Starting school gifted?

[BabiesDontNeedDaddies]

I got told that to be classed as gifted going in to reception all the kid has to be able to do is read a simple sentence, ie "a cat sat on a mat", and do simple addition/subtraction, like 7+2 or 4-3. That seems quite basic to me for gifted. Is that right? Or is it like a local thing since I don't live in an affluent area

No it's not right.

No that's not right.

Then what is?

That's absolutely not correct

Honestly, why spend time and energy on getting a child classified as 'gifted'?

Firstly, schools don't speak of gifted children. It's usually more able.

Secondly, children learn at different rates.

Thirdly (just in my experience), the parents who are the most obsessed with giftedness and their child being perceived as amazingly bright never have the genuinely exceptional children. The parents of super bright children tend to know it, school know it and it all works out (give or take normal hiccups of the system).

Let them go to school and enjoy learning.

Do schools label such young children? I'm not aware of it happening in my DC's school and there are a lot of 'bright' children.
Advanced skills at a young age are often just children being a bit ahead for their age rather than 'gifted'.

For some schools it’s HLP: higher learning potential. Ds is classed as HLP but couldn’t read when he started school. Did basic maths at three though.
HLP is not something to aim for though, provision is patchy at best.

I just want to know what other kids in a gifted group would be like?

Plus ‘bright’ and HLP aren’t necessarily the same thing either.

A gifted group is as different as any other group. Their iqs and the way it affects them may even be greater than a group of average kids.
Highly likely some may be 2e too, HLP with LD, and they are likely to be asynchronous even if they don’t have LD.

No. My son could read fluently when he joined reception. (Could read chapter books) and could add/subtract/multiply/divide/has knowledge of fractions etc.
There was one other kid like him and a few others also considered gifted. I made it clear to the school that while I didn’t want him to get bored in the classroom my principle interest was in making sure he was socially settled. He is/was a quiet well behaved child who is still prone to getting anxious and initially struggled to talk to other children. His school was brilliant at helping him discover his confidence and from Y1 onwards he has been flying academically and socially.

I think a child who could do those things may just have been taught them early but not turn out to be gifted. Equally a child could later turn out to be gifted who had not been taught to do those things before starting school.

My son is also into certain things. At that age into space and national rail networks. He also played and still plays the violin. At his age it was hard to find friends who want to discuss east coast rail networks and classical music. He’s now much more settled and still has his niche interests but can get on better with other kids.

It's not as simple as what they can or cannot do. There are so many variables. Some "gifted" children will be reading chapter books at the start of reception, while others won't be able to read at all.

"Giftedness", if it is a thing at all, refers to learning potential, not prior attainment.

The intense interests are not fun tbh. Also keeping a technologically savvy infant age child where they should be on a computer system can be difficult.

It’s also characterised by things like how many repetitions these kids need to perfect skills.

Why would you put a child who can't read in a gifted group? Surely they would be in the normal group learning how to read not sitting there while the others read the colour of magic...

The infant school my dc went to used to talk about the 7 different types of 'Smarts' that people could have - academic was just one type of smart, others included sports smarts, emotional smarts and so on. All were deemed important, valued, encouraged/taught and celebrated.

It was a great reminder to parents and children alike that there are lots of different skills to be learnt at school, not just academic, and very few people are good at all of them, so there's always something to work on.

If only we could just let 4 year olds be 4 years old

Umm what? 😂

Tbh that question just shows how little of a clue you have.

I don't really know what you mean by a "gifted group". A truly gifted child is unlikely to have enough similar peers to be put in a group based on ability.

Anyway, a "gifted" child who starts school unable to read might very quickly overtake many of the children who start off knowing more. So much depends on what exposure they have had.

It's quite strange for a UK school to talk about giftedness at all, it has no specific definition, is not encouraged language by oftsed etc.

Whoever a school decides to put in a gifted group is purely down to the school.

Babiesdoneeddaddies.