Any teachers please,how is the best way for me to approach this?

[mrsshears]

My dd has recently been found to be highly gifted following an private assessment instigated by ourselves to try and get to the root of problems dd had been having.
School are very reluctant to see dd as anything other than a quirky child who is slightly above average but has a very pushy mother who has over inflated ideas about her childs ability(dd is very introvert and also quite bored at school which makes matters worse as if something is too easy she really can't be bothered with it)
I have a meeting with school tomorrow to discuss dd and see what provisions are going to be made for her,i'm not looking forward to it as i think they will be very negative and defensive as they have been proven wrong about dd,my question is do any teachers know the best way i can approach this? i'm very keen to move forward and make sure my dd gets what she needs and the last thing i want to do is go in like a bull in a china shop and make things worse.
thanks

I don't think even a specialist diagnostic professional would be happy to assert a child doesn't have ASD without carrying out a thorough assessment with a team of professionals tbh so the assurances of one professional wouldn't reassure me and it shouldn't you either tbh.
If your daughter has difficulties then they could be masking her abilities in other area and instead of pushing for school to push the academics you should be asking how you can all support her together to address the things she finds difficult tbh.
I think the reason lots of people on here are questioning ASD is because what you write shouts ASD to a lot of parents and teachers with experience of ASD.
ASD is a scary prospect I understand that but dismissing it out of hand wouldn't be doing your daughter any favours tbh.
If you are convinced it isn't that have dd assessed for ASD and then say to the school we have ruled out ASD and so now I want to look at how we can help dd achieve in school what she is able to do at home.

I very much doubt that MN will pull this just because you have decided that you don't like the subject of the answers given. You can't control threads like that. It would be a shame anyway, because as Belgianbun says the advice given from people who really know what they're talking about has been excellent.

Thumbs up to what BelgianBun said, sounds especially sound.

May I delicately suggest that your behaviour on this thread may illustrate the problems you face.

You have been given excellent advice. Don't knock it.

Mrsshears- tell us about your dd'a abilities. What can she do?

If this was an ideal world, what would you want the school to offer her?

But all the problems she has, are the same problems kids with ASD have.

And what you need to talk to school about are how to help her with her problems.

Now if her problems were that she wasn't being challenged in Maths, we'd be giving you different advice. When asked what her problems were you listed a string of ASD traits.

The official defn of gifted is very close to a ASD. my DS has both ASD and is very clever. At home hes doing a GCSE paper for fun, at school a lot of the work is too easy for him. I still only expect school to help with problems caused by his ASD. Work being too easy I expect him to sort out himself - or to relax and have fun at school.

My DS also combines being very clever with being on the spectrum. To be honest, the levels you describe your child as being at are 'normal' for a more able child at this stage in their schooling and your focus needs to be on removing the barriers she has to showing her ability in school.. I have just, for interest, looked back at the tracking data both for my current class and the one I had last year (very bog-standard primary school, quite a challenging intake in terms of deprivation / special needs so not an academic hothouse) and for both years children identified as 'more able' were at similar levels to your daughter. These children are just that, 'more able'. They are not 'exceptionally gifted', just at the high end of ability for our intake. Just for comparison, my DS was working at level 3 for Maths and reading at this point in Year 1 (he has fine motor skills problems so his writing lagged behind until his fingers would do what his brain wanted them to!), having 'fallen off the top' of the school reading scheme in mid-Reception.

The conversation you should have with school should be about removing or reducing the barriers that exist in school - behavioural, social, sensory - which prevent her from showing her full ability. The school should be able to differentiate work for your daughter, as her current levels fall within a range they should easily be able to accommodate, but it will remain hard for your daughter to show her abilities if e.g. baheviourally and in response to sensory input she cannot focus fully on her work. Your tone should be of the 'well, we all know she's bright BUT currently she is finding it hard to demonstrate what she can do fully in the classroom environment. How can we work together to solve this problem?' variety rather than the 'She's SO clever, you MUST give her harder work' variety as it sounds as if it is not the level of work but behavioural and other difficulties that are preventing her from working at the correct level.

I'm with you OP.

5 year old being confused/frustrated with classmates.

Very typical of a bright five year old - they can't see why classmates don't get things they find easy to understand.
Doesn't mean she has social needs at all - pop her into a group of 7/8/9 year olds they will be able to converse with her on her level.

5 year old with high reading levels.

Lots of messages on MN where parents battle to get the right level reading books for children - give up the fight, abandoned the school reading scheme, bin the reading record book and buy/borrow from the libary your own progressive reading scheme and tonnes of excellent books.

Maths level 1b

This isn't a particularly high level for Y1 - teacher should easily be able to differentiate for this.

Doing higher level maths at home - two possibles here either she is going off and learning by herself (some love to plough through maths text books as bed-time reading) or she is being guided to worksheets/books/games that extend her (lets call this scaffolding her knowledge).

Encourage either approach. Print-off NC levels and have a little test with her each fortnight to see what level she is at. When the level reaches 2c / b for a Year1 the teacher will be looking to more to either maths in with the year 3 class.

The part about her not being able to concentrate with lots of noise is a complete red herring in my view - most maths lessons require children are quiet when recieving in-put (ie being shown a new technique) then the noise and disruption levels rise as the children head off to work in pairs or small groups - your girl could do her work in a quite place in school, the libary for example.
Bear in mind there will be a lot less noise and disruption from year three and four classes, so it would only be that her noise concerns are accomodated for a short while (not the next two years - she'll be demonstrating a secure 2c/b by next spring)

A lot hangs on how you can get the school to cooperate, so I would not go in making any assumptions about how defensive they must feel because they have been proved wrong- that will only make you seem defensive.

A brisk cheerful approach on the lines suggested by teacherwith2kids is going to get better results. You need to find some common ground and that common ground is that your dd is currently finding it difficult to perform to the best of her ability at school, so you are all going to focus on what can be done to make that easier for her. I have spent a lot of time negotiating with schools in my day, and imho this is the only way that gets you anywhere.

Doesn't mean that you shouldn't mention the specialist, but if you do, make it a case of "now that we have this new information, how do you think we should proceed" rather than "told you so".

Rosemary,

i would seriously doubt whether a school would look to move a Year 1 child working at level 2c / 2b to a Year 3 class. As I said in my post, more able children in both my current and last class were working at 2c / 2b across the board at this point in year 1 - and they have been perfectly well accommodated by remaining within their normal year group.

One proposal for DS, who was working at level 3 at this point in Year 1 WAS to move him to year 3 but we moved schools instead. His current school had no problem keeping him with his own year group and accommodating his needs.

Btw who was the specialist? As others say, a diagnosis of ASD is usually done by a team of specialist: one specialist can diagnose giftedness but not necessarily exclude ASD. Be aware that the statement "giftedness often presents as ASD" does not exclude the equally valid statement that "giftedness is often found together with ASD". SO when you present the results to the school it is best to keep within the confines of what the specialist actually said- was it "this child is gifted" or "this child shows no signs of ASD". And bear in mind what the qualifications of the specialist was, as the school may ask.

Screams Asperger's to me.

mrsshears in answer to your OP ... you address it by asking for help getting to the root of your daughter's sensory difficulties because no matter how G&T she is she will fail to thrive while these continue to be an obstacle to her learning in school. They are the most likely reason for her unhappiness and tantrums and should be your priority.

Ours does seem to move them up / around a lot but is a small school, only 2 Y1 at 2b in mixed Y2/Y1 class, those and Y2 2b + now go into year 3 for maths - do appreciate this depends on size / mixture at school.

i would seriously doubt whether a school would look to move a Year 1 child working at level 2c / 2b to a Year 3 class.

I agree they aren't outside the normal ability spread in Y1.

I would agree that 2c/2b isn't unusual for year 1 but I suppose it depends on what the rest of the class is attaining. DD is probably 2c or so for most things and definitely wouldn't be put into year 3.

The specialist is educational psychologist Dr Congden (it's a shame it's 2 separate threads).

Sorry, Congdon.

If you can afford it, I would suggest an all girls private school with small classes.

OP said school thought she was "a very pushy mother who has over inflated ideas about her childs ability". It's amazing how much the OP has given this impression on the thread, despite only a handful of messages, all arguing against it.

"If you can afford it, I would suggest an all girls private school with small classes."

Yep- that'll really help her overcome her socialisation issues!

seeker get with the program ... she doesn't have issues she's gifted!

Oops- sorry, my mistake.

If you do choose to go private, choose very carefully, and ensure that the school has facilities and experience to cope should your daughter still have some behavioural issues or prove in the end to be on the autisic spectrum.

Some (by no means all) private schools tend to 'manage out' children who have any special educational needs, especially ones which present in the form of challenging behaviour, as it's 'not what the other parents are paying for' to have a child with any form of behavioural difficulties in the class.

(Researched private options for DS in desperation ... and this attitude was surprisingly common)