Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Advocating for change at school (LONG)

so here is the LONG story - DS4 is at a private school for "high potential" learners. When we found the school and met the principal/teachers, he was 2 and a half and the principal was so excited to meet him and confirmed that they would have to create an entirely personalised and individualised curriculum/program for him.

He had to visit for a week and was assessed before being offered a place. He started there Jan 2010, when he was just over 3 years old. By then he was already reading early readers, doing basic addition and subtraction and so forth.

Well, here we are - 18 months later, and we are still having issues.

There are definite gaps between what he does at school and what he does at home - in maths, language, computers, reading...

In the last teacher meeting (15 minutes to see his books and discuss the issues) the following issues were laid out:
1. perfectionism(we are aware of this) which often causes
2. slow work: he has 3 - 4 tasks to get through each day, and on a good day will get through 2. (when I tested this at home he did all 4 tasks each within 15 minutes and enjoyed everything I set for him - at his level)
3. He does not like to colour in ( maybe because he has to do it every single day)
4. He does not do puzzles. ( I told her he stopped puzzles at 2.5 and was doing 50 - 75 pieces and prefers mazes)
5. He has weak fine motor skills (really? but he can write letters to people, type on the PC and more... he just does not enjoy endless colouring and cutting and glueing)

She also said that he is reading at the correct level now (no he is not), and that I must continue with his maths at home because she knows how he LOVES maths. (why can't they do some maths with him at school??) Also, apparently now some of the other kids are closer to his level of work.

I have vacillated between wanting to speak to the teachers and leaving it because he is so young (the youngest in the class) and because maybe at this age I should still be more concerned with him enjoying play time and figuring out the whole school thing. BUT on the other hand I know him and I know that he has never been challenged at the level that he is actually at. Recently we even started seeing depression signs.

And how do I know this?
- he rarely tells me about his work. Mostly about play time,the things he loves to do (library, baking) and about the things he does that are new and interesting (mostly fact learning for the thematic work they do)
- He started refusing to do anything at home maths, writing, reading, science...)
- he stopped asking questions at home ( he tells me frequently that the teachers forget to answer his questions)
- he asks to stay home often
- he tells me its more fun to play "school" at home than it is to be at school

Currently he is happier than he has been in ages - he started Violin two weeks ago and is like a new kid again. literally within 24 hours of his first class he started asking questions again, jumped two reading levels at school, suddenly brought me reading and maths again, became polite, chilled and patient. and his teacher and extra curricular teachers are all raving because suddenly he is no longer shy and quiet but is talkative, outgoing, cheerful etc. He says he likes school and that he has fun mostly...

He will go into Grade 0 (K) in January but has to be able to do all 4 tasks by then. And I know that the teacher next year is awesome and amazing, but can I really wait another 6 months for this in the hope that it will right itself?

My direct concerns are:
1. the discrepancy between home and school work levels (Maths, reading, writing, computers, science)
2. that he is not encouraged to work at his ability level. It's all "if you want to" and "maybe you could"
3. with everything I have learnt about giftedness, how is it possible that kids are catching up to him unless either the others were switched off until now or I hothoused him before he started at the school? (which I KNOW I never did)

Surely since its a gifted school there should be more understanding of the different levels of giftedness and more intuition for how each child works and learns best?

Chatting to the mom of the kid in class closest to his ability (who is a year older and his best friend) she has suggested I request a formal meeting (her son is higher up in the school so she knows the best processes) and ask for changes now while he is still happy. Even she says that she is stumped how suddenly her daughter is ahead of Aiden in reading at school, and why they are still not being given actual maths to do etc. She is also stunned that they suggest the others are catching up since she is convinced he is at least a level 4 on Ruff's LOG's. She knows her DD is a level 2 from a distance assessment by Ruff.

So how would you approach this? Should I leave it as he is still so young? Should he be only playing now and so on? (even at that costly price tag?) What would you say to the teachers and how would you approach it?

I just want him to be always this happy with life and esp with his learning environment - it's why we pay such an exorbitant amount to keep him there. NExt year our next child will start there and I am also concerned that we will have the same issue, although so far he does not try and hide his abilities nearly as much.

Please help me I am all muddled up here!

I'm no expert but... from my own experience as a child, what you describe is not good. Trust your instincts, something needs changing.

Schools, gifted or otherwise, vary in how much they present and how much they let the kid choose what to do next. Kids also vary in which environment is best for them, and that could change from year to year. Here's a theory: they are presenting him with a mildly/moderately gifted environment and assuming that he will ask for more if he wants it. (Worse, they may be waiting for him to prove he can do puzzles before going on.) Instead, he's waiting for them to offer a few tidbits of something interesting. He may also be disappointed by not finding peers in the class. So he's trying to do what's expected of him - stay at a lower level in reading, do cutting and pasting - but his heart isn't in it.

In our school search this spring we bypassed schools promising academic excellence for hard workers, but also skipped two schools offering to let the kids set their own pace. I think it takes some maturity and some experience with working at least moderately hard for a kid to understand what their own pace is. Right now he doesn't know that school *could* be less boring.

Definitely have that meeting and ask for changes now. Maybe...be sure you know what level you want his 4 tasks to be at, and ask them to just try a week at that level. Maybe he needs a full skip up to K now? If there's room, maybe you could try a visit to that class? He's been in pre-K for a year and a half now! He may feel he's been there and done that.

He should be playing at this age! And for him, working at his level is part of playing. Work below that is busywork, and he definitely doesn't need to learn that skill yet. ;P

thank you both for your input.

The teachers are really lovely - all the pre school teachers are parents of gifted children who attend the school too, and they really are interested in each child personally. You can see it in the way they are with the kids. I just think that they are either unaware of his actual ability, or that they are too busy with the regular classwork to plan for him individually. Either way it has to change.

We have decided to speak to his teacher and the pre school head, who will also be his teacher next year for Grade 0 (K).

Before we do that we will do the Ruff online assessment so that we can take the results to them to show that we are not pushy parents etc, but that we are actually just trying to help him find and understand himself and to have fun while doing this.

we will definitely ask them to increase the level of his tasks for 2 weeks to see if there is a difference in his desire to complete the work and his excitement in doing so.

we will also point out the change in emotions that has come from changes we made, and that we need this to continue at school as well.

I will also tell them that they need to introduce new learning concepts to him more regularly - not just new trivia

The reading I have two trains of thought on... On one hand I am happy with how they are doing it. I understand the way they work and the system they are using (DRA). It increases comprehension at the same time, so it seems to go a bit slower - and it is already working. On the other hand, we know he is still hiding ability at home and school.

thanks again - i will keep you updated as we go along