Bright 9 year old

RadoJo

I do think that primary school is a very difficult place to ascertain whether a child is really Gifted and Talented or just quick to pick things up in comparison to the 'norms'. I was considered very bright at primary school and had a reading age of 11 by the end of the infants and was already onto junior maths books. By secondary school I was still doing well, went to a grammar that was more like a comp and did reasonably well in my GSCEs with little work. However, at A-level, I found that I had reached the pinaccle of my natural ability - I had to work to get the same results I had managed with no work before.

What I am saying is, had there been a concerted effort to push me at a younger age, I am not sure I would have been any better off - my Mum is a teacher and spent plenty of time stimulating my brain out of school and although I never found the work hugely difficult, if I had claimed boredom as a reason for misbehaving I would have been given short shrift!

It is very rare for a child to excel equally in every area of learning, so there should still be plenty to keep yours interested in areas that don't come so easily to them, and from the fact that you have posted on here, I am sure you are doing plenty to keep their brains active!

clairehi

BernadetteN wrote: »

It may be over-simplistic but Miss moneypenny is trying to motivate you to look at a child's whole environment, not just school, and not blame school for every child's ills.

I.

Who is blaming school for every child's ills?

The OP is concerned about her daughter's progress and is seeking help to do something about it. That sounds more motivated to me than a lot of parents. The idea that the quality of teaching children receive is not an important factor in their eventual outcomes is totally disingenuous!

Hapless_2

Unfortunately the school my eldest was at until I home educated her could not manage her. She was given the set books for SATS at 6 read them and was getting bored very easily with the work that was set. What didn't help was the teacher she had at the time would not ecourage her. The biggest problem we had was when the teacher asked them to take in their favourite book and she took Lord of the Rings in. In front of the other children and parents she took one look at the book and said at full volume.."Either you are a very accomplished 6 year old or you have good liar for parents"

clairehi

Hapless wrote: »

Unfortunately the school my eldest was at until I home educated her could not manage her. She was given the set books for SATS at 6 read them and was getting bored very easily with the work that was set. What didn't help was the teacher she had at the time would not ecourage her. The biggest problem we had was when the teacher asked them to take in their favourite book and she took Lord of the Rings in. In front of the other children and parents she took one look at the book and said at full volume.."Either you are a very accomplished 6 year old or you have good liar for parents"

Good grief, what an awful teacher. Well done to your DD for her reading though. I am having trouble finding books for my DS that he will enjoy and that are age appropriate for a 7 year old boy. He has recently read a couple of Alex Rider books but I think Tolkien would be a bit of a stretch!

saraharrow

Crumbs! I found Tolkein tough at 21, and I only read it cos every else had!

Have you tried the Phillip Pullman books, the Dark Materials Trilogy was thought provoking and we had lots of talk about that. She was 9 when we done those though.

Schools have a way of being 'blunt' or 'abrupt' when they say things like that. In my daughters appeal she wanted to state that her deputy head told her the local comp was good enough for her (the Deputy Head), so she should go there as well. I asked her how she replied to this and she told me that she said she didnt want to be a teacher she had higher aspirations in life!

Surprised she didnt get a yellow card for that, but I did ask what was higher than being a teacher in her opinion and she said she wanted to be Clara Furse.

I had to google her, and to be honest I am still not much wiser for it, lol

Sarah

bylromarha

From a primary teacher's perspective...

The school will have a policy on identifying and supporting G+T's (love the name, eh?!). A child achieving a Maths 4a at end of year 4 is doing great.

Do you know if her place at the top of the year is a hard won place as lots of peers are also working at this level or is she far and away the highest achiever? If there is a group of children working at this level, then I'd be pretty certain that the school is catering for them together. If she's alone, then there are things the school can do where she may feel she isn't doing anything different to her peers, but her work is slightly changed.

I'm guessing you'll have a parents evening before the end of term or have just had one? Why not comment on how great she's doing and ask what school is doing to help continue challenge her and what can you do at home to support that? One of my old G+Ts (ended up on Starspell, don't ya know?!) had a real issue with failure like you describe, so with his parents we worked on challenges with him, real problems, where he came to realise he had to go through a number of "failures" before he could find the success that solved the problem.

TBH I never felt I could do enough with the G+Ts that came through my hands. Money is always the deciding factor and schools get extra money to support those with SEN at the lower end of the spectrum and none for those at the top. You can't get a statement (which equals extra money) for being bright. therefore, we used to take full advantage of trainee teachers to ensure we had people to release that let our G+Ts have focussed teaching time which they wouldn't have been able to get otherwise.

All the best...let us know how you get on.

BTW BernadetteN, schools would be shooting themselves in the foot if they made up results. Maths results aren't subjectively marked, so it would be an out and out lie if they marked up in the way you're suggesting. We used to have regular moderation meetings to ensure our levels reflected the descriptions, plus you'd be a farce with Ofsted if your year 6 official results were lower than the year 5 teacher assessments. I'd far rather talk a parent through why their child hadn't improved so fast during the school year than give them false hope and mislead them.

Kimitatsu

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2007_0074

This explains the monery that is released and is used to identify the top 10% of the school population.

I have to agree with the posters on here, I was bored at school and I could see my kids doing exactly the same. But its NOT the schools that I blame! Our education system does not cater for children who can think outside the box and are perfectly capable of seeing the path from A to D without having to go through B and C. It is as frustrating for the teachers to see this talent being wasted as it is for the children who are bored and want to get on in school.

Hence the reason I enrolled my kids in Kumon, not because I am an "Alpha Mum" or that I think they should be doing more homework, but because I want them not to be bored and to use the brains they have. As I have said moving school was great for us because we found a school that identified that straight off, within 6 weeks they couldnt correlate the report they had on my child to the one which was in front of them because they engaged him and let him explore the subjects they were teaching.

vigesimal

It is a very sad fact that the mothers who think that teachers should be spending more time with their children at my school, are usually the same mothers who spend less waking hours per day with their child than I do. The home environment provides an excellent source of learning, but sadly some children are unable to go home straight after school and spent little time with their mothers during the school holidays.

How many who have posted here, are mothers who are home when school finishes for the day and are with their children during the day for the school holidays?

saraharrow

I am here all day every day, holiday or otherwise. However when this first came up about my daughter I was working from 7am to 7pm 6 days a week with a 2 hour communte.
Maybe I should go back to work.
I personally think teachers should teach and I get very unhappy when in geography their teacher tells them that Tony Blair is a great prime minister. Still trying to work out the relevance.
Teachers should spend more time in teaching subjects and less time brainwashing the children with their personal opinions :-)
BTW the same teacher said it was perfectly acceptable for another child to cut my daughters hair in class, against her will because he was a boy.
When complaining to the Head about this I was told not to worry she really is a good teacher....

rio

In my opinion, schools especially primary schools are set up to cater for the 'average' student. Anyone above or below average ability can have a hard time. When my LO started primary last year we had to fill in a booklet stating what our child could and could not do. I filled in it truthfully, but my son's teacher told me that she felt that I was exaggerating his abilities particularly in Maths. Two terms on and we had to have a meeting with her and the head about his bad behaviour. I'm afraid I lost my rag and told them straight out that he was bored. Thankfully the head decided to look into this and got my son to do some informal tests at school. Guess what - he is exceptional for his age at maths and Art and already has a reading age of 7 (he is not quite 5). The school's attitude has completely changed thank goodness, and it does look likely that they will able to allocate money from their special needs budget to provide additional support for him. I feel lucky because he goes to a small village school that is well known for being caring and supportive of its students, but we endured two terms of hell with him being constantly in trouble, so it must be terrible for those who can't get school to see their childrens gifts.