How are bright children stretched in Year 1?

[noseynoonoo]

My daughter is relatively bright. Her teacher tells me that she is the most able in the class by some distance. However, she doesn't tell me what is being done to stretch her other than encouraging her to tidy up her handwriting. I have witnessed the teacher telling DD not to participate in some work because others will copy her rather than work it out for themselves. This is great for everyone except her. A few ways to stretch her were suggested by previous teacher but current teacher doesn't 'believe' in these ideas.

I appreciate that she can't teach DD parts of the syllabus in advance but can she be stretched in a sideways direction? I'm a bit intimidated by the teacher, I don't want to sound like a pushy parent but I don't understand how DD is reaching her full potential as things stand.

The school is making a point of making efforts to help children with special needs and on the G&T register but I haven't been told how this applies to DD.

What should I expect to happen?
How can I ensure that DD is stretched (whilst not looking like a pushy-mum)?

[Joyn]

Yes one sandwich didn't actually say dd was bored - I was extrapolating - sorry if it looked like I was putting words in dds mouth.

My own dcs tell me they are bored (in particular lessons,) rather than with school. But it's particularly hard to learn in ks1 if a child can already read & is strong in maths. My dcs like the project/topic work they do in school & this is what I tend to 'run' with. When ds was doing the Egyptians I took him to the British museum to see the mummies & the Rosetta Stone & we looked at a book on hieroglyphs together but that's different to having to take on responsibility for ensuring a child actually learns to try & fail. I don't want to be the one doing that because the more I push him on in maths the further he's going to get ahead & the less he's actually learning in school.

[blackcoffee]

mrz I totally agree that it is important to develop resilience as a bright learner - I was the child you describe at school, put immense pressure on myself - was 'stretched' by being moved up year groups, went to secondary age 10 - it all went sadly wrong in my teens. In retrospect I would have benefitted from developing social skills alongside my peers and to have learned that it is OK to try and fail, you just try again.

[LeBFG]

State schoold have an extremely hard time providing for the needs of the bottom 0.1% of children - I imagine this would would be equally difficult for the top 0.1% too. To a large extent, any particular school is going to be better at addressing the needs of the normal spread of abililties. The one extremely bright child that comes along every 4 or 5 years is clearly not part of the normal spread so how much is it really the responsibility of that school to adapt new learning resources and strategies for that one child?

I ask that as I remember in my teacher training year (secondary) there was one such pupil. The teachers had their hands up in the air. No one had a clue what to do. It was suggested that the parents put her into the 13+ to get her into the local grammar school because the good teaching, mixed-ability school she was in just could not cope adequately. The same school had a girl with Down's syndrome - they struggled equally with her in classes.

[mrz]

Sorry but I disagree it's relatively easy to provide for bright/extremely able children.

[learnandsay]

Doesn't that presuppose that the relevant teachers are willing to try?

[LeBFG]

Oh, explain? When you're teaching Y7 astronomy (planets, bit about gravity and the like) and the girl is working at A-level understanding of fusion (according to her physics teacher). How do you adequately provide for her needs? And I mean, in the context of a working school where you haven't infinite time to develop individual resources? I suppose you'll pull the old 'project' out of the bag. Project work is actually quite difficult to organise and pupils can get project 'fatigue' if over-used (this happened when I taught for a term in one of the grammar schools). If you leave pupils to do their own thing, success is dependant largely of the interests of the child in question. IMO they really need sufficiently stimulating material rather than just t'internet/couple of text books. Children (and adults) thrive on a variety of stimuli, particularly that of an enthusiastic person teaching them.

Bright kids are fine to diff for, I agree. But the one that comes along way off the scale....this type of pupil is not 'easy' to provide for. And I'm beginning to think, why should state schools be obliged to develop them to their absolute full potential?

[LeBFG]

^^ to mrsz

[learnandsay]

LeBFG, could the girl not simply join the A level classes for physics? How far ahead is she in other subjects?

[mrz]

Well since we are on the primary forum I wouldn't be teaching a Y7 girl ...but it's quite easy to set work at an appropriate level by working with teacher's from further up the school or colleagues in our local secondary to provide resources and there is always my Amazon account

[learnandsay]

Unless such a child has been coached (say by a physics lecturer father) in which case these conversations are irrelevant, it's very unusual for an eleven or twelve year old girl to understand A level physics without the relevant tuition. Such a girl I can only presume (if she hasn't been tutored has taught herself.) If she's teaching herself at that level then I see no reason for LeBFG's aversion to project work, since the girl is in effect setting her own project work anyway. All that's actually required is an appropriate teacher to offer guidance and possibly material. (The Open University might well be interested in such a pupil.)

[LeBFG]

Nah, the girl was supremely intelligent - far ahead in maths too. She was having an open-ended question conversation with the physics teacher who happened to be covering her general science class so devoted 10 mins to her alone. I only mentioned it as seconday is my specialism. But yes, the alternative to project work is do year above etc. I don't find this very satisfactory. What happens when they get to the year ahead and have already done all the work? What happens when you've taught up to A-level at 14yo? Is this 'easy' to provide for - not if it's outside your age group to teach - you still have to know a subject to teach it!

Kids thrive on interaction with people not books. Books can be a real disappointing cop-out. I believe this is particularly so with younger ages. Enthusiasm is often passed on. I always had a natural passion and interest in nature and animals - I would have needed an enthusiastic teacher to get me doing project work on the Egyptians for example, but I know lots of kids do this topic and get really excited about it....because of their teachers.

[iamapushymum]

I think her teacher is being quite charitable.there isn't much about nuclear fusion in A level physics to understand!
and that's one topic in one subject! .Why not print off an A2 physics paper for her and see how she gets on.

[Tgger]

I still find the whole mind set odd. Or perhaps I have underestimated your DD. Can she already write at a Y3 or Y4 level with excellent spelling and punctuation? Perhaps she can. I would say DS is more at a Y2 level, but this is only a guess from what I've seen, and there is plenty of room for improvement, and he is improving . I do not have regular meetings with his teacher . Parents evening was enough just to know he's working "above average". And I'm with mrz, it's easy to challenge a bright child, a tweak here, a tweak there, "now can you do this, and how about that?".

Perhaps if DS was a lot further ahead with writing skills as fluent as his reading I might have more concerns about being challenged, but even then there are thinking skills and social skills are there not that are developing all the time in Y1/Y2 and he is given interesting things to do in class (from what I have seen) that can be extended quite easily if needed. Hmmmmm

[mrz]

I didn't say do the year aboves work. I said work with staff and colleagues to set appropriate work and supply resources

Kids thrive on interaction with people not books is that ALL kids LeBFG?

[learnandsay]

LeBFG, I'm not sure where your argument is going. If ultimately you're trying to suggest that the school hires specialist tutors for this one girl, I'm sure no head is going to go for it. So, to some extent the answer is going to have to come from books and the Internet. You haven't explained where the girl is getting this knowledge from. If she has a teacher in the school with whom she is already having open-ended physics conversations then why can he not discuss her projects? For super-bright children the answer is inevitably a combination of people and books. Aren't we all just arguing about the level of the mixture?

[LeBFG]

Can't you see this was an example of her ability? Her class teacher knew she was way off the scale. The fact was she could have started A level and would have coped pretty well. Does this mean this would be an appropriate thing to do? In fact, she appeared to enjoy the school a lot - it specialised in music and she was a gifted musician too . I don't know if she transferred to the grammar school unfortunately, but illustrates the notion that learning in school isn't all about what you do in your text book.

I agree too that a bright kid in the normal spread of things should be easy to integrate into lessons. It would be a crap teacher/school that didn't do that.

[Tgger]

My DH read A level physics books to himself when he was 8 . He'd saved his pocket money to buy them...

[Tgger]

Just asked him what he did in the lesson, and he said he sat at the front so he could chat to the (science) teacher about more interesting things and he was lucky he had teachers who would do that. That was at Secondary school.

[LeBFG]

Would you prefer that I say most kids for every statement? If I wanted to say 'all' kids I would done so. Books are used so much as replacement teachers, particularly when the level is over the teacher's head. I find this lamentable.

learnandsay: I'm merely asking what are schools to do for the exceptionally bright? Is it really their responsibility that they reach their full potential? If I was concerned about these sorts of things, I would be looking for a specialist school. As I'm not the sort of person to worry about these things, then I would have faith in the intellectual interest of my off-spring to find things to do at weekends which I would support wholeheartedly.

[mrz]

I prefer "some"

[learnandsay]

Not really, no. You gave a specific example of an eleven or twelve year old girl who could understand nuclear fusion at A level standard. And you asked what was to be done with such a child. You did not say: What's to be done with super-bright children in general?

So, I spent much time giving you examples of what sort of things I would consider doing with a child who (for no explicable reason) seemed to be gifted at physics at the age of eleven. That's what you asked for.

[mrz]

LeBFG not all exceptionally bright children have parents who are able or inclined to look for specialists schools

[LeBFG]

mrsz - do they instead use their energy to badger schools? Actually (without wanting to get into something I can't back up) I do believe that all kids thrive more from human contact than books (and I'm unbelievably bookish) - the ones that don't (i.e. prefer books to human contact) neccessarily have something wrong with them (i.e. they aren't functioning like the rest of society).

learnandsay: I used an example to illustrate the problem and to differentiate what I see as an off-the-scale sort of kid from just the bright set. I refer to my Sun 09-Dec-12 13:24:53 post. mrsz said this sort of pupil would be easy to plan for. There is very little learning and a lot of understanding in physics - she didn't (I'm sure) have an extensive, unexplained knowledge base.

[mrz]

mrsz - do they instead use their energy to badger schools? I'm sure some will and I'm sure others will try to support at home and others may do nothing at all....
so many generalisations and assumptions

[LeBFG]

leanandsay, to adress you other points, you suggest providing work ahead of her year (A-level) which I've answered - this brings it's own set of problems. You say she could have continued conversations with the physics teacher - she only met him during a cover lesson. Even in this case, the teacher devoted 10 minutes or so to her uniquely as rest of class was engaged in book work. This is clearly not usual in most classes and suggesting teachers devote such time to an individual seems unfair to me.