Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Was gifted private school helpful?

We have just started gifted private school for our DS (so far so good).

For folks who have done gifted private school was it helpful? Not helpful? Just curious ...

It all depends on the school.

My eldest went to a small school that was run by a HG+ person. The school was aimed at gifted kids, but didn't restrict itself to them. It was very small and very flexible, and we only left because he sold it to a person who told him she wouldn't change it --- and then changed it. She destroyed it and more than half the families left. It was awful. But before that, it was superb.

In my meandering experience, smaller schools are more flexible, as are schools that are run by gifted people.

The thing about schools for gifted kids is that most of them (not all!) define gifted in a relatively broad way (e.g. IQ cutoff of 125). The schools are facing a reality, which is that restricting themselves to HG+ kids would limit them to <1% of kids. This model might not be sustainable outside of a large urban area.

So this means that there are a lot of gifted schools that may be great for kids with IQs in the 95th-99th percentile range, but decreasingly so as ability levels go farther past the 99th percentile. I've read a number of posts on this forum from people saying things along the lines of "even the local school for gifted kids couldn't do anything for our child."

In all honesty, and this a bit OT, I think that giftedness and levels of giftedness are very poorly understood right now, which contributes to the problem. Ruf's book is anecdotal, and I haven't seen a really good publication that digs deep and tries to characterize gifted people.

Very.

But, there's probably more variation amongst private schools than amongst public schools. I agree with Val that a rare child is still rare, however you are increasing the odds of finding peers (or even kids who are brighter than your kids!!). People with children whose needs are accommodated just fine by the public schools don't just decide to spend a fortune on private school. And the further from average the kids IQ is, the more need for an expensive solution.

The advantage of private is that they have to answer your questions. They can't just ignore you when you ask how many kids of IQ fifty kajillion do they have in each age group, and how do they handle them.

Hear, hear! Our DD went to a small private school, and while things weren't perfect, they knew we were the customer and always listened to us. This school was not specifically aimed at gifted kids, but it was certainly gifted friendly and very open to acceleration options, and this type of flexibility was priceless for our DDs elementary years.

--S.F.

It really depends on the school. No two are alike. And no two kids have exactly the same needs. There are two gifted private schools near us. One is best described as letting everyone skip a grade or two, then teaching them the same way as other schools. In another the kids spend most of the day planning their work, learning to work in a team, managing time, managing their portfolio, doing community service, etc. etc. but there is very little actual academics.

In theory we could replicate what the private school provides. In practice ... no way. As others have mentioned finding peers is pretty difficult but at school we have a ready made class of peers. I'm not sure how gifted the kids are (including my own) but DS4 seems very happy and stimulated.