Opinions wanted. Infant primary or primary junior for educationally advanced kid?

[Athena404]

There is a lovely little school near me I'm thinking of sending my child to. Trouble is it's just an infant primary (ie only until year 2). I'm not sure if this will cause an issue as recently his Paediatrician assessed him as being 2 years educationally advanced from his corrected age which would mean 3 school years. There is a primary junior close but it definitely doesn't seem as good or nice. But I don't know if that would be better for him. Has anyone gone through this before? What would you suggest?

My ds's nursery was in touch with primary school and getting books/advice from them before starting school. It was very helpful, imo.
Reception teacher was aware of his ability before he started, and we had meeting prior to start with class teacher and HT.

OP, so your DC is 3 at the moment and has been assessed as meeting the expectations of a 6yo?

In writing (for example) that would mean he can do all of the following (Y1 expectations):

Spell words containing each of the 40+ phonemes
Spell common exception words
Spell the days of the week
Distinguish between alternative spelling of the same sound
Add -s or -es for plurals (in writing)
Use prefix un- and suffixes -ing -ed -er -est (in writing)
Write from memory sentences dictated by a teacher

If he can genuinely do all that independently at 3 he really is exceptional. How did he come by those skills? Does he also meet all the Y1 criteria for reading and maths? Has he also learned all of the KS1 curriculum for foundation subjects (Science, Music etc)?

In answer to your question I think he will be fine at the Infants. Where do children go after that? Is there a stand alone Junior or do they have to join a Primary? That might be a factor to consider if you don't want to set yourself up for a scrap for a Y3 place.

I would go for the through primary. They will have more resources easily available. Anything that makes it easier for a teacher is good - you don't know if you will get a teacher who's brilliant at it or not. Even if they never get to work with a older kids directly, little things like DD got given the year 4 spelling list, if she was at an infant school she'd presumably have got the year 2 list. Things like there will be a wider range of books in a the library for example. And if you do manage to get any extra support in place it will last all the way through and you won't have to start all over again from "oh yes we assess them all in the first few weeks" at Y3.

I think @athena that you are a little mistaken.

"Like-minded children" tend to be those with the same interests-and at that age tend to be dinosaurs/paw patrol not the theory of relativity. No child I know has ever checked a friends IQ before deciding whether to play with them or not.

Am really sorry but at the moment your child may be a little advanced but not amazingly so (check above for writing). He is certainly within normal parameters for starting reception next year.

I would focus on fostering his social skills and ensuring he can dress/undress independently etc. His happiness is key here and pushing him to maintain your "gifted" label will not achieve that. He may continue to astound in development or he may level out with everyone else.

He is a child, let him be one.

I think my ds was capable with those list of writing expectation and maths before starting school.With reading, certainly capable of just decoding, but not with higher comprehension skills. My ds was hyperlexic.
There was another poster on MN recently, with a child who has met all early years expectations a year before starting school, and I think it's understandable to worry if it's your first child. But things will work out some how, ime. But sometimes you may need to push school to do better for your dc.
At least my ds is very happy at school, never bored, and has different kinds of friends, some are geeky like him, some are totally football mad.

This is your first child isn't it?

I think you're confused about schools for a start. An infant school is R-2, a junior school is 3-6, a primary school is R-6. A primary school sometimes refers to infants and juniors within the school. There's no such thing as 'primary infant' and 'primary junior'.

Secondly, teachers are used to dealing with a broad range of abilities in each class. Unless your child is MENSA material, they'll be fine.

I don't think you can really use a hyperlexic child to imply that there are plenty of 3 year olds who could independently spell words with all 40+ phonemes irvine.

What I suspect has happened is that OPs DS has had a cognitive assessment which comes out with standardised scores in years/ months and is ahead of their chronological age in these.

It does not mean the child has already acquired the skills and knowledge content taught in the EYFS-KS1 curriculum. So they would be fine at an Infants school. Maybe I am wrong and OP will come back and say it was a test based on the National Curriculum content and they actually can do everything a 6 year old would have been taught at 3.

FWIW my DS has been assessed because of writing difficulties and came out on the 98th centile for VR and NVR. Despite being bright (by those measures) he has struggled monumentally with handwriting and spelling and hence has finished KS1 still a little behind in writing. OP does not know that this sort of situation involving some specific barrier might not be the case for her DS. Worrying at 3yo about him being so far ahead that an Infant school couldn't possibly work out what to do with him by the time he's in Y2 is unfounded in my opinion.

Yes, I agree, Low
Tbh, I wasn't worried about his academic side at all when he started school. There were too many other problems, social/emotional/ health related issues to think about. And there were plenty of other things he can learn at school apart from maths and literacy.

What they can do against age related criteria isn't really that relevant to whether they'd struggle in a classroom imo. It's about how their mind works and how they understand and apply concepts. You can teach any bright toddler to recite 1-20 and learn number bonds. However you can't easily teach them to apply that knowledge to word problems, basic algebra etc or to expand on that basic concept by themselves.

I'm still surprised that a paediatrician has apparently said the OPs child is two years educationally advanced (unsure what that actually means) and wonder how they arrived at that odd conclusion.

I would find a school that goes from R to Y6 because if their reading is advanced then usually the school will allow them to access the higher years' libraries etc. Also if they do mixed year groups he may be placed in a mixed 3/4 when he was a yr 3 and so on and then be stretched a bit rather than getting bored doing the same age group as his own.

Many schools do this for able students so it wouldn't be an issue.

However if the other school is seemingly much better I would ask what extension work they provide for more able students.

I'm dying to know what paed thinks they can say at what level a child is working at education wise, that's not really their remit.

Has he been assessed by anyone else?

A oaediatrician said he was 2 years educationally advanced? That seems very odd. Are you sure?

Presume it was an ed psych assessment not a paediatrician - otherwise very odd.

A child in my daughter's reception class was massively ahead when they started - staff had no problems with it at all. He read Harry Potter while the others read the basics; they corrected his grammar and punctuation in writing while the others learnt how to form letters. There was a pretty big range both in what children could do on day one and the rates at which they have learnt to do things over the years. This particular child was also an early September birthday so oldest in the class. He's still doing very well, but the gap has closed somewhat and he's never been taught out of year group.

It's hard to realise when it's your first child, but social skills and non-academic things are actually the most important in the early years.

Ds was flagged by his teacher to see an ed psych within his first few days in nursery because of his "extraordinary abilities". He was about five years ahead of his age in most areas so he could add and subtract 3 digit numbers.They observed him teaching himself multiplication (14x tables) and he wrote in sentences using good spelling, grammar and punctuation. He was still 4 years old and had a fantastic time playing with his friends and using all the equipment available to him. His school which was an infants seemed to manage just fine to accommodate his needs.That's not to say that he always found it challenging or interesting (no child does IME) but I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing either.He's not the only one at home so he had time to be bored here as well. Likewise so did his Junior school who did have a maths teacher come down from the nearby secondary a couple of times a term to push his knowledge.
I was probably a very lax parent though (I hadn't sent him to pre school and didn't warn the school that he was bright either) but I trusted the school to do their best by him and he thrived.

Seem to have lost my not
He's not the only child and that's not to say

Why would an Ed Psych be assessing a child not even in nursery?

I'm guessing the op has paid for a private assessment mrz.

Go with whichever school feels right op. bear in mind that a child who is gifted at 3, may not be by the end of the infants.

Why would you assume that?
The OP said paediatrician and surely they would know if they'd paid for a private Ed Psych

A couple of my dc had paediatrician involvement before nursery (not the clever one) and he observed that ds and dd could read well and ds could spell pretty difficult words even at two and a half but they never commented on their educational ability tbf. It does say in his report that they demonstrated an ability to read (and spell) probably because of their impressive visual memory but that's as far as it goes. Anything about education was strictly down to ed psych and SSSEN teacher who saw them tbh not least because of the costs involved.

Have you looked at the junior school(s) that the infant school feeds into? I know that a lot of parents in my town never look at the junior school and are disappointed at the difference in approach when their children go into year 3.

I think you're confused about schools for a start. An infant school is R-2, a junior school is 3-6, a primary school is R-6. A primary school sometimes refers to infants and juniors within the school. There's no such thing as 'primary infant' and 'primary junior'.Secondly, teachers are used to dealing with a broad range of abilities in each class. Unless your child is MENSA material, they'll be fine.

I came to say exactly the same but you had written it already!

Your post of infant and junior primary schools is confusing, OP.

Paediatrician says "wow, that's great, DC don't normally master that till they are 5"

Parent hears "your child is exceptionally gifted".