How to talk about DD's abilities without sounding irritating/precious

[clemette]

Dear all,
DD (4.5) starts full-time in reception in January. She is almost the only one that won't have been to the school pre-school/ attended part-time this autumn.
The pre-school that she is at keep stressing to us that her abilities are unusually high for her age, but TBH I am not sure if they are. She can count to 100, count back from 30, count to 20 in French, can do addition and subtraction, read simple words, write clearly etc etc Most of this she has learnt a her very small pre-school.
Anyway, we went to the open evening for her new school and the reception teacher was talking about how they were working with the children to identify shapes. I was wondering whether it was worth phoning the teacher to talk about what DD can do, or whether I should just trust their professionalism to see that she might be a little beyond what they are doing with the majority.
I don't think she is G+T particularly (and working in secondary education realise that children often even out eventually). I also don't want to present myself as an ultra pushy parent, as we have really tried not to be and let DD develop as she will.
I just wondered if anyone had any advice?
Thanks.

"yes they do, BrokenArm. Because if they are not there is a real risk that they will become bored and disruptive."

From my experience the badly behaved because they are "bored" are badly behaved even when they don't have an excuse to be bored ie scout camp, they are just arrogant PITA children.
My DCs went to the same school and had the same teachers and are just as bright and didn't misbehave.There have probably times when they have been bored but have never found the need to be disruptive, although DD has a tendancy to talk a little too much, however she always contributed to the class in a valid way.

There are what you call "arrogant PITA children" and there are children who become disruptive because year after year the work is so tedious, monotonous and far below their ability. Lumping them all in one group doesn't serve either group well.

For 2.5 years DS was a perfectly behaved boy and we got many compliments from the teachers. By the end of Y2 he was beginning to become disruptive.

It was the boredom wot did it.

Now in Y3 the school is better catering for his high ability in maths - after we had a serious chat with them - and the behaviour has just fallen back into place. Like magic.

Children vary in their ability to cope with poor provision and chronic boredom but it certainly has the capacity to be the cause of them going off the rails.

"coasting/ not progressing." This is the real danger for a very able child if the school doesn't make an effort to challenge her. Learning to learn is so important, and there can be huge fallout in the area of self esteem if a child has been the big fish in a small pond when she moves to a bigger pond. Acting out from boredom in the class is a problem too, for the teacher and the rest of the group, but not knowing how to deal with real intellectual challenge creates far bigger problems for the child herself down the road.

As a mother who learned that the best way to meet my children's need for intellectual stimulation was to provide it myself, I would caution against expecting miracles from any school, state or private, unless class sizes are very small.

I don't take being happy for granted like some of you do.

There is probably an unstated divide in this thread. My DC like me when I was id'd as a Giftd child are merely top ten per centers. In the top 10% ability wise, so in a large enuff school there will b lots of children at or near the same ability. So it is not/should not be difficult for a school to cater for children that age working at that level (they are so many that they can't be ignored).

Whereas, truly exceptional children the 1/200 or 1/1000 or even 1/1,000,000 child their needs will be much tougher to meet, I can imagine everything DaL says being true for them.

I had the same issue with DD1, who started school aged 4;2 years. She could read Mr Men books, fairy stories etc. She used different voices when the words were in speech marks, read with emphasis where there was an exclamation mark, etc.

In terms of maths she could so simple additiona and subtraction and multiplication.

I wasn't sure what to do but thankfully the school asked us to write a description of our child. I wrote what I thought she could do but tried not to sound too pushy.

As a result, they tested her on a few things and yes, she's officially "bright" and was on the G and T list by Autumn half term. A good teacher is goign to spot this within a half term, particularly when they try to find a reading level and corresponding book (DD's reading age was 7.5 at 4.2).

Some would put DS in your 1/200, but he took 2.5 years of boredom doing Y1/Y2 work when he was able to do Y5/6 work. Then he cracked.

Some kids in the top 1/10 or 1/20 may take only six months of such extreme boredom.

I believe it's a personality thing more than being related to level of ability.

If schools were failing just the "truly exceptional children", we could cut them some slack. The sad fact is that they are failing the top 10 per cent in a big way.

Excellent news, MissEmilyDavis

Dadatlarge, so you reckon Cory's patronising? I think 'silly games' probably wins .
Just quickly, yes of course I used selective quotes - would you like me to quote every word you say perhaps? Is what you say so worthy? Flippancy aside, my selective quotes were to illustrate my point which in spite of your put down still stands. Put simply (again!) you tend to state your pov as fact. Am not objecting to what you say, as a lot of it is great, useful and valid, but it's the way you phrase it that I find so irksome. You do it again in your response to me. I'd said "you are making the assumption that her child won't be challenged and will be bored." your response is: "That will happen at some point in her school life. Period." I rest my case really. IIt leaves no room for any other opinion, and I assume I have a right to have one..? [+ before you re-tell me to look again I never said you meant that would happen in reception.]

+BrilliantDisguise, I thought it worth saying it's not necessarily that the state schools are being lazy or lacking. A lot of schools don't do follow this level of academic work as a deliberate policy. They're following on from educational research and also from the European model, where formal learning doesn't start until 6 or in some cases 7. Glad your daughter's happy though. That's what counts. She sounds like a really bright spark.

"If you've got an intelligent child and (if) you want her stretched and challenged ... you're going to have to do some pushing."

is different from

"..you're going to have to do some pushing."

but in full or not, you're still saying: 'you're going to have to..', which is what I was moaning about as it's so definite. I was hardly mis quoting you now was I? + what about the example I gave in my last post (which I quoted in full just for you). To my objection to you stating Clemette's daughter wouldn't be challenged at school you said: 'That will happen at some point in her school life. Period". am not being arsey, but you do state your views very stridently as facts rather than opinions and it annoys me because it's so resoundingly negative about primary education. Again, to repeat I think a lot of what you say makes sense, but it's hardly universal truth.
May I suggest we call a truce? I have a large glass of wine waiting. It's Friday night after all. Suggest maybe you do the same.

The real trick is to be pushy without anyone realising it!

Agree with Cat64, smee, cory, piscesmoon and probably a few others, theres so much more to school than racing up the curriculum for a very bright child.

Also agree with piscesmoon's comment

"The real trick is to be pushy without anyone realising it!"

Having a child that is both g&t and has a SLD makes this doubly true.

DadAtLarge Fri 27-Nov-09 21:25:34
"If you've got an intelligent child and (if) you want her stretched and challenged ... you're going to have to do some pushing."

So what about those of us who have not needed to do this pushing? Do our experiences simply not exist? You speak as if you knew what was going to happen to every gifted child in the school system.

In my dd's case, the reason I did not need to do any pushing was that she was very good at motivating herself at challenging herself, and while at school she was so interested in observing the people that being bored never occurred to her.

So what does this tell us? That she is not intelligent? Or that it is not true that every parent with an intelligent child is going to have to push? You pay lip service to the statement that people are all different, but you really only believe in one kind of intelligent child.

phew, thanks cat, bruffin and cory; I'd begun to think it was just me.

DatatLarge - KS1 children now have their teacher assessment reported at the end of KS1, not their test results.

The teacher assessment is supported by any different sources of evidence, a small part of which are the tests. You are right in your assertion that the statutory *tests in KS1 only test up to Level 3. But you are wrong when you suggest there is any kind of ceiling in teacher assessment at KS1, and I have pointed this out to you before.

For a KS1 child working at L5, as you describe, there is every opportunity to teacher assess them as such. And if it was necessary to support the assessment with a suitable test, there is no reason why KS2 tests could not be used.

I have no personal experience of KS1 children working at Level 5, but assessed 3 children a working at Level 4 during the 5 years I spent working in Y2. In my role as Literacy and Assessment co-ordinator, I suppport KS1 assessment, and expect to see one more child assessed as a Level 4 next year.

Children are assessed on entry to Reception, again at the end, and then at the end of each Key Stage. Failure to progress in 4 years would have a hugely detrimental effect on value added figures.

To give another example of good practice, at our primary each child is assessed (without their knowledge) at the start of the year, then at the end of each term. Parents are told and encouraged to ask where their child is in terms of levels and to discuss individual targets/ expectations at least once a term. In that way no child can stay static or slip without some serious questions being asked. So all children are valued, and all are given encouragement to thrive, including those at the top end.

This is pretty much the norm, these days - children are continually teacher assessed. Are you saying this doesn't happen at your dw's school, DaL?

I would like to applaud the statement that 'not every intelligent child is the same.'

Dd is very intelligent - streets ahead of where she 'should' be in terms of literacy, her writing is amazing (her teacher's words) - she is Y2. Reading-wise she is reading Noel Streatfeild, and other longer novels.

She to my knowledge is not on any G&T list (don't even know if they exist), but given that at parents' evening the teacher described maths as being her weakest area, as she was 'comfortably near the top of the top group' rather than being light years ahead as she is in literacy, I am guessing that a G&T list doesn't exist.

She is also an August birthday and the youngest in the class, and I think it is essential that she remains with the class and her peers, for emotional reasons.

In terms of literacy, it is very easy to provide extension work - and in fact dd does this herself - her writing is always extended, and she motivates herself to do 'extra' writing at home - she will often write poems in her bedroom, and bring them down as a finished article, with zero parental input from us. She stretches her own writing by constantly expanding vocab and punctuation etc that she is picking up from her reading.

The point is, I'm unaware that the school is either 'leaving her to be bored' or 'accelerating her learning' - she is doing that herself, and I just can't imagine that changing, as she is incredibly self-motivated, and that brings its own reward. The reading books she brings home from school are appropriate in level, and the writing she produces is stunning - what more should they do? I'm happy and she is!

So, I would be careful of saying 'every bright child WILL be bored' - so far the evidence suggests not.

Am a bit busy at the moment but here's a quick reply.

Feenie, I was asked for an example of how was it even possible for a child to make zero progress in four years and not be considered underachieving. I gave it. Do you believe that my example is not possible and can never happen in any school? Otherwise I can't see what your complaint is on this score.

I know at least three local schools where teachers are under pressure to "not make life more difficult for the rest". "Every opportunity for teachers to assess" at a higher level doesn't mean they have to do it. Assessing at a ceiling in KS1 helps cover up for poor teaching higher up in the schooland keeps the VA score up . DS was assessed as an L3A at KS1 maths. An external moderator twisted the teacher's arm suggested he be moved up. The teacher got a ticking off by the dep head, "Why did you have to pick his work to show the moderator?" And this is a school with an exceptional at OFSTED. In the school where my wife taught, teachers were regularly under staffroom politics pressure to not teach too far ahead as it makes life more difficult for the teacher in the next year (and they had an OFSTED good).

Stats manipulation happens. Anyone who believes it never happens is naive.

As far as having to push if you want the DC stretched and challenged, I maintain what I was saying. It's a certainty. And I'll explain it some more in due course. Feel free to disagree. But when I state something as a fact, I am happy to back it up with the reasoning. That doesn't mean you can't not agree. There are people who don't agree with me that the earth isn't flat. ;)

The real trick is to be pushy without anyone realising it!

I like that

DAL do you genuinely care what level your child is at? What difference does it make if you think they are level 5 and the teacher says level 4. It is all essentially meaningless. As I have always said to my year 9s, no-one in the future is ever going to ask what you got in your SATs!

I can accept that it did happen, but yes, I am suggesting that in the last 5 years the massive change in the culture of assessment at primary level, together with the might of Ofsted, has rendered this situation pretty much impossible now.

Any school who does not have a robust tracking system and accurate teacher assessment in place would fail an Ofsted now, without a doubt.

Things are a-changing, DaL.

I am having a deja vu here. I think DaL was advised to go to visit a local primary school in action on a previous thread! (It may have even been by you, Feenie!)

Clemette, I agree wholeheartedly that the Level this or that stuff is madness, or essentially meaningless, as you put it, where small graduations of levels go anyway.

The only thing I would be watchful for is where there's a disparity in scores for different areas, e.g. years ahead in literacy but average or even high/ top of the class in maths. I would suspect in a case like this that my DC might need more of a challenge in maths and that her proficiency in the literacy area was not due to any special input from the teacher, but rather the result of her own interest and desire to keep going at a fast clip in this area. I have personally always pushed maths, focused on it with my DCs at home through various related and supportive activities, and I watch the relative position of maths and literacy/reading scores.

A bright child who is given the encouragement will take to reading and learn a huge amount from it in her time outside of school, but maths is not something that even a self directed child will normally be able to do by herself. Therefore I use it as a measure of how the school is actually doing its job of challenging my child.