Very bright child "bored" at school

[2ndSopranosRule]

I know this will be seen as one massive stealth boast so apologies in advance!

Dd1 is nearing the end of Y3 and has had a miserable year. She's been bullied which is one thing, but she's desperately unhappy with the 'work' side of things because she says she's bored.

She's more or less top of the class across the board and way ahead of her peers in some areas. Gifted (or whatever it's called now!) in a couple. She does music as an extra curricular activity and it's becoming apparent she has real talent on one instrument. Dd will practice rather than play/go on the laptop.

Her Y2 teacher was very good at differentiation and dd flourished as a result. The Y3 teacher less so. In fact one of the things put in place to resolve the bullying was to move dd onto a lower ability table so she'd be wirh friends rather than the bully.

I am starting to become concerned that dd may become so sufficiently bored at school she'll switch off. What can I do to help as she gets into y4? My ideal would be to move her to private but we can't afford that.

[user789653241]

I think they should be differentiating in the first place... but if lack of that resulting children doing something extra(not completely unrelated), they should be encouraging!
I am glad that at least my ds's school don't mind him doodling everywhere.

[BarbarianMum]

Our school said this earlier this year but have backtracked now and are running some extra classes for the maths high fliers. Tbh though it has always been a struggle to get them to support extension work in maths. In other subjects though it shouldn't be a problem as gifted children can always extend themselves - extended writing, more in depth research, project work.

I have to admit the new curriculum hasn't helped.

[mrz]

There is nothing in the new curriculum to prevent schools teaching from the next year group or next key stage if appropriate.

[user789653241]

Mrz, it maybe true at your school, but my ds's school, and from other posters, a lot of schools are using it as a excuse(?) for not teaching beyond their year group.
My ds's teacher set certain target for my ds in maths, and I said to her he can already do that. But her response was, " We haven't cover that yet. " And she was very clear that they can't go beyond the NC for that year group.

[mrz]

It's true for every state maintained school. They can't use the new curriculum as an excuse because it doesn't prevent them teaching from the year above or across key stages.

[mrz]

Statutory requirement from the National Curriculum

[bojorojo]

There may also be a problem in some schools that the teachers do not feel competent to teach above the curriculum in Y6. They are not secondary trained and with the new curriculum, some teachers feel they are under-skilled.

However, below Y6, I cannot see why they cannot teach the curriculum above that year group if it is absolutely necessary. There are few instances where that may be necessary (for gifted students likely to read Maths at Cambridge for example). Although, where I am a governor, I feel we have very competent maths teaching in Y6 but we have no child that is doing above the very hardest work that can be set and although some are "exceeding" their needs are being met. Even the highflying ones going to grammar school. We are confident every child is being extended and taught appropriately. If the teachers cannot teach "exceeding" and broaden out the curriculum, they need further training and it is not an excuse to say they cannot teach beyond the curriculum. They are expected to.

[jamdonut]

I never quite understood why people complain that their children are bored at school when they have actively pushed them ahead at home or with a tutor, and then expect school to come up with stuff to suit them?
If school hasn't covered something yet, are you sure you have shown them the way the school teaches it? It seems like some people want their children to be ahead of 'the game' all the time. Why ? My kids were all under the gifted and talented umbrella, but I never did more than school was doing....complimented it, yes, but not push them further than necessary.No need.

[user789653241]

I think for some children, they don't need push from parents to move ahead. I don't teach my ds, but I don't stop him learning new things by himself. And he isn't bored at school. I am not even complaining about school anymore. Last year, they were all for him getting lv4 at end ks1, this year they want him to learn same thing as the rest of class. It's just too inconsistent, and hugely depend on teacher's ability or willingness.

[mrz]

blogs.hertsforlearning.co.uk/2016/05/28/the-cpa-approach/

[user789653241]

jamdonut, maybe your gifted children are the lucky ones, rounded and normal. Some gifted children have very skewed interests. I am trying to work on my ds's weaker skills, but I just don't want to stop him pursuing his passion.(= maths for him at the moment.) Does that make me a horribly pushy parent? I'd rather had children like yours, but we can't choose, can't we? And I never wanted my ds to "be ahead of 'the game' all the time."

[Cleo1303]

I would check out your local prep schools and see if any of them are offering bursaries for very bright children. That will depend on where you live of course, but you may find a school which does this.

[insan1tyscartching]

Have to say I agree pretty much with Lljkk ds2 was/is very gifted (completed his masters with hardly any effort,(just like he has every exam he's ever sat) whilst working full time,with a second part time job(for fun), tutoring and a full social life as well) He was always about five years ahead at Primary and Secondary and I daresay he was bored a lot of the time although school did allow him to follow his nose but he was well liked by his peers had a huge group of friends and threw himself into sports teams,chess club,drama productions essentially whatever was on offer he was part of. He has really fond memories of school and never speaks of the lessons all of his memories are of his friends and the extras.

[bojorojo]

The prep schools with generous bursaries around me expect the children to go to prestigious senior schools and get academic scholarships. Preps are not always rich and the next phase is important to them. Not sure they would give a huge bursary if a child was only destined for the local comp, although broadening access is important. Worth a try though.

[user789653241]

destined for the local comp......

[catkind]

I never quite understood why people complain that their children are bored at school when they have actively pushed them ahead at home or with a tutor, and then expect school to come up with stuff to suit them?

It usually happens the other way round. School don't come up with stuff to suit them, until eventually parents give up and provide it at home instead.

[Ratty667]

A young gifted mathametician will be driven to stretch themselves, it's not necessarily a parent pushing.
My son demands to know things, he's desperate to be challenged and I just end up showing him the next stage or bits of maths that help him slot it all into place iykwim

Times tables for instance lead to division, simple fractions, to adding fractions, basic time to 24 hour clock. Before you know it your giving your year one, year three curriculum. ( I hadn't planned to do that but he just gets it easily)

It's much easier if you have a gifted reader or writer, people don't think your hot housing your child.

[CodyKing]

My DD is the same - had a great teacher who knew she would finish an hours work in 10 minutes - so had extra prepared

Teacher left - is now bored doing x10 x100 X 1000 in year 6 for the last 2 weeks

[user789653241]

Thing is, some school used to call top 10%/5% children gifted. It really depended on cohort.
If you have truly gifted child( 1/100, 1/1000, 0r 1/10000, etc, I don't know), it's just unknown what they are capable of, and if the parents are normal, we just have to follow the children's lead. It may look like parents pushing, but that may not be true.

[Cleo1303]

A good prep school usually streams children for Maths and English and the top sets and possibly middle sets will be doing Maths in Year 4 that state school children learn in Year 6.

DD was given the 2015 SATS paper in the June after she had passed the 11+ in January and got 91% for Maths. Others got 100%. She is not very good at Maths, but she said the papers covered what she had been taught in Year 4

[Cleo1303]

Also, my friend's DS showed me his state primary Maths papers and they were all multiple choice answers. Why do they do that? Why don't they just work the sum out and write down the answer?

[mrz]

They don't

[Traalaa]

If your child is bored/ way ahead in a state primary, then they'll more than likely find the same in a private school too. Unless they're extraordinary, there will be other kids working at the same level in their class. So OP I wonder if you should try and find out if your child really is the only one at her level? Sounds like that's not the case across the board, and remember too that kids tend to zoom ahead then plateau, so she might find others catch her up in the subjects she is far ahead on. How are the other academic kids finding things? Do their parents worry too? If yes, then maybe between you all you could go to the school and talk to them about how the lessons are handled/ different abilities stretched. If there's a few of you, then the school are more likely to listen and alter accordingly. If it's just your DD, then it might be that she's saying she's 'bored' because she's unhappy with the social atmosphere. Bullying's horrid and that's sad if it's not being handled properly; the school should tackle that as a major priority. Lots of kids do say 'I'm bored', as they know it's something tangible to say, but often it's not about that. I'm not saying it's not in your DD's case, but it's worth a thought!

Cleo, mrz's right, maths is v.much all about working out from my experience. Sometimes teachers use multi choice papers, but if you think about it, kids have to work out the answers before they can tick the right answer. Top table of my son's state primary all took L6 maths in Yr6 and the kids were streamed from yr4. They definitely weren't at all bored. I don't think you can generalise on state/ private like that, but then again we've had this debate before..! :)

[Cleo1303]

Traalaa, I wasn't generalising. I was asking a serious question. If they have to work out the answer, why not just write down the answer? Why do they need to choose a box to tick?

I have truly never met a prep school child who has said they were bored at school. DD thinks Maths is a "boring" subject. She doesn't do as well as she should because she switches off and makes bl**dy stupid mistakes, but she can rise to the occasion if she wants to and she knows it's important.

In eight years she has never come home from school and said school was boring.

[sirfredfredgeorge]

DD often says school is boring - she's in reception, what she means if you actually question her deeper is she doesn't find some of the group work interesting - phonics stuff / maths - and doesn't like being called aside to do something in the small groups (writing out an invite to their ball or whatever the excuse the teacher was making to see how they were getting on with writing)

The group phonics stuff, is because she is ahead of where the group is at (they split into just two groups for the phonics now, with just the 6 or so who need a lot of extra help in the smaller group) and the maths is mostly the sort of simple addition / half / double of numbers less than 20 that seems to be the EYFS curriculum.

However outside of this "boring", she's obviously interested, engaged and helped by the teachers/TA to learn all sorts, I was surprised to see above that column addition was a sign of being advanced in Yr1 as DD's teacher has taught it to her as a 4 year old (as "Teacher E's method" but obviously quite capable of adding any two numbers) and she can multiply lots of numbers - doesn't know any tables, but knows how to work it out, doesn't really know the idea of times tables.

I think often people push their kids towards the purely technical/memory skills, as it's easy and more obvious - going from decoding CAT to APOCALYPSE is easy to see progress - which can be as much an aim for lots of kids I'm sure. But isn't actually helpful if they don't know what an apocalypse is. Same with maths, you can learn the technical aspects but without the deeper understanding.

Lots of "advanced" is really just "early acquisition of technical skills" - of course the fact the kids did acquire the skills early and easily suggests they are advanced, but it's also possible they were just average and hot-housed into that skill.