small village primary or selective prep?

[islandhopper]

Where do you think would be best for a highly academic boy - small nurturing village state primary (mixed age classes, eg yr3/4, yr5/6) or very academic selective private prep few miles away? Want him to be happy - ie stimulated/stretched, but not pressured/no childhood. Thinking from 7+ , ie year 3.

How do you know he's highly academic? That's not intended to be a snippy question - it's just that sometimes children seem incredibly bright early and level out - and vice versa. My dd was hugely advanced early on, and is no more that averagely bright now.

How old is he now? Are you applying for Reception now and trying to plan ahead, or is the child already 6 or 7?

I'm not a fan of mixed age classes personally, but I have friends who swear by them. Very academic, selective schools will be VERY high pressure. I should know - I went to one!

I agree with seeker - if he's not at school yet, you can't possibly tell if he's highly academic or not. Sorry.

As with all these things, go with your gut instinct, based on the feeling you get when you look around the schools.

And if in doubt - start off at the state school. You can always move him to the private school at a later date, whereas there won't necessarily be a place available in the state school in Y3.

Just to clarify - when I say you can't tell if he's highly academic, I don't mean that he's not intelligent. Just that there's a difference between academic and intelligent.

Thanks for your replies. Should have explained - he is currently in year 2 at a lovely small village state primary at the moment, where he is working 2-4 years above his age across all subjects - which is generally fine when he is in a mixed class with the year above (as he works with the top group of the year above), but not so great on the alternate years when he is in a mixed class with the year below.

The school is really lovely (and we have younger children also there/due to start) and the headmaster very much wants to help him, but apparently haven't had experience of such an ability gap before, so don't know what to do. Individualised extension work is already given (although makes DS self-conscious), and acceleration or partially acceleration (eg for maths) has been discussed, as has external tutoring.

Ideally, we would like him to stay here until 11, as long as he will be happy/stretched enough, and then move him to an academic independent school at 11. Am therefore keen for advice from anyone who has had a similar situation with a highly academic/bright child at a small state primary school, especially with mixed classes. How was your DC stretched? Individual extension work, (partial) acceleration to year above, external tutoring, etc?

seeker Can I ask at what age your hugely advanced DD changed to become average? Was it in KS2 or earlier? Do you know why that happened?

islandhopper - sorry, I thougth you were talking about a much younger child. Dd was streets - and I mean streets - ahead when she was an older baby/toddler but just gradually all the others caught up, so by the time she was 7ish she was definitely top sets but not local news material. As she was when she gave an interview to a journalist about our swimming pool when she was 18 months old! She is now 15, and she's a clever girl but nothing out of the ordinary.

Same as seeker - sorry, i thought your child was younger too.

I have a child the same age as yours. (He's not highly academic though!). One of his friends at school (small private primary) is almost off the scale intelligence-wise - if he's not a Nobel Prize winner or Prime Minister or something when he's older, I'll eat my hat. Anyway, it's interesting to see that he is NOT advanced emotionally speaking. Having talked to a few teachers (and being married to one too), I understant that this is fairly common with very clever children. So you might want to think about how easy he will find it to relate to children 2 years older than him, even if he is keeping up with the work academically. In which case, perhaps the private school might be a better fit, where they can set him work to his level, but keep him with his peers.

However - as a mum of a child at a private school, I am well aware that often the state schools ARE more geared up for gifted and talented children. I think you have to make a choice for each child individually. I don't agree that you need to send all your children to a private school, just because you're doing it for one of them; you should select a school for each child based on their individual needs. Some kids do better at state schools, some do better at private...

I agree with squidgy re. gifted & talented provision in state schools.

Private schools are bloody expensive too! And the fees go up each year even if your salary doesn't . Year 6, for example, will command much higher fees than Y3, and there will be a 5% or similar increase each year for inflation on top of that.

islandhopper - I have a similar issue. My DS is 4 and showing signs of being very bright/gifted. He is in a private school at the moment but I can not say that they are particulary equipped to cater for children who are 2+ years ahead. Actually I am not sure there is an answer. I have decided to move DS to state for reception onwards and monitor his progress. I cannot afford private primary and private secondary so I would love to be be in your situation and now think that private secondary would be more suitable than primary.

I don't think that private education necessarily caters any better than state education. I think it depends on the school, the headteacher and the teachers. If your son is happy I would stick with what you are doing and possibly move at 11. Have you got any good grammar schools. You could start preparing him for the 11+ which might stretch him a little further.

My humble opinion- if you can afford it a super bright child would be better off in a selective school where he can be with his peer group- at some stage anyway.

DH and I both went to very selective schools and both left feeling that we were 'normal' in terms of intelligence. We met at Oxford and my observation there was that people from super selective schools had less of a chip on their shoulder and were more balanced as they hadn't had the experience of being unusually clever at school (iyswim and apoligies for the massive generalisation!). Some people from non-selective schools had a bit of a shock at suddenly not being the best at their subject (everything?) and had a rough time adjusting.

If DS turns out to be bright I want him to be stretched but feel normal so I will opt for selective.

Oh... and the reason DH's parents decided to send him to said school was that by Y6 he was being bullied in his lovely village primary school for always knowing the answer and by the middle of Y7 in his local outstanding comp he'd decided to solve the problem for himself by becoming disruptive (and therefore 'cool')...

I agree with EBDteacher in that I would want a particularly bright child to go to a school where good marks and high achievement were considered normal and not something to be mocked or derided. I think it may not matter so much at 7 but may make a bigger difference by age 11.

In my case, I was top of my class, but not outstanding in any way. I had an ongoing competition with a boy in my class over who could finish workbooks first, get our times tables ticked off the list etc. I went to a private all girls selective school and got a string of As - he went to the local comprehensive and got a few Cs Ds and Es because he decided he didn't want to stand out as being clever .

not all state schools are like that though