Gifted or highly able, how to support?

[knopka]

Not a bragging space but asking for advice.
DC has always been ahead of peers in development; is multilingual and for example, learnt to read in English by watching alphablocks. Not highly unusual in the family context but clearly the child is very inquisitive, eager to learn, driven etc. Not just academically but also in other areas. Child is aged 6 and is in Y1.
Small independent school doesnt have gifted and talented policy and I am not entirely sure that they can support the child to achieve their best, overall the child is happy with learning at school but complains of being bored sometimes. No behavioral issues.
The school did do a GL based assesment earlier in the year and they came back very high but nothing was suggested and I feel like one of those pushy parents but all I want is for my DC to be happy and progressing at her pace rather than being held back.
WWYD? Is there such a thing as a test for giftedness that allows to support child's learning journey?

She is excelling at her work at school, her work is very neat and structured. She sits down and writes stories (in cursive) and draws pictures to go with them, unprompted. This is her idea of fun. She has access to paper, crafts, various other materials (which is costing me a bomb haha). She does get extensions at school to get a deeper understanding of topics, but fot example, someone who finished phonics a while ago and is reading chapter books, does feel bored in a phonics class whilst everyone else is working their way through.

I completely get that. My dc are/were at a bilingual school too so I did not want to move them until they were finished with the school. My eldest finished and is now year 7 and we need to work at keeping her language (which is not easy when I don't speak the language myself and neither does dh). The suggestions of the bond books for 11+ is a good one if you plan to put her in private secondary, as she will need to take an exam to get in (or for grammer school). But only if she really wants to do more work. My dc are naturally bright, but were happy to not do extra work at that age and instead we spent hours in the park after school and taking them to sport activities. They did the minimal homework. They read for fun. But we did not try and stretch them further at that age and just let them be kids. We only started stretching them when we decided to put them in private for secondary (end of year 5 for dd and end of year 4 for ds). However, if your dd is keen on learning there are loads of books you can find. But I would focus on perhaps the third language not taught at school if she is strong in the bilingual ones taught at school....otherwise she will just advance more and get more bored at school.

Could you ask the teachers if she can just read during the phonics classes?

“ she is finding it harder to find friends”

I think this is her problem, she isn’t bored, she is lonely. Look for hobbies and clubs that have a social side, like sport, Brownies etc. she needs friends to bounce ideas of, to make up stories and games with, to make dens in the garden with, to cook pizza with. Poor little soul, please don’t think giving her workbooks and pages of hard sums is going to fix her, because workbooks and pages of hard sums can’t do sleepovers.

Yes I did ask that, she is quite happy reading usually. At the moment they give her extended work like writing sentences with the phonics that they are learning and she does different work to the rest of the class. The teacher did send us high frequency words to work our way through at her pace but only after requesting it. I guess I wish the school was a bit more proactive.

I dont need pity for my DC, she does have friends but she lost her best friend due to moving, yes.

She does do sports and does all age appropriate activities including play. But everyone has life and other children to take care of.
And I dont allow sleepovers at this age, only if at my house and having recently moved, we dont yet know many of her friends that well.

I knew it would probably descent into pity at some point and critisim of my parenting skills because of course its always the parents to blame if the child needs stimulation.

And at the same time, of course you cant possibly say your child is gifted or highly able, they are probably perfectly average and you are just after testing them for your own insecurities rather than understanding on how to help them.

🙄

It’s very normal to have one or two children who are free reading in year one. It does give them a feeling of being clever and ahead of their peers which is confidence building, but while they might be in the top sets by year 6 they may not be the most able. It sounds like she really enjoys focused tasks which can be completed and “done”. It might be worth exploring more open ended activities. The biggest driver (I think) to success is curiosity and a spirit of adventure, which is why so many people say things like “if she’s bright she won’t be bored”. We have to encourage that exploration though or all the joy comes from another worksheet done. I’d think about some bigger longer term projects that can be stretched in different ways.

It’s normal to be bored (or frustrated, or disengaged, or whatever you want to call it) when you are being ‘taught’ something that you already know, slowly, with lots of repetition. Even as an adult, I find it excruciating. Being trapped somewhere where you have to keep still, with a look of polite attention on your face, while you’re thinking ‘yes, I know, can we just get on with it’ is hard.

However, schools are stretched and this child is doing fine from their point of view, so while it’s worth asking, don’t expect much to change at school. As a parent, you need to see school as the places providing excellent basics, socialisation etc, and that the intellectual stretch comes from music, sport, drama, dance, languages etc outside school. You may get lucky some years with a teacher who is interested in stretching the most able, but many are (understandably) focused elsewhere.

I would focus on developing emotional intelligence and resilience, and practising things you are not good at. I was a gifted child, could read fluently before I started school, good at maths, languages, etc. I got top grades at school and a first at a top university. But then…things got difficult. I found the transition to adult life hard. I’ve worked in the same quite low-paid job all my life. Being successful at life has little to do with academic ability.

I had a child a bit like this.

What we found important was firstly open-ended projects/activities not directly related to curriculum stuff. So not more maths but logic problems and philosophical stuff (practising thinking rather than an area of the curriculum, stuff like the Island of Knights and Knaves), and not more English comprehension but writing a play, casting it, working out everything she needed in relation to props and technical stuff, learning how to rehearse her cast, etc etc. She was very lucky that in the year where she really started to run a long way ahead of the rest of the class she had a teacher who was prepared to just let her get on with it and facilitate where necessary - this was an ordinary state school, and mine was a little older than yours so more able to work independently and she spent a large majority of her time that year outside the classroom working on more or less whatever took her fancy. She was very self-motivated and didn't need much outside input.

The other thing that we found important was learning how to fail and try harder. School had always been easy and was getting easier as time went on so I signed her up for two musical instruments and a drama class. But sport would work too (DD not interested in this).

She did NaNoWriMo one year. She tore through a bunch of logic-based problems. She wrote a few plays and lots of poetry. She learnt the violin and the piano. She sang in choirs and took part in musical theatre. She danced. There were many short-lived enthusiasms but some of them went on to become long-term hobbies.

For my son, who was/is profoundly gifted it was a good thing for him to be bored tbh it drove his curiosity, he learned so much as a result. He went to a state primary, they asked to call in Ed psych within days of him starting because he was an outlier. In reception he worked with y2, in y3 he worked with y6, in y5 a teacher from the local secondary came to teach him maths. In y7 he won the whole school maths challenge within weeks of him starting secondary.
Don't feel like you have to set work let her look for challenges herself. I remember son discovering for himself multiplication when he realised it was quicker than adding lists of the same number. He was 4 then.
Son saw school as an opportunity to socialise he never had to work. Outside of school he pursued the things that interested him. Chess, football, athletics he was in County teams. Now an adult he says school days were the best of times. He doesn't remember the boredom he remembers his friends, his clubs, his sport, school productions, trips and residentials so I would encourage participation in everything outside of the academics.

Maybe I do need to embrace the boredom and what comes out of it. I am supporting her interests outside academia, I am not quite sure why everyone assumed that we are focused on it.
I am trying to get through to the school, maybe she will actually benefit from trying out other year groups as she looks and behaves at least 2 years ahead of her age. I have observed her enough times on the playground. I flagged it with school. At the moment, unfortunately, children are allowed to bring spinny toys from home and play with them at school, creating a "club" which she isnt a part of and she isnt interested in spinning top toys, she wants to play in more sophisticated ways. I cant blame her.

We will be trying an all inclusive theatre group but there is only that much time/available time as I have other children who are older.She already does martial arts, swimming with a club, art club, French club and piano. She is quite busy and its her own initiative. Her school is private so I feel they should be doing a little more, we didnt put her in a state school due to low funding/bad experience with her siblings in a local state

Personally I would avoid going up a year like the plague. It’s already isolating to be very able and social skills are hard to learn when you’re in that position. You are doing a lot of activities for a six year old. It’s sounds like she is already a little on the outside looking in. I’d focus on supporting friendships and group dynamics. It’s much much easier to do that at 6 than later when mums aren’t so present.

Son was hugely popular, he had lots of friends people were drawn to him and still are as an adult. They didn't care he was a brainbox and son didn't care that they couldn't do what he could do they found common interests usually through sport or chess tbh. Finding things that she can share with others not dependent on her academic ability will be a good thing.
FWIW son would have had a spinner or two purely to be part of things whether it interested him or not as it would be the other children and not the spinner that would have drawn him. He learned very quickly the importance of being part of things because that brought opportunities.
You can be a good footballer but if there is no cameraderie you aren't going to get the ball passed to you and you aren't going to be selected for teams. You can be the best chess player but if you don't make the effort of supporting the rest of the team the team is unlikely to win. Teach your daughter to see the value in others who might not have the same talents and try not to go looking too hard for others just the same as you might be disappointed and could miss out on a wealth of opportunities.

I dont think we will pursue that as an option as I value bilingual stream element above moving her to a more selective environment.
I guess I will have to set up a meeting with her school to make sure she is supported. I think she is realising that she is different to her peers now at the age of 6 and I want to help her find her crowd. I think her previous school didnt have such a variety of abilities and perhaps tailored their approach more but it was reception (they were ones who noticed she could already read in English and gave her materials ahead of her age group).
I am just lost as how to handle this conversation with her current school without coming across as hostile.

I think your DD should be encouraged to get with the programme as regards the spinning tops. Social skills are extremely important.

Tell me you have not had a gifted child without telling me you haven't...

A very able six year old simply can't lay their hands on the materials they are interested in so they will be nagging the adults around for stuff. In our case it was library books, she would read 10-12 a week. You can'd do that without a facilitating adult. (I didn't have one, and aged 7 read Jacqueline Susann books as the only ones I could find in our house. Not recommended, although I did teach the rest of my Sunday School a few things...)

Social skills are important but she isnt interested in spinning tops, why should I make her do it? I think in fact the school should discourage children from brining own toys into to the school every single day and broadening their interests and running a free chess club instead.
I think she can acquire social skills in other ways and I dont want to be encouraging her to join in in the latest " craze" because of peer pressure. In a few years it may be vaping or other things she may feel she has to do to "fit in"

My parents signed me up with the library when df caught me reading Valley of the Dolls at five. Obviously I had different expectations of the title when I found it lying about.

There’s a line to be drawn between the two extremes, though. Negotiating and being involved with peers is important, and it’s better to learn at six than 16.

You lot are cracking me up, as someone who has self taught to read at 3; I was in a similar situation with books, there were lots of limits as I was born in the USSR space, I once picked up Angelique on the shelf because I was bored. Dont think it was age appropriate reading😂

I am not in any way worried about social aspect for her, she is actually quite popular in school. She just needs a bit of academic stretching , I am providing other opportunities for her. I dont particularly want to "teach" her, I want to be her mum and do fun stuff together. Yet she is very unhappy if she doesnt have oppurtunity to learn so I am trying very hard to find a balance.
Damned if you do and damned if you dont. I am not striving to be a perfect mother, there is no such thing. But I am listening to my child, teaching her to advocate for herself (in a polute manner) and advocating for her where she cant.

Age appropriate reading becomes harder and harder. Most precocious readers parents collect lists of books. Older books tend to be a better bet in my experience. It’s fun you get to revisit all your oldies. You don’t have to follow like a sheep to join in with games at playtime. School might help her integrate if that is a difficulty. Most schools have some children who need support in that way.

Mumsnet will tell you to encourage outside interests and not try to get her ahead of the class. I strongly disagree with this, because I have a ‘gifted’ child who spent years r-3 at a non-academic school. She was soooo bored at the slow pace and got into the habit of staring out of the window daydreaming. By the time I moved her to a better school, she had completely lost the habit of learning at school. I wish I’d moved much earlier and put her somewhere highly academic that encouraged and stretched her, those schools do exist.

Mumsnet will also tell you that clever children don’t get bored alone. What a total lie.

Find her somewhere better is my advice OP.

Here we go again

Give the kid a break