Does a child that starts ahead generally stay ahead?

[NorhamGardens]

Looking at some of the other recent threads has got me thinking.

Looking at my brood the ones that started reception or Y1 in the top group etc tended to stay there going forward.

It's rare in our school for someone to move dramatically 'up' in the scheme of things. Sure a few do but they are the exception rather than the rule.

Increasingly I think that if a child is perceived as being more capable than average early on this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy going forward.

I'd say mine are all broadly similar in intelligence but some have been 'believed' in very early on which has given their confidence and subsequent progress an enormous boost.

IMO yes because if they start ahead they access the more challenging work sooner even if they master it in about the same amount of time that any child would.

So a child that after 2 weeks is identified as 'able' is given extension work, completes it in a month, is given more extension work etc.

A child that proceeds 'normally' takes a month to do the original work, then gets the extension work and does it in a month has taken no longer to do the same work than child 1 but took longer to start doing it so they're one step behind right from the start.

I also think that 'more able' children are encouraged to work to tighter deadlines and get more work done, so they end up with a better all-round education which benefits them later on.

I tend to agree which shows why it's understandable some parents can be 'pushy'.

Personally I detest the label 'pushy' parent for one who is involved and wants to get their child off to a good start. Whilst I don't believe in a merry-go-round of baby classes I do think that encouraging reading, letter recognition, basic numeracy skills, motor skill development and all those other things that supposedly pushy parents do (either themselves or outsourcing it to someone else) should start early.

If the child isn't ready to learn then they won't, end of.

Children are very capable of learning those skills through play. There's this image of 'pushy parents' forcing their child to do worksheets....

The difference between an intelligent and less intelligent, but 'coached' child is very obvious.
We are in a grammar school area and I think if I were to predict those which would pass the 11+ in 6 years time, I wouldn't be far wrong.

spiderpig obvious in what way? you mean coached children are more likely to pass 11+?

Actually I know lots of kids who change across the scale from age 4 to age 16. Kids who were top set material at primary don't shine as brightly at seniors, and kids who were somewhere in the middle move to top sets. Probably more the case in Maths and Science (as there is more to it than learning facts).

But this is an area where most parents are pushy!

It's known as the Matthew effect.
www.wrightslaw.com/info/test.matthew.effect.htm

From what I've seen, kids who start ahead stay near the top, but yet they may be 'overtaken' by late developers.

I agree with mummystime lots of children who appear miles ahead when they begin reception seem to level off and some are overtaken by their peers, simply because their class mates have taken longer to reach certain developmental milestones.
It is widely recognised that boys in particular are much later in demonstrating their full potential.

They all develop at their own pace. It depends how well they are grounded in the first place. If a DC has been a very early reader and a good decoder it isn't a lot of help if they don't have the joy of books. Many an excellent reader doesn't open a book for pleasure.They can easily be overtaken by the slow but sure.
As mrz says, boys in particular often reach their full potential later. I have examples in my own family. My brother failed 11+ but passed at 12 and was in the express high flyers stream of the grammar school by 13. DS1 was in the lower Maths stream all through junior school, his teachers felt that he was better at the top of that stream to give him confidence. At A'level he out- performed many of those in the top group by getting an A.
I always smile at the posts that begin 'I am not a pushy mother, but my 2 yr old can......'when all it often means is that their fairly bright 2 yr old spends a lot of time in adult company. It isn't a race. Yes, if they are bright in reception they will probably remain so-but they can get overtaken by the late starters.
Sometimes having someone not believe in you can act as a spur as in 'I will xxxx show them!' I admit that it is more self fulfilling to have someone believe in you!

and my DS proves MRZ rule!!

He is a youngy- 4.03 when he started school and finished EYFS with mainly 6's and 7 in PSRN and 7 for some PSD/ KU. He was almost bottom for writing in yr 1 and a good reader but comphrehension not so good. Maths was good but only middle ability from what I understand.

Now having just started yr 2 he has got 15/15 on a Maths 'test' they gave him which have him a 2c (doesn't test higher ability), he only came up from yr 1 a 1A and teacher has said she is going to give him a harder test as she feels he may be a 2B already with the ease he did the test.

Writing is still getting there (1A) and his reading AND comprehension are there now.(2C)

I think that this example shows that sometimes a child is slower to grasp concepts - eg as a boy and younger but that there is a point in their education that they 'catch up' and sometimes begin to excell
in a subject.

I mean its obviously expected to happen as all children are given the same GCSE papers/ a level papers regardless of gender and age

Often if they are slower to grasp concepts they are rock solid once they get there.

They may stay ahead all through reception, but I don't think they stay ahead in secondary school and certainly not necessarily into adulthood.

We could not accurately predict which children would be succesful academic adults purely on how ahead they where in primary school

They can also go 'off the rails' as teenagers. I have know DCs who would be anyone's dream child, go completely the opposite way.

My ex was a member of Mensa at 3, was years ahead, took gcses early, grade 8 piano, by A level got average grades (A,B,B,C) and failed his first year at uni (doing an easy subject as well). He's now a complete failure with no qualifications or ambition or drive. He only uses his 'intelligence' to lie and con people now.

By contrast my BF struggled through school, had to work really really hard to understand everything and get good grades, and slowly everything clicked and as he got older maths made more and more sense, and now he's got a masters in mathematical software engineering and a very good job.

I think if you had compared them both in recpetion many people would have mistakenly believed the child who was ahead would have stayed ahead. He didn't.

In my present class there is a boy and a girl I taught 2 years ago in reception. At this point of the year their parents were very worried (and so was I) Two years later they are by far the most able children in the class already working at a secure 2B/A.

When I was doing A levels there were a fair few who had been in lower sets during O levels, started A levels and really came into their own.

DS is year 2 and in a class with a high number of Sept-Dec born children who are older siblings and attended the nursery nearby which was quite pushy and gave them homework. DS is a September birthday but went to the nursery on a farm where they went traipsing off into the woods for Teddy bear picnics. When he started school I made sure he could count to 10 and had noticed he showed an interest in number patterns, relationships between numbers and how they worked in everyday life, something his older sister never really got. . I answered questions but didn't push him at all. He started off in middle sets for everything but now in Year 2 has gone into the top maths set if other parents are to believed and the second set for reading, though can't be sure of that. His teacher commented on his ability with numbers and said she felt he will be extremely good at maths as he can recognise patterns very easily.

DD's class was very different and I noticed there that by the time they left in Year 4, you really couldn't tell those who were the early readers etc, lots of them had been well overtaken by those who took longer to get going.

My DS was one of those that wasn't really a high flyer until he got to secondary. He struggled to read until he was 7 but then it clicked. He also has SLD problems so his writing probably held him back. He did ok in KS1 sats with 3s for science and maths but 2s for reading/writing. I don't think he was never top table and I always got the impression there quite a few more academic than he was.
Only just scraped a 4 for writing at KS3 but reading was a 5b, very high science score and a 5 for maths, but that was the first sign we really had that he was any more than high average.
In secondary he has been seen as a high flyer and gifted. I don't think that he is any brighter than he was in primary but I think what he is good at is not measurable in primary. He has excellent analytical skills and is an abstract thinker with a maturity way beyond his years.

hasn't proved to be the case with my two but I also wonder if this is an age thing.

dd was a v slow starter (read v v early but didn't/couldn't write till year 2) and is blossoming the older she gets. She is an August child. Even the school commented at parents evening that she appears to be growing into herself (if that makes sense).

My theory is that if you were a member of Mensa at 3 yrs it was because of your parents. A 3 yr old couldn't know what it was or get anything from it but the parents could bask in reflected glory-'my DS is a member of Mensa'-great in the competitive mummy stakes but not much else! He would have been much better traipsing off to the woods. It really isn't a race. Noone knows, or cares, with the 10yr old reader whether they learned at 2 yrs or 8yrs-do they get pleasure from it?- is the thing that really counts.

Stephen hawkings says that he didn't learn to read until he was 8, was middle of the roadall the way through primary school and only really started to apply himslef when he was doing his Masters.......

Ds didn't learn to read until he was over 6.5, was dropped from the "top" group to the middle group so as not to damage his confidence, and took 3 years to get back into the "top" group. He just wasn't developmentally ready.

He is now quietly (correctly) confident that he is one of the brightest in the class at both language and maths - whereas others who had started out with him in the "top" groups in P1 are now slipping becuase they're not applying themselves. He knows the importance of working.

So I don't that the statement is generally true.

Lots of successful people didn't do well at school. Letting them develop at their own rate is much healthier than saying 'I don't think they will pass the 11+ so I must get a tutor in year 3', they would be better playing board games, joining Cubs, playing football etc (as long as they choose and not the parent).

I think its very fluid. Children who are ahead in Reception/Year One, won't also stay ahead in future years. That is why in my school we don't tell parents who is on the GnT register, because the child may be on it in Reception for reading for example, but then come Year 2, the other children have caught this child up, although this child has made progress himself and therefore he no longer stands out as being a gifted reader.

Teacher401..

I find it unbelievable that schools think is important to hide information from parents about their own children when they are in Reception/Year One.

Is this normal practice? And this is justified because children can progress differently? Are you scared of disappointing parents? How can a school believe they are better prottecting the children from their parents when they are 4/5 yo. is something I can't understand properly. I guess that, in order to protect the secrecy, you also hide from the children that they are on a GnT register.

I tend to believe in the idea of working as a team with the school as much as possible. However, I read thinks like this from time to time and I feel like protecting my kids from the school by all possible means. What other information are parents and children better off not knowing about themselves and their family?

By the way... I also have a husband who was the struggling one at school. He is one of the most succesful human beings I know at all levels.