Genius child

[snowolf64]

I have been possibly lucky to have born as my son a HPL child (high potential learning ) at not even 2 and a half he can read and spell many 9 letter words name all the planets in order and just so much more, when you got a child and sits there and spells rectangle and hexagon and stuff like that it;s just weird. so how do i get him a sponsor to get him to private school because sending him anywhere else feels a bit like getting your hands on Einstein and sending him to work in Mc Donalds... help rich people

Ok to the people calling this a begging letter, it's not...
maybe because I am very new to this gifted child thing and perhaps a bit overwhelmed by my own son, perhaps growing up in a very working class area in east London we did not see much giftedness, and really every other child can speak 7 languages backwards whilst juggling and riding a unicycle.
I was on this site asking if there is some sort of sponsorship out there for gifted children... because there should be! it should not be somethings that is available for an elite rich few.. and gifted people should be invested in because they maybe the future. and they do not deserve to be held back by petty minded people demeaning everything into their little materialistic world of thinking just someone looking for a hand out...
Perhaps if I am guild of anything it's being a naive idealist....

all warps of life priceless!

If there were schemes for gifted children it would be saying schools just aren't good enough.

In some cases that's true. However lots of schools are very good. My dds primary and secondary are fantastic with dd.

The problem with the 11+ or whatever it is called now, is that it often comes down to whether the parents can afford a tutor. Not whether the child is above average. It would be incredibly easy for parents to push their toddlers for them to appear gifted. Then turn out to be average when they get to school. Which in your thinking would remove funding and the child would have to change schools.

Besides which your child may or may not be gifted and it's very difficult to tell at this early stage.

The fact is that you haven't looked into schools in your area. If you are in the UK do not leave it until the child is 4 or 5. The applications had to be in before my child was turned 4.

If you are considering a school nursery with the 15 hours your child will start the term after they turn 3. So you need to have a good idea quite soon.

Make appointments, view reports and ask questions.

Personally at this early stage I think liking the school and staff is important. Ds' nursery and reception staff are fantastic. He has just started reception and he has come on leaps and bounds in reading, writing, sounds, numbers.

He loves school and loves the teachers and so tries hard. In September he couldn't read. He wasn't interested, at all. Now he can work out 4 letter words and sound things out. We are shocked by how well he is doing. It's all because he loves being at school. He is actually interested and excited by learning. Which makes teaching him things so much easier.

Private school may not be the answer to making your child tech his potential.

If you do get a grant, what about paying for extra uniform, trips etc?

From what I hear private school is very expensive even after the fees are paid.

There used to be the sort of 'sponsorship' the OP is looking for. It was called the Assisted Places Scheme, and did great things for bright children from poor backgrounds - I know two of them.

The first thing Tony Blair did when elected was abolish it. Because, of course, he was going to make all state schools so good, etc etc... Pity he had to spend the money on bombs instead.

A health visitor isn't qualified to say whether a child is autistic or not and as ASD has such a broad spectrum of "Symptoms" so even someone with a huge experience of working with SEN is unlikely to be able to rule in or out the possibility.

OP you are understandably proud of your child but are setting yourself up for disappointment based on the information you have posted.

OP my HV told me my son was definitely not autistic, the last time was six weeks before he got an autism diagnosis from a multi disciplinary team. The GP told me he was exceptionally bright whilst refusing to refer him to the paediatrician who on eventually seeing him read the newspaper at two said "So your GP thinks this is normal? How bad does it have to be before they refer on?" I would not be reassured by your HV.
Likewise dd has an autism diagnosis, her teachers know she has an autism diagnosis because she has a statement of SEN in spite of being very academically able. They miss autism behaviours and difficulties every single day because their knowledge of autism is scant and generally picked up in half a day's training that covers every SEN they are likely to come across.
Besides my two with autism I have a son who is very gifted probably because of genetics and a possibly dodgy chromosome 15 (he's just breezed through his Masters) his abilities didn't seem as exceptional as my ASD son as a toddler tbh however within days of him starting at school nursery his teacher asked if they could bring in the ed psych as his abilities were so far outside of what they had seen before. The state mainstream school catered for him exceptionally well alongside his peers, he was never bored, he explored his interests and pushed his knowledge on supported by his teachers they even brought in a maths teacher from secondary to teach him when they had exhausted their own resources. I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss a state school particularly when it sounds like you won't have any choice anyway.
Of course my autistic son attended an independent specialist school funded by the LA who were far better placed to pay the £50k pa fees than we were.

then why not for the next as astrophysicist or biochemist, really whats so absurd about that notion?

Actually they do. But usually when people are older. My friend had his uni fees paid by one of the big oil companies as long as he agreed to work for them for a certain amount of years.

He did applied to work with them over a summer at a recruitment session. They liked him, recognised he had a genius IQ. Snapped him up. He is still with them at nearly 40.

They don't go looking for talented toddlers

Perhaps if I am guild of anything it's being a naive idealist

And extremely rude.

PMing nasty messages as you knew no matter what you say it would be against guidelines.

Sorry by uni fees I mean living costs, extra costs trips and extra courses that needed to be done.

I don't think uni fees were in place when he started uni, they came in a. Few years later

growing up in a very working class area in east London we did not see much giftedness

OP, I don't think it's just giftedness that you're naïve about.

"I have been told that private schools have the ability to move a child into higher classes of there year group"

Speaking as someone who actually did this - summer baby, but was put into the year above because academically I was doing very well, I would not recommend it - socially I was completely out of my depth.

Incidentally - this was in a state school in a very poor part of the UK

Ds who was generally 5 years ahead of his peers in Maths and was around 3 years ahead everywhere else stayed with his peers and his teachers provided opportunities to extend his learning. Neither he nor I would have wanted him moved out of his peer group, his friendships were very important to him and it really wasn't necessary. He used to do Maths with y2 in reception and y6 when he was in y3 and after that he had weekly lessons with a teacher from the secondary school. His primary did offer to explore the option of him attending some lessons in secondary but I didn't want that because socially he was his chronological age. As it was it took a matter of weeks in Secondary before he got the nickname "Dexter boy genius" after winning a whole school maths competition and so beating A2 students at only 11.

insan1tyscartching - that is a far more sensible approach. Good luck to your boy!

This is a very odd OP. Your child may or may not be exceptional, but if you want him to go to a private school when he's older then you will need to fund it, and apply to the school for a bursary or scholarship.

McDonalds is not the only outcome of a state education for a bright pupil...

I think this is a wind up!

I'm sorry I assumed you are foreign.
But I am really confused now, that if you are completely capable of understanding English, why you sent horrible PM to posters who were genuinely trying to help???

Iken my experience with ds has been that he was so bright that he would learn wherever he was provided he had the opportunity. The teaching wasn't actually all that important tbh because if something sparked his interest then he'd push himself for his own interest. His teachers were very good at sparking his interest and providing the resources for him to extend his knowledge and it worked very well. He taught himself all manner of things and still does (post Masters) for his own amusement because he has a thirst for knowledge.

Be careful of hot housing.

With a child that is very bright, sometimes the social and emotional development is overlooked because they sound mature.

However, neglected development in these areas will lead to delays later academically.

You want them to meet full potential,. This includes being socially well adjusted otherwise all that brightness will go to waste.

A health visitor did an assessment on your ds and said he is 100% not autistic? Wow, I didn't know they were qualified, if I knew that I would have taken dd to the HV instead of the many professionals who have taken the best part of a year to rule autism out.

My advice would be to look for a good state school and then give your child opportunities with libraries/visiting places and showing them things.

I second what Iken says - the subject I did my degree in - I spent a considerable amount of time researching on my own when I was in the junior school.

Just because a school is fee paying does not mean it is the best

Sorry should have said I second what san1tyscartching says (not myself!)

I could read as a toddler, joined Mensa when I was 12, went to private school for A levels and on to a Russell group uni. I am now a waitress

Ds1 could read aged 2 and has ASD traits. His primary (state) is brilliant, they give him work to go level. He is classed as g&t (or whatever it's called nowadays) in English and is also advanced with maths and science.
So I have experience of being 'hot housed' and doing everything an intelligent child should as well as experience of a gifted child.
If you can't afford private school (which actually don't deal well with SEN which most truly gifted children have some degree of (not all autistic children are rainman unable to function etc) then you need to research all your local school and find a school that is the best fit for your child.

If you're child is truly gifted then your best bet is to wait until secondary school where you are more likely to get a scholarship as by then there will be a very good indication of whether your child is a "child genius". It is asking a hell of a lot to ask someone to invest in a not-even-3 year old when you have absolutely no idea how they're going to turn out, what their work ethic is like etc.

As others have said - if your child is gifted, by the time they reach secondary school age, it will be absolutely blatant...regardless of what setting he has been in!

I've lost count of the number of 'genius' children that arrive at school and end up on the same level of their peers very quickly. Just because a parent does a lot of work with a child before school, it doesn't mean anything in the long run. DS is already starting to read, can do basic maths and it's only because I've taught it to him. He may well be ahead of his peers when he goes to school in a years time, but it will likely all level out in the end.

I was a child that started school a year early and ended up being moved up a year as well. As a result, I graduated high school at just 15, and it was really tough when all my peers were 18 and at a very different social level of development. Even if DS did prove to be highly gifted, I would never allow him to be moved out of his age grouping, and in fact, despite his apparent academic knowledge, socially he is very young and will be one of the youngest in his grade, so I'm considering holding him back. I can extend him myself academically, but the social side of development should never be underestimated.