Gifted and talented in Y1 - hogwash surely?

[fatfloosie]

Had a letter to say DD has been identified as gifted and talented at writing as she is working a whole level above where she should be. Obviously I was thrilled but I did also think "really?"

She has now started a gifted and talented project and of course I immediately asked who else was doing it and it turns out almost all the children are Autumn born (and also white middle class in a very mixed council estate school).

Now really baffled by why the school is bothering with this. Is this something they are required to do? I would have thought that if your gifted and talented selection turns out to be just the oldest children from the most educated backgrounds then you'd have a rethink!

It doesn't mean your child is gifted.

It means they're in the top 10% of the cohort and school can prove to Ofsted they're challenging that group of kids.

As per Bucks. Schools have a duty to 'stretch' all children, including the top 10%.

And so they should. Though some schools seem to focus more on the top 10% than the middle 10%, sadly

DS1 was identified in Y1 as being G&T. He's now in Y3 - he's not a genius by any means, but he is still the brightest child in the class according to the teacher (sorry to stealth boast, but it is relevant to the thread). So I wouldn't say it's "hogwash" in his case (although I agree with you that some later developing kids could be missed in Y1 and identified later).

As previous posters have said, schools need to prove they are challenging the most able children. They can't all be spotted in Y1, but some can.

Yes 10% fits exactly with the numbers on the project so that makes sense. I love DD's school very much, as does she, but I have to say being in the top 10% there would probably put her in the middle at a lot of other schools!

being in the top 10% there would probably put her in the middle at a lot of other schools!

I don't think that's relevant here. The point is that your DD is one of the most able among her peers so they need to keep an eye on her to make sure she is being challenged and not just coasting along. It doesn't matter if she wouldn't be in the top 10% at a different school, because then the lessons would be pitched at a slightly higher level so this wouldn't be an issue.

Obviously 10% is a bit arbitrary though.

tumbletumble - there is one child on the project who is clearly very bright (not DD) so yes it is not hogwash in all cases. I do think it's a shame for the younger children and also potentially a problem for some of the older children currently in the 10% who might drop out of it once the age advantage wears off.

Were in a similar position, on a council estate. Im v aware from threads on here my dd wouldnt be out of thw ordinary in some schools.... I do sometimes wish she was more amongst her peers for that reason.

The fact that classes must be going at a slower pace as said above, and she stands out makes me sad. I don't want her to stand out and feel different, especially for something that would be normal elsewhere.

Our school regular has extra lessons for the top 10%. DD had it for maths, they do it for literacy as well.

While I think calling it G&T is a bit steep, one level up is certainly good but hardly genius I think. A friend's DD has a reading age of10 when she was 5, this is a different matter.

tumbletumble - that's a brilliant explanation! I think I might suggest the school rephrases the letter along those lines. Currently working above the level the lessons are pitched at (whether due to age, parental involvement or whatever) works much better than dishing out a gifted and talented label that might later be lost.

beatricebean - I have read stuff that says better to be top at a low-achieving school than middling at a high-achieving school so am holding on to that and trying not to think about how crushed the children from the secondary modern were when they joined my grammar for the sixth form

noramum - "a bit steep" - exactly!

Given the low achievement at DD's school I am now a bit concerned she isn't G&T for maths *buys workbooks

Yes, I agree with you that labelling it 'gifted & talented' can be misinterpreted and may give rise to false expectations. It sounds like you are being realistic about it though!

Not hogwash, I don't think. People confuse giftedness with Einstein like genius. I think that Ruf's levels of giftedness is helpful here (google it.) Higher than average intelligence to me seems to different than average or below intelligence in that it represents a spectrum of individuals. I suspect by identifying the top 10% the schools are identifying all those in the above average sector, ie everyone from Ruf's level 1 upwards. What needs to be understood is that even within that group the children will not all be the same. I think schools probably manage really quite well with those children at level 1 or 2 according to Ruf. I'm not sure about level 3 and level 4-5 are probably downright challenging. It is also helpful to understand why this might be "there are only 1 or 2 level 3 children in 100 in an average elementary school." How do you cater for this tiny population individually particularly?

I don't like the use of the word gifted in schools for 10%. The definition of a gifted or higher learning potential IQ is only for the top 2% so the top 10% being called gifted is extremely misleading. However, given that in a class of 30 the top 10% is only 3 children it is logical to think that there is a small group in each class who is normally working at above the required levels. In some classes it will be 8 children, in others 1 child but if they can identify the ones who appear to need a bit more than the lesson is aimed at then that can only be a good thing.

Not sure where I stand on this. DD1is Y1 and would probably be in the top 10% for some subjects, particularly reading. But she's also at a fairly low-performing school, so would be average or just above elsewhere.

On the one hand, I would not want her labelled as g&t when she clearly isn't, and I really don't want her to be aware that she's ahead of many of her classmates.

On the other hand, she really isn't being pushed at the moment and I do wish they would challenge her a bit more.

Ideally they should be providing appropriate challenges for all without needing to label children.

The trouble with giving 'G&T' kids 'extra projects' is that they are getting extra on top of normal teaching and so are bound almost by definition to get even better.
So in the OP's case, where the children appear to be in the top 10% purely by age and home-life, the school is giving already advantaged children an extra leg up.
It does not appear, from the opening post at least, that the extra project is just differentiated work within normal literacy teaching.

'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell has interesting things to say about this, especially wrt school sports teams initially being based on size/coordination (eg autumn born) getting extra coaching, so getting better, so eventually leading to a massive imbalance between birth months in adult teams.

It's to please Ofsted, they are obsessed with individual challenges for the children.

My DD was put on the G&T register in year 2, and I was very proud. She was offered extra lessons, but we quickly stopped that as it was too much for her. She is now in Year 4, and although she is at "the top table", her current school has never mentioned G&T for her. She is in a very high achieving class and they all work very hard, they are very competitive with each other. Part of me is a bit upset that they are not recognising her abilities more than they do, but if I really think about it, it's probably best that way, as she is the type of child that a teacher can really push and she easily gets really stressed and over worked.

I really like the idea of G&T in theory, but I think it's a lot of extra pressure on the teacher and the child. I never told my DD that she was on the G & T register.

I'm in Scotland and we don't have G&T labels. I don't see how it is helpful to label kids at one end of the spectrum or the other. My DS is, I suppose, G&T (sorry, again re not so stealth boasting) and his primary school identified his needs and dealt with them from primary 1 but it was never called G&T. We had the odd meeting with the teacher to ask us to support with various things at home but no labelling and no obvious differences in the school. It worked well in the early years. I think all kids need to be stretched and have the tools and resources to meet their potential not just the 10% at each end. For the truly gifted, there is not enough support IMO.

Incidentally, OP, in my Y5 dd's class the top 10% of the class are a very mixed bunch - definitely not all white or middleclass. In fact I suspect that the two who are (I think) brighter than my dd are the two least middleclass ones of the bunch (though I'm notoriously crap at defining according to social labels). And one of them is not white.

So not entirely a waste of time in some schools, at least

I know a child that wsa registered G&T at art and PE at Primary school. has anyone else ever heard of that?

Y,y,yes. My youngest was G & T for art in Reception. It was never mentioned again

All sounds like yet another tick-boxing exercise to me. There are a lot of them these days.....

There's no need to tell pupils or parents that the children are on any kind of list. DD is on several G&T lists and nobody has told her at any time (I know but I don't feel it's helpful information for her at the age of seven and the school has a policy of not telling children). I would like a bit more differentiation but as DD is progressing I think the school thinks it isn't that important. The top 10% in her class includes two children who are not white and one child with EAL.

DS has been G&T all the way through primary (hes year 5 now) it doesn't really mean much but they have had a chance to work on some interesting projects, like DS goes to the local grammar once a fortnight to do Science experiments which he loves, so I think its a brilliant thing... although I wonder if I'd feel different if DS was one of the children not getting to be a part of these projects.

Gift = academic stuff
Talent= arts, sports etc.

DD went on the G&T register courtesy of her peri. piano teacher thinking she had potential within a year of her starting lessons. Between DD's character and some fairly typical summer-born effects she thought she was rubbish at everything so it was an extremely helpful first step in correcting her little 'disadvantage'.

School ticked a box and then did nothing as a consequence, but it's one of those more progressive schools who have mainlined the anti-reification (anti-labelling) meme lest it causes a 'fixed-mindset' instead of a 'growth mindset'. I hate education when it engages in this kind of dim-witted polarisation i.e. X is either absolutely bad or absolutely good, when it's inevitably more subtle, much more complicated than that.

I love how OP makes the automatic presumption that the white middle class children selected are from the "most educated background".

How can you possibly know this...did you audit the parents' prior educational attainment?!

Hopefully your school is not guilty of the same stereotyping. If it is, it is ridiculously out of step.