe the answer is nothing and we carry on as is.

Ds was given Learning Support to help him organise his thoughts and learn strategies for coping with workload but that was chargeable on top of fees. He also learnt to touchtype. Did the ep make any recommendations? Has he seen an ot?

If he has written homework such as a long essay to do you could offer to type it for him with him dictating it. Obviously with the school's knowledge.
He will find this very freeing. Don't correct his English at all so it's all his own words.