Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Starting the conversation about a grade skip...

DH and I are visiting a Montessori school on Monday. DS is currently in school at a different Montessori school in a primary (ages 3-6) classroom.

We would like to ask that DS be placed in the "elementary" (ages 6-9) classroom at the new school. (Essentially, he would be skipping his kindergarten year.) It's only February, and as far as we can tell, he's "outgrown" the primary materials. I can't imagine keeping him in the same room for another year.

Any suggestions on how to begin the conversation. We have some testing (KBIT-2 and KTEA brief form), I've been compiling some work samples, and we have school "report cards."

Thanks for any advice you can provide!

I totally agree with master of none. You're asking to skip the last year of Childrens' House and go up to Lower Elementary, right? So in our experience it would depend completely on the philosophy of the administration, and the result if the request was granted would depend completely on the fit with the particular teacher...which so far in our experience is literally a coin flip (okay, figuratively--but a 50/50 proposition). IMO your best shot at success would be to explain why you want this, why you're trying to leave the old school, and what you think your kid needs. If they're not on board with all of that, it is probably unlikely to be a good fit, which again in our experience is all that really matters. So I would speak frankly about all of this and see what they say (and of course politely--not burning bridges with the old place, especially since from a practical standpoint they probably know each other to some extent). And be prepared to find another option if they are not enthusiastic. Another complication of course is that in some areas it is a seller's market, so there is always a temptation in that case to gloss over some issues that might arise, but in the long run (if you have other options, of course) I think it is best to not try to force a fit where there isn't one. Good luck!

Thanks master of none and Dbat.

Thankfully we have some options.

1. Keep him at his current Montessori school. This school ends with the primary (Kindergarten) year, so we would need to find a new school for first grade.

2. Move him to another Montessori school that includes the elementary years. Ideally we would place him in the elementary (1st-3rd grade room) but we might even switch if we had assurances that materials could be brought in, the teacher had a sense of "what comes next" etc.

3. Public school. He'd definitely need differentiation. I'm pretty confident the school could handle reading differentiation within the classroom, but I'd want to ask for a move to another classroom for math. Unfortunately, in our state, by law, children must be 5 by September 1 to enter Kindergarten, so early entrance was not an option.

When we are learning something new at home, he gets so excited, I would just like to have a bit of that with his school!