Private versus State for the profoundly gifted

[avidskier]

I am trying to decide what to do with my profoundly gifted DD. She is currently in reception in a State primary school, considered "outstanding", with a huge waiting list.

So far the school has been very good on the pastoral care, but have no clue what to do with her academically. She is 5.5 and used as a mini TA going around teaching others to read (she can read an adult newspaper and spell 90% of the words in it).

The school has quite a few bright kids in the class. We have already asked if DD could be moved up a yeargroup (which her teacher thinks a good idea), but it wasn't endorsed by the Head ("if we allowed one kid to do it, they would all want to do it!").

There is no gifted and talented register that we know of or any other provision..

We cannot really afford to send her to private school, but know that they should technically be able to cater better to her needs.

My major worry is that DD will work out by about year 3 that there is nothing more the school can offer her and go off the rails.

By then however she will have lost her place at the highly selective private school as their main intake is for reception or year 1.

Can anyone offer any advice?

I moved my son out of a state primary at the end of reception for the same thing, he was placed in a private school where the majority of work was differentiated to meet his needs and it worked out fairly well. If you can't afford it then don't though. It's not just the fees that you have to pay for, the uniforms are expensive, the fundraising is expensive, we were even charged £10 (each) to see our children in the school play!
The national association for gifted and talented do work with schools, there should also be a gifted co-ordinator at the LEA, you can phone them and have a chat. Stretching her sideways is a good idea, if the rest of the class are learning their times tables then she can learn the 13 times table for example. Moving her out of her age group is a really bad idea (sorry). She may be bright but emotionally she's still only 5. A highly selective private school may still be unable to meet her needs, ds has had this problem, it was a very expensive mistake.

You are right to worry about year 3. Research has shown that if profoundly gifted children do not receive the proper stimulation then "gifted drop-out" at around age 8 is what happens. Having a child like this is quite a responsibility. Although schools are usually reluctant to skip grades, if the child is working two to three grade levels ahead it is generally viewed as a good idea and studies have shown it works well. When we got ds1's IQ and Behavioral/Education Assessment results we were thrown into turmoil. We spent 6 months researching schools and then moved 450 miles away for the one we wanted. It might be viewed as extreme by some people but it was absolutely the right thing to do for us.

Skipping causes alot of problems when the child moves schools jabberwocky. ds was made to repeat year 5 after he skipped a year, then moved schools. It was a real pain. He went from year 3 to year 5 but he was still ahead academically by years. He was assessed when he was 9 and was found to have a literacy age of 16= (off the scale) and a maths age of 14. When he moved they refused to keep him in his year group so he did year 5 twice. The school he moved to was academically selective but he was still bored. If he's have moved at 10 to move to secondary school then he'd have had real problems. Secondary schools, even the private ones, really don't like this.

We aren't planning to skip with ds1 but you raise a good point. Once done you would need to be very careful with changing schools. Again, gifted children are a huge responsibility and life can certainly become a challenge when trying to fit their educational needs in with those of the rest of the family. So far, the school that we have chosen has done an excellent job of providing ds1 with all sorts of intellectual stimulation. I hope that it continues to do so. If things change as time goes on we will have to make other decisions but that is something we are certainly willing to do.

ds is private. It's a stress to be honest. I think people normally spend just above what they earn though so I need to spend less I'd do it again though but if he started off at a better school that was at least slightly able to support him then maybe not. It's better to work with the current school, if all else fails then have a rethink.

Skipping a year can work.

DD did it in state primary at end of yr 1, going straight into a yr3 class: small village school so mixed yr group classes (yr3.4.5 all together in 2 parallel classes). She's now in yr 8 of secondary school (selective fee-paying) and was allowed to join a year early (she'd be in yr7 if by age) so hasn't had to repeat any years. Things have worked out well so far.

Be very careful though that emotional and social maturity won't be an issue. Also, different personalities of children will need different solutions to the problem of non-challenge at school.

We haven't chosen the same route for DS - very different personality - and have recently moved him from that same state primary to a private one, to give him the opportunity to be challenged appropriately for his ability, rather than being bored.

Forgot to say - NAGC have been very useful for advice and activities (though we don't have a local branch; some areas are better covered than others).

I would advise against private schools unless (a) you can comfortably afford it or (b) you can get some sort of fee assistance. Can be incredibly stressful

I remember that Martianbishop - who is much missed on this board - once said that the hallmark of a truly gifted and talented child is that they self start and self motivate. Children like that are just sponges and work things out for themselves.

So I wouldn't worry tbh.

What a great quote from MB Quattrocentro.

I don't have any personal experience, but I think you want to look where your child will have good friends and peers (on a similar level).

I have to say, if your daughter is that gifted, the private school would probably take her even if it wasn't a normal entry point. So I wouldn't feel pressurized into making the decision now. Also different private schools can be very different in their flexibility in dealing with very gifted children.

I would try to enrich her experience. Maybe find her a language class? Get her to do some music lessons. Definitely get her to do something she finds hard and has to work at.

Maybe it will get better when she is in year 1 and out of the foundation key stage. Her teacher's need to differentiate for her, so that she can produce deeper and more thoughtful work on the same topics as her class mates.

How is her Maths?

Do scholarships exist in pre-prep?

I agree with mummytime that they could probably take her outwith normal entry points. Schools almost always have places come up because of families moving/not being able to afford fees anymore etc.

There are some prep schools which offer scholarships/burseries if you can hold out until yr5.

Just going private isn't necessarliy going to solve the problem. We visited 8 private schools to see about moving our DS who is also profoundly gifted. The best any of them (even the v academic) could offer was 1-2 lessons a week with a special teacher doing some extra work.

He's at a highly regarded state primary now, which is basically doing as much (ie v little) as any school is likely to do with a child like this. We are holding out to send him to prep school next year (fingers xed we ger a bursery!)

Try stretching your DD sideways at home. My DS has had a go at GCSE past papers in Maths and Science. There are loads of workbooks you can buy. If she's a good reader, she doesn't need school to have a bash at the classics (Little Women, Gulliver's Travels, Jungle Book, The Railway Children,Robinson Crusoe, Alice in Wonderland, Tom Sawyer,Heidi, Anne of Green gables, The Secret Garden). Or you could try teaching her some French?

Or what about music/sport to get her engaged in something non-academic?

I take it this 'profound giftedness' equates to more than just being able to read an adult newspaper and spell 90% of the words??

Hmm, only just caught up with this thread. That quote from MB is not great.

She (a teacher) used to say that if you were that bright then you should be an autodidact. The corollary of this is that if you are not an autodidact then you are not as bright as your pushy parents think you are.
It is a brilliant get-out clause for teachers.

It's like the trick that some Maths teachers play. They set a task and the Gifted child races through it in half the time. The teacher needs to occupy the child so the teacher gives out another, practically identical sheet on the same topic which the child also races through. The child asks for something more interesting but the teacher insists that it was just fluke that the child got 100% on both papers. The teachers sets yet another practically identical paper and the child plods through it and makes a mistake because it is not fully engaged because it is bored brainless. The teacher then exclaims in glee, "there, I knew that you didn't really understand. Go back to your seat and stop getting ideas above your station".

To be honest I think you need to be sure your child is "profoundly gifted"two of my dses were at that sort of level in reception,it would not have occured to me that they were "gifted" just normal wordy children.The eldst is now 16 and doing 10 GCSEs but is perfectly average as far as I am concerned ,the other is 8 and in the top two or three in the class but again I would not regard that as outstanding.

If you choose wisely the smaller classes,greater freedom from the national curriculum and often greater number of on site extra activities in the independent sector can be helpful for a bright child but many state primaries can provide this

Firstly, being able to read at 5 does NOT equate to giftedness!!!!

I could read at 2, newspapers at 3 yadda yadda yadda and by all accounts I am intelligent enough. I went to state schools all the way through. In all honesty I would have preferred to be in the company of other kids who were operating at the same kind of intellectual level as me. I became and have continued to be rather lonely and isolated and have actively sought to avoid the same experience for my bright but not pathologically bright children.

I would rather give everything I earn to their schools than have them be told they are potentially autistic (DS1's reception teacher), "not quite right" (again, DS1's reception teacher) [I took him out of that school after he started to hurt himself so he wouldn't have to go], "daydreaming all the time" and "unlikely to achieve even a level 1 at KS1 tests unless he pulls his socks up" (DS1's yr 2 teacher). My son's early years experiences at school turned me from a totally pro state school (I was hoping they'd moved since I was there) into a sold on "the right school for the child" no matter what type person.

So that would be my recommendation- find the "right" school for your particular child, and if that school happens not to be in the state sector, move everything you have to make sure she can be there and feel part of a community rather than gravitating on the outskirts. I still see in my yr 12 son now the traces of his early social failures in school (thankfully lessening as time goes by) and kick myself for having tried to hammer my little round peg into a square hole for so many years. My girls have had a much easier time of school -thanks to what I learned going through the mill with my son I've been able to spot the signs earlier.

"profoundly gifted" sounds ominous

agree with bourboncreme and duchesse.

Many girls start Reception being able to read and spell. Although they will probably remain at or near the top of the class, many "late bloomers" will catch up and even overtake them in time.

KerryMumbles, th OP only cites one example of this child's abilities. One person's 'profoundly gifted' is another's 'quite bright' IMO.

I was pointing out that it's a weird way to describe something km and in addition I'm not sure that hothousing helps
poor personal experience of being moved forward year groups etc

The term profoundly gifted seems to be used by some educational specialists and psychologists to distinguish between those merely bright kids who might be on the top table in their class but not that unusual, and the really freakily bright ones.
So the OP hasn't just made it up as a term.

Profoundly gifted kids are the type who are many years ahead of their class not just one or two years ahead. The really unusual ones who can, say, teach themselves to read at two or do grade 8 piano when they're 7 or whatever.
(Probably not great examples but hopefully you get the picture...)