DCs starting a new school after half term...what do I take? Should I mention G&T?

[FishfingersAreOK]

Due to a move my DC (YR & Y2) are starting at a new primary school on Monday. When we left their old school on Friday I was given all of their work/folders/old reading records etc.

Not so worried about YR stuff but should I take Y2 literacy/numeracy/handwriting stuff in with us for the first day for the new school. Or would that look...er....I don't know...unnecessary? Would it be useful or just a pain?

Also, Y2 is on the Gifted and Talented register for her reading. Not sure how this has actually benefitted her tbh. She doesn't know she is on the register. We are not that bothered in many ways. We were happy she was being stretched at her old school - and she was happy and thriving. So again, is there any need to mention it? The new school is bigger, and one of the appeals of it is there will be more peers for DD (Y2) of a similar academic ability - rather than her being pulled into Y3/Y4 classes. If I don't mention it will it seem odd? If I do will I seem pushy? Does the G&T transfer to a new school IYSWIM or will it just be dependent on the others in her year.

These are probably all questions I should have asked the school(s) last week but we only found out they had places on Thursday and everyone agreed beginning of the half term was the sensible time to start....but has left me with very little time to get my head around it!

Not sure if posting in correct area....Oh....blasted half term

Often the G&T child is also found on the SEN register

Surely identifying the top 10% and applying different teaching strategies to them is not "stupid"? Sounds very sensible to me. The only mistake is ever using the term "gifted & talented" which I think gives some parents an over-inflated sense of their child's ability and future potential.

However none of this is particularly relevant to this thread. OP, in your position I would hand over learning diaries / examples of work "in case it is useful" and also mention g&t just to give the teacher as full a picture as possible.

Unfortunately the top 10% in one school could be the bottom 10% in another school dozily and why do they need different teaching strategies? Good teaching is good teaching and every child's entitlement.

Nobody said every school is using the stupid 10% rule. Trying to invalidate G&T generally by pointing out that some schools are assigning the label in a stupid fashion is like saying hammers aren't useful tools because my neighbours are using theirs as a guitar. It just means that my neighbours are daft. It doesn't say anything about hammers.

You seem to have missed the point that the schools are applying it as directed by the government and their LEAs which doesn't require any level of common sense but has the same end result and just imagine the bragging rights you would have on MN L&S

I saw the guidelines that you posted but I haven't seen any posters explaining how their G&T children are reading ridiculously easy books, yet. If the dept of Ed wants to write stupid guidelines that's a matter for it. But it doesn't seem as though every teacher in the country has slavishly followed the stupid bits.

To me, it is irrelevant if a child is G&T or not as long as they are learning at whatever level they are at.

Well, some of the books DD comes home with are ridiculously easy (she chooses them herself) but the HT has said why so I am happy with it.

(BTW - I was fine about her reading books before, was speaking to HT about something else entirely and she mentioned it, I did not go to the HT about DD's books ).

By definition all children are learning at the level that they're at (not necessarily the level that they're capable of, different issue) but they may not be learning at that level in school.

Yes L&S you saw what I posted not the complete document

But in fairness LandS your DD is in reception so is still learning through play.

Also still being assessed on EYFS not NC ones (probably) but that will change in yr1 (and so would her reading books I would imagine).

I have a child in my class who is, by any definition, gifted ...in sport. They also read very easy books. One of the issues around giftedness is that it often comes with 'spiky' profiles.

unless the teacher's/school's expectations are very different to those of L&S

One of the issues around giftedness is that it often comes with 'spiky' profiles.
which is why the same child can be on both the G&T and SEN register

DS has spent many years on both....

I don't know. But my point was if the school does have an [albeit sensible] G&T reading policy, then it's bound to be a useful tool in discussing books and getting ones which aren't a waste of a perfectly good tree. I'm not even sure that a G&T policy would be needed. I think mum should be able to go up to the teacher and ask for reading books which haven't been written so stupidly that they hardly make sense at all. I'm not sure the issue relates to my daughter. But if we're going to chop all these trees down we might as well write something sensible on the resulting paper. Under such an environmentally aware policy almost all of the non-fiction schoolbooks I've seen so far would be banned instantly.

I'm bemused by your posts L&S. If your child can read just read any books you want with her. DS1 reads his school reading book but also reads home ones, the labels on food packets, signs on bus stops, etc, etc.

Yes Biff & Kipper are not exactly exciting stories but they've certainly helped him grasp the basics while getting his interesting reading from other sources.

Why are you so obsessed with the G&T thing?

L&S, I know that the educational world does not awyas work exactly as you (as an individual) expect it to. It does not always mean that the educational world is wrong, and even where it is, your ire might be better directed at those who set policy rather than those who implement it - in the same way as there is nothing wrong with reading schemes in general, although your school's particular method of using them does on occasion seem odd to me. Although again that may be a difference between what you EXPECT them to do and what they - using their professional judgement - choose to do for the best education of your DD.

Because it's not the tool that's the problem, necessarily, but the way it's being used. There's nothing wrong with ropes and knives, generally, either. But they still inflict lots of damage.

I'm not particularly obsessed with G&T but I can see how used wisely it could be a routinely used method of dodging the endless sea of refuse contained within the scheme, a bit like stepping stones across an open sewer.

L&S, but as I say, most schools do not use reading schemes as your school seems to. DS read perhaps 4-5 books from each level of the scheme from L7 up to the end of the scheme and was then given carefully-guided access to the school's wider library of reading books from mid-Recepton. DD, though she progressed a little more slowly initially as she had not taught herself to read before starting school, equally chose a fairly small selection of books from each level whil being moved on rapidly whenever her teacher saw that she would benefit from it - alongside excellent guided reading sessions that really drilled down into what books were about. I only know of 1 school - and that is out of many of my direct or indirect experience that requires children to wade through all of a reading scheme UNLESS it is of benefit to the learning of particular child.

And of course both read many, many, many more books on a daily basis that simply the school books. They were perhaps 1 in 10 or fewer of the books that they actually read in those Reception / Y1 type years.

(I provided the additional books, courtesy of the book People and the libray and the school library etc etc - I certainly didn't see the school scheme as providing any particular definition of my child's reading)

I provide both my DC reading books (as DS hated the selection in his classroom).

I doubt that DD's teacher knows what DD reads as I don't tell her or write it in her reading record book.

Teacherwith2kids, that's what I mean re providing a rich and varied selection of books - that's our job as parents surely?

I personally always thought the G&T scheme was nonsense unless properly applied only to those who are genuinely gifted not just bright.

I probably only taught 2 genuinely gifted kids in my 6 yrs of teaching so far.