My 5 year old Kindergartener tested in the gifted range (142 on WPPSI IV). He is quite advanced in reading, logic and math. He reads at the level of a 3rd grader and does Math at the level of a 2nd/3rd grader without much help at home. His Montessori classroom teacher whom we deeply respect and adore is advocating private schooling for 1st grade and beyond as she thinks the small classroom size will give him extra attention and care given that he is emotionally very sensitive and does not readily socialize.
We started making inquiries with some top private schools in Main Line near Philadephia. But we learned that none offers gifted education or accelerated instruction in the lower school. There seem to be many options for accelerating in the middle and a rich variety of AP courses in the upper school. The schools have a rich curriculum and a record of producing academic achievers. They claim that they focus on "all-rounded" education in the lower years (including arts, athletics, etc.) but I am concerned about not challenging my child enough in the lower school years, especially in math. We are debating if we should instead try the gifted programs in some of the top public schools in the area.
Have you had experience with educating a gifted child in a top private school (esp lower school) with a curriculum common to the student pool? How would you compare gifted public education with the "all-rounded" education at private schools?
Thanks!
What I suggest is to find a school with energetic and motivated teachers. Teachers are what makes a day in school count for my son rather than the school policies. If a teacher has the energy and motivation to help your child, they will find a way to include content that challenges your child at his level. If you advocated and got provisions for differentiation, it is entirely upto the teacher how it is implemented. We tried the "top public" school with sky high standardized testing scores and found out that the teachers thought that my son got "enough" academic rigor already, were unwilling to teach advanced content, were focused on classroom management issues, were not motivated to go above and beyond the textbook content, were lackluster about implementing differentiation. You may be lucky and have a better experience at your local public schools, but anecdotally, what I experienced is the norm in my area.
In our case, we found the motivated teachers in a private school setting. He is in a school where he can walk into a teacher's room and ask questions and they will be answered. My son is a curious kid with tons of questions that go beyond the scope of a lesson plan. He is uniformly curious in all subjects and his interest is not limited to certain subjects. The teachers at his school are subject matter experts and have domain knowledge to go deep into topics. That is what made the difference for my son. Except in math, most other subjects are hard to quantify when it comes to difficulty - for example, a child can learn a lot about plant cells from a botany major and a lot about European History from a teacher who is a history major even in 2nd grade. Those things become a possibility in a private elementary school setting. So, focus more on the teachers and look them up on linkedin, shadow their classrooms, ask about their philosophy of teaching etc. Just spend a little time on researching the schools before you make a decision.
