Hello everyone. This is my first post, someone on another forum I post on suggested you may be able to help me.
I was just wondering if anyone had any knowledge / experience of SEN and gifted and talented students.
My son, O, is particularly good at maths, has been largely winging it through infants and went into year 3 in Sept with a plan to go into year 6 for maths. However, it seems that he's brighter than that and is outperforming even the G&T student in year 6. School have made a link with the local grammar school and have assessment materials for years 7 & 8 but whilst the numeracy co-ordinator seems to talk the talk, she isn't walking the walk iyswim.
O's class teacher, is by chance a mathematician and is doing her best but I've thought for some time that, if he had SEN at the other end of the spectrum, then he'd have been statemented and had extra support / resources but it doesn't seem to work like that for G&T students. There is talk of a 6th form student from the grammar school coming in after Christmas to do some 1 to 1 stuff with O but I don't know if that's enough. We've been told that not only is he very far ahead of his peers, his rate of learning is also much accelerated and so he covers topics much more quickly than you'd anticipate and I'm concerned that we have another 3 years and 2 terms but they seem to be not doing much. He's saying that he's bored and the material he's using isn't challenging and his class teacher, with the best will in the world, has another 24 students to teach.
I've tried to be nicey nicey about it because it's early days and ateod, O (and my other 2 sons) will be at this school for a good many years. Also, it's my experience that it's not a good move to upset people this early in a relationship but am feeling like I may need to become pushier in the new year as nothing much is happening. He's supposed to be going into year 6 (the numeracy co-ordinator's class) each Friday but it happened once last half term and not at all this half term which is frustraing and disappointing for O because his numeracy work has, to date, been very isolated and so it's nice for him to be able to do investigation work in pairs and so on.
Someone has suggested that we should push to have him statememnted and so I just wondered if anyone had any experiences to share?
I feel a bit stressed about it really. I think because I'd hoped it would all fall into place when he went into the juniors. When O was in the infants, my main worry was the social stuff - when he was in nursery he wouldn't go out when the bigger ones were in the playground (even though the nursery part is completely separate) because he couldn't cope with the noise and so when he got into infants, just getting him out there at playtime and being in the toilets when someone was using the electric hand dryer were our main concerns! He did really grow in confidence, though I wouldn't have said it was until part way through year 2 that he could have coped outside of his age range peer group iyswim and by then they were the biggest anyway. So all through infants, he's had extension work in the classroom but has had to work alone.
I was really surprised when he said he wanted to try going into year 6 and even more surprised when he'd really enjoyed working with this other G&T student (they weren't so scary mum! He said) that it's been a real disappoiontment to both of us that it hasn't continued - for a variety of very plausible reasons but it still just leaves me wondering. He just thought it was great that he could work in a pair with someone who understood what he was on about!
I think that part of my worry is that he just seems to be getting more brilliant (if that doesn't sound too awful). Each time we talk to someone, he becomes more unusual and to us of course, he's just O and we don't have any other frame of reference. It really shocked me that they thought that his needs wouldn't be met in year 6 because he was working at a higher level than that and I hate that he's complaining that he's bored so even the year 6 & 7 stuff they're giving him in the classroom isn't stretching him iyswim. He's just done a practice SAT paper with the year 6s and got a level 5b- which I don't really undestand but believe is above average for an 10/11 year old.
I do feel that the numeracy co-ordinator seems him as a problem or difficulty rather than an opportunity.
I just want to do what is right or best for O, I want him to be the best O that he can be and I'm really not sure how to acheive that for him. I guess I feel out of my depth and am used to the infant school who I also felt wanted that for him.
Sorry that was so long - thanks for reading if you got to the end!