Secondary schools for twice exceptional?

[WarmAndFuzzy]

I know that it might be a bit early as my eldest DS has only just started year four, but I'm already starting to get nervous about it.

He's been diagnosed with ASD, but his IQ has also been put on the 99.6th centile. He's doing much better at school since they realised he was bright - up until then he was bottom for everything since his writing was unreadable and his problems with social communication were much more obvious. He's now one of the better students in his year but his behavior still marks him out as different as he spends a lot of his time alone (although he has some casual friends, mainly to do with his chess club) and doesn't really do what the other kids do.

I would really like to send him to a school that focuses on his talents while being supportive of his other issues as I can see it all going horribly wrong if he gets bullied.

Does anyone know of a school which would cater for all of him? He doesn't have a statement but we may be able to scrape up enough for an independent school if need be (although tbh we'd prefer state). We're looking preferably around London and the South East.

DS2 (also ASD) is kind of in the same vein so we're in for a few years of worry about this stuff!

Thanks for the clarification. I wouldn't regard it as precious, either - just not specific enough to be useful in a school context, though I understand the google issue.

I have found the 2E term very helpful. How can a gifted child achieve a Yr 6 Level 3 in writing? How can a dyslexic child achieve a Level 5 in Reading? What does it mean to have one score on the 6th percentile and another on the 99th?

"Talk to me about how support for SEN children is organised, and about why, given that you are selective, your academic results are lower than the local comprehensive"

Y'know, a lot of 'selective' senior schools are not. They might test, but that doesn't mean they don't then admit some children that are not terribly bright.

There are quite a lot of children in the private sector who are not academically able, and likewise there are plenty of schools that specialize in educating them.

They might offer a 10% scholarship or something to the children doing well on the entrance exam, and the entrance exam is a sort of carrot for those children who are capable, to persuade them that the school is in fact an academic hothouse (of course it's not, but some parents want to think that); the parents might have selected the school on other factors, being 'nice', etc., but they will all request the kids sit an entrance exam.

There are so many different degrees of selection ('top 5%', 'top 50%', that the intake at a given private school may be less able than the state comprehensive (which, if successful, will effectively select a large proportion of its intake on the basis of parents being pushy enough to buy/rent a house in the tiny catchment area).

If nothing else, the exam would help in setting children in the first year.

(Not sure what a 'rare ethnic group' is btw.)

Skippy, that was exactly the type of answer that I got - which was useful input into my decision making. I didn'yt say that the answer I got was unsatisfactory, just that those were the questions I was asking BECAUSE I have an extremely able child with an SEN and was trying to find out how well he might succeed there. I was asking the 'obvious' question about an apparent mismatch.

Relatively rare ethnic group - 0.15% of the total UK population, with a strong and unique culture. Coupled with the number and level of SENs, definitely an exceptional child.

So dull and frustrating that we cannot say things like they are. We could if the child was a gifted in sports however. What did you do in the end? Did you ever find support? I’m not sure it really exists but am yet to start upper school so will find out! We paid for a private school because they promised to provide this but they didn’t deliver in either side and my child didn’t progress with the academic side or the SEN side so am not hopeful for the future.

Private, grammar or state?

This is a thread from 2012.. this child will be doing their A levels or GCSE's somewhere

IQ and intellectual/academic ability aren't entirely the same thing though, are they?