Does my dd really need me to find her some peers?

[NoParking]

My dd is in Y2 at a good state primary. She has, since early YR, been in a reading group on her own as there aren't any other children working at that level. The school doesn't believe in children working with different years. For maths, she's on the top table but appears to find it all easy, though she tells me that another girl is better than her at maths, so at least there she seems to have a peer.

She has never made a best friend and in fact often chooses to read rather than play at break times, despite a lot of support from the school to find and make friends.

I've recently had a few different people suggest that it's bad for her to not have any peers who challenge her at school and always to be the quickest / cleverest (we've talked a lot about how she's good at academic stuff, others are faster runners or better at swimming etc). Others have said that perhaps she would find it easier to make friends with other children who are also academic.

I love her school and have no intention of changing it, but is there anything that I could do (or ask the school to do) to help her, both in terms of finding peers who are quicker than her and also in terms of friendships?

I could have written this post almost exactly at the same stage of school (DD is a year older). And I think your instinct is right, that she does need peers (and there is research to show that this is beneficial). It's not that children select by IQ, but their interests and so on can be so different that it is hard to find enough common ground. And our experience is exactly the same, that school is hard but she finds friendships very easy out of school.

Having said all of that, I don't have any quick solutions. I think what Quint says is true, and these things do tend to get better at secondary. We've also tried the finding peers outside, and it does help a bit, but school is still a bit tricky.

I also think that the social isolation of the way she is working doesn't help. DD was sent up to work with year 3 in the mornings in year 2, which weakened her friendships and made her feel that she was neither fish nor fowl.

And I do think that being among people of similar abilities does make a difference, and that blaming children for their lack of social skills is not good for self confidence. I was an oddball for a whole heap of reasons throughout school, then went to Cambridge, where suddenly I was the life and soul of the party and highly social, because I no longer felt like a freak who had to monitor what I said the whole time.

www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/SSG01/SSG01.pdf

NoParking - both my dss had the same problems in the early years at school. It got easier in KS2, especially year 4 onwards. Basically, I think they had matured, emotionally and socially, and their peers had also matured and increased their own concentration spans, making them considerably less unpredictable and frustrating! Interestingly, ds2's favourite friend is the least able child in the class: what this boy does have, however, is a very active imagination, and he will happily play imaginative games and chasing games, where other boys are a bit more mainstream in their interests (eg football). Ds1's group of friends are a funny mix. It is quite clear with them, also, that similar intellects are not the attraction! In fact, ds1's friendships are quite bizarre! However, they clearly all like and support each other, despite not appearing to have much in common (in fact, his two closest friends didn't like each other for quite some time and used to compete for his attention!...). They do make an eccentric bunch! They are very happy at school, now, though, and always have people to play with at break times and are well liked generally by their class mates. So, I guess, my experience is that it is horrible seeing your child isolate themselves and choose to read over play at primary school, but actually, with encouragement and time, they do seem to overcome their reticence. I suspect friendship dynamics will change again at secondary school, but at primary, I don't think academic interests are particularly high on children's friendship agendas - they can share their academic interests with interested adults if they want to.