I have year 7 dd. She's always been quick to pick things up and very bright. Early speaker despite being bilingual, picked up reading at 2. At school always quite a bit ahead of expectations despite being summer baby and pulled out for extension in primary.
At beginning year 7, they did the cat 4 test. Three categories above average to varying extents (vocab and marhs very high) but the skills category came back at 145 which is top 1% .Altogether academic gcses predicted as 8s and 9s which is great.
But it's this "skills" category which got me thinking.
She does have an extraordinary memory. For example, she decided to randomly memorise all the flags of the world for some reason - just because. And it turns out she knows them all (and i mean thatx even the most obscure ones) and both ways (I.e. tell her the country name and ask her to describe the flag). Another example is we stayed somewhere in October and there was an 8 digit random wifi code. When we went back at Christmas, she remembered the code. She hadn't even tried to remember, I'd read it out to her once!
She's also super quick, very fast. They have a game in her French class which is a kind of timed competition and the teacher gives her a delay to allow the other kids a chance to win.
I feel like it's almost the polar opposite of some of the gifted children here who are highly intelligent but struggle with working memory and processing speed. One of my kids is neurodivergent and this is exactly what they have struggled with so I am aware how much easier this makes life and functioning with exams and assessments.
But is this aspect even considered gifted?
And if it is does it matter? She likes school, she's got nice friends, well behaved and does well academically but often reports feeling bored and finishing early. That said, she'd hate to be singled out for anything as a typical tween. School hasnt raised any concerns - but why would they? However, some people have said to me i should raise it to ensure she gets challenged. We missed the clues with my neurodivergent child who masked well and was diagnosed late so I do worry a bit