can my gifted son go to school earlier (late birthday)?

[nybom]

my son's birthday is at the end of september which means he'll go to school at the age of five and will be one of the oldest of his year...

my son is very sociable, his social skills are highly developed, and he's very independent for his age (he's never had a problem with unfamiliar people or places, doesn't need any time whatsoever to adjust to new situations). he LOVES going to nursery 3 whole days a week (since aged 6 months), he'd love to to go to EVERY day, asks me each morning if he can go... basically he is bored at home, wants constant intellectual stimulation as well as other children around him. my son shows several signs of giftedness, e. g. he can spell 6 letter words since the age of two. many people (psychologists, nursery nurses, gps etc.) have remarked on his intelligence though we haven't actually had it tested yet.

my husband and i both have an IQ of 140, and i remember when i was a child i was so bored at home, so my mum had to teach me to read and write at the age of three. i wished i had had the opportunity to go to school earlier then...

can i have my son's intelligence/suitability for school assessed so he might be able to go to school a year earlier?

it's not that i want to push him into something, make a genius out of him or anything like that, if he's really not suitable that's fine with me! but i feel strongly that it is wrong if he goes to school so late, that he's ready now... does anyone know if there's anything i can do/how to procede?

thanks, nicky

[TheFallenMadonna]

Hmm. My ds is at the other end of the year, and TBH I sort of thought the same as you when he started school. That him being young would be a good thing. But three years down the line I'm not so sure. He has certainly easily coped academically and socially.

However, his physical immaturity has been a real problem, and one which hasn't gone away. His writing is terrible for instance, and he now thinks of himself as a child who can't write, which is not good.

There is more to learning than just the thinking, and that is where young boys often come unstuck, according to his teachers.

[expatinscotland]

I think this has a lot of potential to set a child up for some distinct disadvantages socially later on (secondary school), especially for boys.

Many elements of life are very boring, no matter how gifts or rich or talented or beautiful you are.

It's not an altogether useless lesson to learn that this is so, and develop strategies to cope as such.

[motherinferior]

Did you say you've got a newborn? And you're busy? Er, I reckon that's why he's bored, not necessarily because his unceasingly questing intelligence has interrogated the potential of his surroundings and found them lacking.

He sounds sociable, and eerily able to spell. I don't actually see why those should necessitate fast-forwarding him into school.

[LIZS]

I'm confused surely you could have found a school based 5 day a week LEA nursery by now if it was that impoortant to you ? As it is the type of schools which might have taken him into Reception early will be pretty full for September(maybe a few late cancellations due to economic jitters). Their assessments would have been done last Autumn/Spring. I have a friend whose dd did start a year "ahead" (September born so relatively close in age to the youngest of that year group) in a selective private school but they had started the process, backed by a paed report, over a year ahead.

[Litchick]

Can't help but hear my Mother's voice saying, 'Only boring people get bored.'

[Blandmum]

Not all exceptionally bright children are bored all the time.

Sorry and all that, but this simply isn't true.

[Blandmum]

My dh was exceptionally bright. His mother was advised to put him in a special school for the gifted in the US. Thank god she ignored the advice.

Look to breadth of stimulation rather than simple acceleration, it makes, in the main, for happier, better rounded children

[tortoiseSHELL]

MB, I'm so glad you said that about breadth - that is EXACTLY what I always bang on about - instead of doing standard things early, do MORE - learn a language, instrument, art, sport, whatever, but BROADENING is so much better than saying 'my child is good at maths, so we're going to focus on that'

I have seen it with music (being a pro musician) and it is really not uncommon for a precocious child to chuck the whole lot in because parents have got too excited by the whole thing, instead of allowing slower development. In music, there is massive room for consolidation, which although may seem as though progress isn't being made, it is cementing your technique and musicianship forever, whereas leaping from grade to grade won't give you the solid foundation you need to rely on later on.

[tortoiseSHELL]

Litchick - we use that too 'only boring people get bored'. The other one we have is 'only those who do nothing never have time for anything else' which was a maxim of my piano teachers!

[mice]

My sons are both "exceptionally bright" and I would say very rarely bored.

The way that we have "dealt" with their intelligence is to focus not on that but on other things. We know that they will achieve academically because they are incredibly able - and no matter how hard they are pushed or advanced at a young age - they still follow the same curriculum and take the same exams atthe same age as all children. So - instead of always thinking they need extra work or harder work etc etc - we let them focus on sport, music, having fun and being children too. Bright children are still children and I never want to forget that with my two - their intelligence is just one part of them in the same way that one of them is great at sport and the other great at drama.

My boys will readily debate a topic that takes their fancy and are confident and articulate with most things - but - I still have to drag them off the playstation and send them back in the shower a second time because mud is caked on their knees - despite assurances they have washed!- and convince them that homework really should be done before their latest game or mission can be completed - amd this is because first and foremost they are children and to me that is far more important than the fact that on paper they are different to many of their peers.
I sincerely feel we should try our hardest not to label our children or make them different but to always take in the bigger picture and remember what is really important.

[nooka]

Well as nybom was hoping to have her son start in September it is a bit of a moot subject, because it won't happen. Schools will be off for the summer shortly and the intake for September will be complete. Private schools will have done their admissions months ago. Actually I do remember having similar thoughts over dd, as all her friends left for big school and she remained behind at nursery, but it's been fine.

I can see why nybom is wanting to have her ds start school early, with a new baby and her other commitments I can see that the idea of him starting school is appealing. But actually school is only 9-3 or so, and as Hulababy says has all those holidays too. I think a certain amount of benign neglect does wonders for the character!

[Tutterotsky]

"there are less than 20 kids in the classroom"

fewer than, surely?

and you, with an IQ of 140

[Remotew]

Not sure about private but not in the state sector. They have to cut off somewhere and the new school year makes sense. There will always be young ones, who are not ready and older ones who are, no matter where the line is drawn. You have a great opportunity to do enriching stuff at home with your DC. Even though you are working there is always the evenings.

[tortoiseSHELL]

In places like Canada, they don't start school until 6 or 7, and often won't have done any sort of formal reading/writing. By age 11 they have overtaken the English kids stuck in school from age 4.

I think children should have compulsory tree-climbing, raft building, butterfly hatching, chicken feeding , vegetable growing, painting murals, nature ramble lessons up till the age of 7! Only when they are proficient in all these things may they open a book....

ok, an exaggeration, but why the hurry for academia. I don't believe that a 'gifted' (for want of a better word) child would be bored if stimulated by the world around them - reading is such an arbitrary man-made thing, it can't be an intrinsic need - as long as their little minds and imaginations are fired then they won't be bored. And a more able child might be more creative in the play they do in the woods, or the patterns they spot on the butterfly wings etc. That would be my 'infant school' curriculum.

[tortoiseSHELL]

For example, my cousin's little boy in Canada spent his 'reception year' (though it was actually nursery, wasn't 'proper' school, and was only mornings, but was same age as reception year here), learning to speak French fluently. He learnt to read a couple of years later, but can read fine. The results prove the system - by 11 they are further ahead on average than the English kids.

[tortoiseSHELL]

No, obviously the stimulation has to be there. But I just wonder whether a lot of problems at both ends of the spectrum could be avoided by doing something like I described (or at least some of the time). At the less able end, (and indeed pupils with sn like dyslexia), they are less likely to lose self-esteem because their writing isn't as neat as the person sitting next to them, or they're still on ORT3, when everyone else is on ORT8. And at the more able end, they are being given a good grounding in the world around them, before they get stuck into books and lessons. Socially a class might 'blend' more, as things like reading groups aren't established etc. And children say such cool things when they're outdoors doing things. I remember dd, on a nursery trip to the woods coming across a wood 'house' - like Eeyore's. I said 'I wonder who built that' imagining she might say 'Eeyore' or 'one of the 3 little pigs' and she said 'I think it was probably Brunel...' - she was 3. But we're in Bristol, so there is lots of Brunel stuff around, we talk about the world around us, she knows he built things - so logical conclusion. So we went to see some things he DID make like the SS Great Britain and the Suspension Bridge. And that was far more educational than 'a is for apple'.

[Hulababy]

Kerrymum - the more I read of your threads regarding your children's school, the more worried I would be if it was my child's school. It really does seem to have an awful lot of problems and issues and I would not be happy at all. TBH I think most children, not just the very bright ones, would be bored if left to play and watch films all day every day at school. Think I'd be asking a lot of questions, and also looking at alternatives!

Luckily most schools are not like that! Well, not in my experience. And I have seen very bright children kept very much engaged whilst in school, not bored at all.

[tortoiseSHELL]

(That No, meant Yes, I agree with you, that sounds bad btw!)

[Locksikas]

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