Any experience of dc very able/ 'gifted' early on but levelling off?

[Yorkshiremother79]

Dd1 was very able at maths in her early years and was at least two years ahead of 'average' in reception and year 1. At the end of year 1 she was doing things like multiplying 17x 24, knew all her tables with little effort and that sort of thing, added three digit numbers in her head. She would breeze through new concepts at the first go.

In year 2 now, she sometimes makes silly mistakes/ rushes things and does not seem to be progressing that well. At parents evening this week, I was told she would probably get a low level 3 by the end of the year.

Before I get accused of being desperate for her to be AG&T and not happy with how she is, it is not that. I am simply confused as to how she has gone from being very, very able to merely bright.

I confess I gave her a Sats level 3 paper to do and she didn't do that well at all. Just scraped a level 3 score.

Is she still very able but has got into bad habits e.g. rushing things as she thinks it's easy when it's not if she gets things wrong. Or could she have levelled off and is now bright but not very bright/ gifted at maths (bad term I know)?

The teaching at school seems geared to the average child if that is relevant. Ofsted criticised them for not challenging more able kids in the inspection last year.

My DD has been through this on a couple of times (yr3 now) I found it helps to point out to her that if she doesn't slow down and stop making silly mistakes she will not score as well as others.

Sound's like my dd's behavior when she is bored/underchallenged.

Yes ds very bright but yr 5/6 lost the plot.
I think it was the Sats emphasis...he has regained his focus by now in yr 8 and is in the top 5% of his year.

what type of questions did she struggle with on the sats paper? Is it that she can do the calculations but struggles with how to apply them ie word problems?

this sounds like my son when he is bored at school usually a quick with with his teacher gets him pushed a bit and all is fine.

Yes ariadne - I think she struggles more with the less straightforward word problem ones. Also she does not have the breadth of knowledge required for some of the questions I suppose e.g. measure and weight.

Maybe her knowledge is uneven.

In the nicest possible way I would try and stop worrying about level she is on. At age 6/7 they are still so young. Going from very very able to merely bright does not sound awful, I do appreciate that you want to nurture your dd but try and relax a bit. Giving her test papers isn't really going to achieve much. Have you actually discussed your concerns with her teacher to look at possible ways of keeping her stimulated?

I don't think it's to do with boredom. We always find a few verbally-able girls with good fine motor skills who enter Y2 at level 2 and then fail to achieve L3 at the end of the year.

At the moment, I have two girls in Y2 who are certainly levelling off, whilst one is romping ahead with the same teaching input.... and there are others catching up fast (boys and girls).

It's very easy to say children may be bored, but what does that really mean?

Flossie - it was just the one SATS paper and we definitely do not hothouse. I suppose my question is generally as much about whether the school is the right environment (big class, lots of low level disruption and lots of different teachers) or she is levelling off and maybe was simply an early developer.

Mumblesmum when I say my son is bored I mean just that. He isnt engaging with the teaching because it doesn't challenge him and hence there is no need to engage he knows it already. When I mention this to his teachers they up their expectations for what he is to do challenge him a bit further he has every time I have done this taken their challenges with vigour and gone straight back to enjoying learning and school.

To say he is bored is absolutely not a cob out it simply means He is finding the lessons dull and tiresome. It is not something I say lightly so no I do not agree it is easy to say. I have been lucky that I haven't once had a teacher saying to me " well he is doing fine he is on target" they have each time said " ok we will find something more challenging.

"she does not have the breadth of knowledge required for some of the questions I suppose e.g. measure and weight."
Many clever children don't do well at school and end up underachieving, even the G&T need to cover the material before they can excell at it. She might not be challenged at school then you know the saying "if you don't use it you lose it" Please support you dc at home, there are some great websites and books you could pick up from the H.street.

Frikadellen, I can understand how a child may be 'bored' in maths, if the work is not challenging.
However, in writing, I cannot understand how a child can be bored, as s/he will work to his or her own level, and differentiation will be by outcome.

Is it not simply the case that some children are precocious and romp ahead even before they start in Reception - being early readers etc.... but sometime down the line their peers might catch up.

Is your DD old or young in her year because if she is one of the older one that would have given her a huge advantage at 4/5/6 but maybe now the younger ones in the cohort are catching up? Know that in my DS's class, the September borns were streets ahead in Reception and Year 1 but by Year 2 they were losing their lead.

I think this is the one issue with the whole G&T thing...it gives parents expectations and the school system doesn't necessarily meet these....

Have you considered sending her to a school with smaller class sizes...

Ime that's the case with writing I agree. It sort of differentiates itself doesn't it?

It's maths and reading that are more of an issue although she doesn't make mistakes with reading and is doing more as I'd expect with that.

I was discussing maths so the boredom issue seems more relevant there.

"I cannot understand how a child can be bored, as s/he will work to his or her own level, and differentiation will be by outcome."
If there is always a real differentiation! That's not always the case.

gazza she is a late June birthday.

Yes that smaller class size question is at the heart of this. I am wondering about the local prep and whether it would be a better place for her.

But surely, differentiating for a range of abilities in a small class is just the same as differentiating for a similar range of abilities in a larger class? There will just be more children in each group.

Most children find word problems MUCH more difficult than straight calculations. And it might have come as a shock to her that that sort of problem needs a bit more work than the things she can do in her head without thinking.

If you ask her to do the sort of things she used to be able to do easily can she still do them?

if it is a good prep then yes but some preps are not that great and not good value for money at all. My DCs are at a prep with very small classes but the teachers spend their time on their phones or computers and hardly covering the basics! I have friends that have DCs at other preps and really learning a lot.

So she is young in her class...well all the more reason to ensure she is getting the attention she needs to keep ahead of the game....

It is the one gripe we have with the state system (although with my political ideology, I would never use private schools, but that's personal) - the bright ones are not generally pushed to their maximum and become rather disaffected. Don't think our DS was ever as advanced as your DD is, but since Year 1 we have felt that he hasn't been pushed to achieve his full potential. Just so glad that he's got into a grammar school and that he will finally be inspired by learning.

Good luck and hold true to your views!

I agree with seeker. Lots of children find word problems really difficult, particularly some of the two-step problems towards the end of the L3 papers.
Has she done word problems in class yet?
Even my brighter children really struggle with the language (particularly subtraction - e.g. difference between, how many more does, how much change, etc).
I really don't know why we have to do them before children have a really sound understanding of measure / time / money. The words just muddy the waters.

Seeker, I think she has forgotten some of the latter times tables but that's because we haven't practiced them at all.
I hesitate to say she can still do all the same hard calculations as before. I'm not sure she is quite as good at the harder multiplications. I wonder if she has been confused by learning different methods at school to the ones she naturally came up with? That might not be the case though.

Yes mumsbles it is that sort of thing she struggles with. I have no idea whether she has done word problems in class as that would involve school actually telling me something about what they do in there - that doesn't happen.

I don't think they have had anything like that in their homework.

Yorkshiremother79:

Your post & various answers suggest several things to me.

1. your DD got off to a fast start and perhaps things came easy to her - this may have developed into an 'attitude' about learning. My DD2 is slightly in this situation - 'Oh I know this Mummy' a lot of the time, but in fact she doesn't. My understanding is that this is also happening in class - with a bit of unpleasant showing off when it's easy and complete wet lettuce when it's tricky (because she's not used to that).

Our solution has been to remind her that slow and steady wins the day (tortoise and hare Aesop's fable - a family favourite). We've also reminded her that like some of her favourite video games - it gets progressively harder and you have to learn a few more new skills.

2. your DD's teacher(s) may have a different teaching style this year. In some classes top table is stretched, encouraged and closely monitored (ideal world really). In others - top table is left to it. Our school certainly spends a lot of Y2 focusing on the pupils who aren't 'on target' rather than the ones who will achieve L2b or better on the SATs.

'Parking' in Y2 is not uncommon - but can mean that brighter students develop bad habits or get lazy because they frequently are not closely supervised, but left to work 'independently'.

3. the knowledge loss (for instance you talk about how your DD could multiply 2 digits x 2 digits happily in Y1 but has lost that ability now) is concerning. Like anything, practice and regular use keeps the information children are mastering alive.

BBC Bitesize KS1 has a series of games where you can select various skill levels to help children practice for SATs. It's good review and does highlight areas of weakness - you can either leave your DD to play on her own or you can watch her play (to see how things are going). link here: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks1/ If your school offers education city or some other on-line learning support - start using this a bit more regularly, to consolidate learning and keep it progressing.

4. If your daughter has started off well and now appears to be losing steam, I would suggest that this may be the time to get a bit more proactive at home (after all you can't really change what's going on at school). I don't advocate hot-housing and drilling, but just ensuring that reading and some maths is going on each week. 10 minutes here or there, cummulatively, really does make a difference. A bit of video game practices in maths (maths attack is great: www.bigbrainz.com/ - free version but can pay for more detailed versions with more worlds to play in) and ensuring that reading is going on. Also take the time to really talk about the books she's reading - what she likes, how the author described the evil character, talk about words she doesn't understand or has trouble pronouncing, etc...

We've found that our girls really enjoy the 'gaming learning' - and will happily ask to play BBC bitesize/ education city/ or other learning games whilst we are making dinner/ doing chores about the house.

HTH

Thanks for this post pastsellby which is very thought provoking. I think it is probably a little of everything you mentioned mixed together. Definitely got some of the first issue going on.

This was me at school, though a little older with the levelling off.

And the culprit was mostly PastSell's No.1

Motivation was tricky for me, because I got noticed if I was 'genius' but 'good enough' was not a phrase anyone knew in my family - so 'slow and steady' was something I had to learn as an adult. I am trying to do it differently with dd1, who shows similar traits, by praising effort rather than results, and providing as much structure as I can with the little homework she gets. Things are getting better again now (she is in Y3) and she is proud of her own efforts these days.

I do think boredom, especially in maths, can happen if either a) work is too easy or b) the child doesn't understand the question/feels they can't do it.

And I do remember everyone thinking I understood everything, because I was 'quick', and how awful it felt when I didn't understand something - because I was meant to, iyswim. So making sure word problems are clear is definitely a good idea.