School won't keep our place - what to do?

[VitAL]

Hi all,
I'm really stuck with a difficult dilemma and would appreciate any thoughts. DC is currently at a very academic pre-prep, we chose it precisely for their leavers' destinations, they send a lot of children to three top selective indies high on our list and some pupils to a couple more selective schools. DC is happy there, but I want to give 4+ a go. I feel I would really regret if I don't, would be thinking all the time about opportunities lost and it's a bit easier to get in at 4+ than 7+. I wouldn't say DC is exceptionally academic at 3.5 but strong-willed (sometimes to the extent of being bossy with even older children), emotionally mature and disciplined/co-operative so I think could do quite well at 4+.

The problem is our school won't keep our place for Reception if they find out we're sitting 4+ and I think they easily can as it has very good links with most of the schools on our list. I have actually sent applications to two schools before I knew about our school's policy (it's not an official policy AFAIK but people talk). I've no idea if they actually ask for references and reports at 4+. I'm still thinking about applying to at least three more schools. I guess (I'm not 100% sure) I could leave the current school's details blank on application forms but I feel bad about it TBH.

If we get kicked out of the current school we might end up with no place at all. We might possibly get a last minute place at a non-selective non-academic indie, but that would mean extra money on tuition for 7+ with less chances and much more uncertainty as we plan to buy a house close to the school if DC gets in at 4+, if not that would be another 3-4 years in limbo.

I'm at a loss what to do and so stressed about the whole situation that I lost sleep. Should I abandon the whole idea and wait until 7+?Please help, I really need to make up my mind.

Can someone please tell me what the actual benefits are off being "further ahead" at this age?
I understand plenty of countries don't teach their children to read and write etc until they're 6 or 7, the US being 1, and other European countries. It clearly doesn't have any significant ling term impact on them.
One of our au pairs hadn't learnt to read till she was 7 (Eastern Europe) . At 18 she left her country having never been out of it, came to England with virtually no English, lived with a weird eccentric family, she adapted to our odd ways, quickly read situations, worked really hard, and travelled all round London day and night with just an A-Z, a tube map and a bus timetable (this was a long time ago), she met lots of people, and by the end of 12 weeks her English was amazing. She gone onto a successful career and a happy marriage clearly not reading till 7 hadn't done her any harm at all.

Presumably the thinking is the further ahead the more you can move onto, if that makes sense?

So your child reads at 4, everyone else reads at 5, he can spend the 5th year progressing to a 6 year old attainment. Ultimately this means they can achieve "more" education in their 13 years of schooling (advanced maths say) and in a school where this is supported they will learn more, in more detail.

"Our nursery at least have split that into more specific outcomes-which I imagine is very common. " so your nursery is failing to use the statutory National system?

How are they failing to use the statutory national system

"Can someone please tell me what the actual benefits are off being "further ahead" at this age?" Research has shown there are no benefits being ahead in academic subjects which is why the prime areas of learning are Personal, social and emotional development (recognised as the best indicator of future success) physical development and communication and language development

"Ultimately this means they can achieve "more" education in their 13 years of schooling (advanced maths say) and in a school where this is supported they will learn more, in more detail."
I"m sorry I just don't buy into this. As I said DS2 never went to nursery and didn't go to school till yr 1. DS2 learnt to read in yr 2 because his previous school didn't teach reading till yr 2 he's learnt to read in a term and he's an amazing reader. I understand research shows that by 13 most are where they would be regardless of when they started. Even if schools do teach in more detail (which I doubt most do) what is the point of being ahead when you leave school? You then go off to uni and find that you redoing what you've already done, and become bored, I hear this a lot from DS2's friends at uni because they've done Pre U's and they're harder and very similar to the first year at uni their redoing what they done in school. What's the point?
Or this enables you do advanced math. So? My DS1 can do very advanced math he has gone into significantly more detail than your average 18 year old but where is it getting him?
This obsession we have in our eduction with measurable outcomes, test/exam results, X is two years ahead of the average, what about teaching a 3.5 year old unmeasurable outcomes the OP describes her DC as "strong will and bossy" maybe forget reading and concentrate on social skills, or how about learning to identify hedgerow plant of which this morning our hedgerows are full, or birds by their songs/flight pattern, yesterday my friends thought she could hear a skylark in the fields where we walk the dogs and this morning the swallows have arrived back from Africa and are flying along our river its so wonderful to see them the beginning of summer or learn to look at and start to appreciate art or classical music, opera country and western for all I care, not to be tested on it but because its there.

Well I didn't intend for you to need to buy into it, you asked the question 😂

We live in an amazing world the swallows on our river have flown all the way from Africa they come back to the same river every year, they're flying so fast dipping and diving after insects.
How can something so small come so far? How does it know where to go? I can't even find my way around our nearest city without Sat nav. They are for me a definite sign that the winter is over, spring is here, the days are getting longer, more daylight. You can't help but feel better.
Rather than sitting 3-4 yr old children behind desks teaching them to read so that they will be 18 months ahead of the child in the next school fill their brains with all the wonders around them, encourage their imaginations, promote wonder in our amazing world (maybe we'll care about it more if we do) 3-5 is the perfect age to do this. They will "catch up" learn to read quickly at 6-7.

Instasista is there any actual evidence that teaching what I shall for easiness call the 3Rs early and getting a child "further ahead"is better?
I suspect it suits parents and schools if they can say yr 1 is 1 year ahead, or Freddie's 5 but has the reading age of a 7 year old. Other parents and teachers were shocked when they discovered my DS2 couldnt read/write when he started school on yr 1. What's he been doing? Is there something wrong with him? I used to be tempted to say I'd been stuffing him up chimneys for the last 3 years. One friend send me a box of flash cards when he should have been in reception "just so he didn't get behind,"
When he moved to his prep school half way through yr 2 I never told them he started school late he was at the same as all the other children, he'd been at a pretty rubbish primary and had received no special help with reading etc.

That's probably what they're learning about at school. They're not going to be able to participate in the kind of nature watching you're describing in north London are they?

TBH you seem very set that your way of learning is best - not so different from the OP?

I don't know the answer to that happygardening. If you really want to know you could do a quick google. I'm not here to defend the OPs lifestyle with research acceptable to you

He nearly a grown up now and is non-verbal, severely disabled and requires 24 hour care.
That's what you get for assortative mating, Devilishpyjamas.
This is more or less our situation, three of us are on the spectrum though none requires care, but motor praxis and speech severely affected in some of us. Funny how I can obviously get all hell break loose online being hardly verbal in real life, don't you think?

DC2 is NT so will inevitably follow a very different path.

Having a severely disabled child is another great way of gaining perspective.
Jumping to conclusions about people you don't know at all and assuming they don't have a similar experience can make one looks sooo holier-than-thou it's ridiculous for an Oxbridge graduate, Devilishpyjamas :)

LOL I'm absolutely enjoying this thread now, the way people totally ignore what I repeat many times, don't bother to read at all and just pouring and pouring their own projections, fears, ignorance and banal reverse snobbery endlessly
Gosh, it's so amusing. I didn't know I was in for so much fun starting a topic about a mere technicality on the application forms :)

But guilty pleasures come at a cost.

Maybe I am set in my ways about learning, I do accept we're all different and want and expect different things from education ? I work with children many with significant MH problems, in fairness often primarily caused by other factors but many do talk about pressures at school (in both sectors) that they've experienced from a early age. Many seem tired of school and learning there's no joy in it. Subjects which should be or such relevance to them and answer many questions they have just seem to bore them.
So I can't help but wonder if our education system with often an obsession with getting ahead is the right way.
With regard to nature watching in north London I used to work around Hampstead Heath, described as one of "Londons best places to see wildlife" I was brought up near Kew/Richmond Park again full of wildlife and my children started their lives out in SE London again many places like Nunhead cementry are full of wildlife. I don't think swallows insist on spending their summer enjoying the rural idyll.

@Pallisers
But if you are predicting your 3 year old child's journey in education based on a comparison with his/her clearly highly gifted older sibling's performance at that age then you are failing your child. you need to look clearly at this particular child and not have the point of comparison of the older sibling in your head.
I don't see how comparing my children is failing them. They are very different people and I'm looking at what's best for each of them, and it's very different things.

Presumably you know that there are areas of giftedness or aptitude that might not be apparent at age 3?
It's obvious. I just don't re-use typical middle class mantra 'my child is bright blah-blah-blah'. And being a neuroscientist with clinical experience I know a thing or two about brain development over the whole life time, including childhood :)

And being disabled (or twice exceptional as they sometimes label us for PC or a touch of glamour) I know about struggle.

Some people lead such exhausting lives. We send our lot to the local comp, then our very good selective state sixth form. They go to redbrick unis. They get decent jobs. With the exception of one (who is a charming bonkers creative) they are very chilled and level headed. All have lots of friends and good relationships.

I'm not sure it needs to be so difficult and fraught.

I know a lot of people in London who have refused to engage with this silliness and said it is unnecessary.

Hahaha I know a lot of such people too, Devilishpyjamas The parents at our comp who were not in absolute agreement with the bullies who drove HT out just tutored their children like hell. At the same time taking high moral ground and bragging about how good their school is and how they would never go private for they have better values.
Obnoxious hypocrisy, and widespread as far as I can tell.

"banal reverse snobbery"

It isn't this, in general. It is about having different values in life, believing that different things are important.

Yes, I believe that adequate academic outcomes are useful in opening initial doors in later life, as although some people do succeed without formal academic qualifications, it does make things harder.

However, I do not believe that marginal academic gains at very young ages - of the sort made by pushing children through academic selection, or obsessing about the 'absolutely best schools' - are necessary, or sufficient, for eventual academic success or long term outcomes.

I do believe that some by-products of marginal academic gains are actively harmful, in terms of labelling children, causing additional stress and shutting down 'wider aspects' of social and extra-curricular education.

assuming that ability at 3 = ability for life = success in career I never said anything like this, please don't put your words into my mouth, cantkeepawayforever

VitAl, I know no-one in my DC's comp who is tutored. Their results are extremely good.

Again, experience in a single school do not imply a set of values that are common across a whole sector, so neither your experience of widespread tutoring nor my experience of a total lack of tutoring may be accurate.

I find it very upsetting, that OP ignores all the comment from so many well meaning posters with cynical comments.
If you are 2e, you must realise your view maybe skewed.
I have a possibly 2e(not diagnosed) ds, and what I want to do for him is to make his life as easy as possible. Yes, he has a gift in certain subject, but I try hard to make him more rounded. I don't want him to grow up to be a socially awkward person.

*posters,

cynical = OP, I mean.

This has turned into an interesting thread!

FWIW, my DC (year 6) is near the top of the top set for maths. The teacher, very sensibly, teaches the pupils according to what they can cope with, rather than strictly adhering to the curriculum. It's meant that they are all flying well above the national average as, by chance, they all seem to be fast learners with a natural aptitude for the subject. So accelerated learning can and does work, in some situations.

What does being ahead achieve? Interesting.
What does being exceptionally bright matter/help/difference either.

I'm quite interested. Do you really think it makes that much difference?