Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Any one just decided to not advocate

ds6 has an early may birthday. In our school in NZ that means he does 7 terms {there are 4 a year} in year one before progressing on to year 2 [ds8 only did 3}. They are almost completely rigid about this and shot me down when I asked them to put him up to year 2 at the end of last year.

So he is going into year 2 at the same level as the more advanced kids leave year 2.

I went to speak to the assistant principal in charge of the junior school yesterday and got;

1/ His comprehension isn't as good and he shouldn't have been allowed to go to the level his teacher has him on. This was coupled with a story about he daughter hating reading because she was given books she could read not understand.
2/ His maths and writing are not as good as his reading. This is true but I am not suggesting he go to year 4 just to go to year 3 with the kids 5 weeks older who in the most part are at a lower level. Or does she think he has to be at the top of the class if he goes up?
3/ Socially he is immature. True but he isn't going to get more mature if he has no older kids to model himself on.
4/ There are a lot of very bright kids in his year. True he is only on the ninety nine point eighth percentile there will be other bright kids just not many and our school has more than most.

It isn't that what she said was untrue just not very relevant to whether my son will be adequately challenged when all the kids he works with go up and he doesn't.

But he is not unhappy and he may get a good teacher although probably not one prepared to buck the system. I can challenge him at home and he likes the social aspects of school. Also while I can't imagine ds8 being a year back some extra time on writing may have helped and the highest performers in the class are the older gifted children. This means they have more opportunities offered and have more chance of testing into the few extension programmes offered. The intermediate extension class is being disbanded before they get there but there is still some options available in high school.

I just don't have the energy to push the issue and I don't want to have to move both kids because I have upset too many people.

Thanks for reading.

Any advice or experience?

There are certainly times I have felt exhausted by advocating and have stepped back and taken time to rethink, regroup, reenergize. It is a process, not one event, not a few meetings, the occasional phone call and email. Advocating is generally long term so you have to pick your battles and plan your moments or you will run out of puff.

It is nearly the end of the year. Everyone is tired, including you and your DS. Then there will be 6 weeks of growth before the next school year. Watch your child over summer in a more relaxed environment. Enjoy each other's company and when the new year starts and you know where he is at developmentally and what teacher you will be dealing with, make a renewed plan. It's not giving up, it's taking a break and developing a new vision.

I feel for you. I know how it feels to be battered by the system. I particularly dislike teacher's using personal idiosyncratic anecdotes which are usually irrelevant to your child's circumstances but personal bias is very common. If it helps, it is only now at the near end of the journey, that I can see the value of the agony and the tears we have had over the years. I was told yesterday about a number of new students at my DD's school for next year being allowed to accelerate without jumping through all kinds of hoops and obstacles that we faced. DDs success in accelerating has been a big part in changing people's opinions.

You may never know the difference you make to your child, or even other children.

hugs - I don't know what you should do but I tend to think it's best to solve today's problem today, so if DD6 is happy then I wouldn't feel bad about leaving it. I'm sure you provide a very enriching environment for him to grow at home. Have you looked at Explorer's club for the boys? I think it's about $75 annually.

I have dealt with this and my feeling is that you are not going to get anywhere. Even if you somehow get him to cave, he is going to make sure that he is proven right, and look for all the negatives. When he starts crying in school it will be, "See, I told you he was too immature and you wouldn't listen." (rather than trying to help solve the problem) KWIM? We had the option of switching schools and getting into a better environment, which solved our problem, but that's not an option for everyone, so you may have to just make the best of it.

That is what I am afraid of. In the unlikely event i got them to agree every time something went wrong it would be because he is too young. He is a difficult child at times with a low frustration threshold which makes him seem immature but is probably not. It worries me though that he may be near the top of his class all the time as if things come too easily he is likely to stop taking risks.

I will take the advice to see what happens after the summer thanks you are right.

There isn't an explorers club in Nelson or much else really. I am finding inexpensive groups plus sports and I run a science club every couple of weeks for my boys and two friends.

I feel a bit selfish too because part of the reason i would like him to go to year 3 is he would be out of the junior school and the teacher in charge of the middle school {years 3 and 4} is a lot easier to talk to and the idea of dealing with the junior school busywork homework for another year is dreadful.

Thanks for your help.

I didn't really advocate for my DS in his younger grades. Although I did try and get a good relationship with his teachers. As I had an older child I new how much the school was going to accommodate him and the answer was not much. I looked into private schools and decided to keep him in the public school and wait it out till the districts gifted program kicked in at 4th grade. Which was a BIG jump and supposedly the best the area had to offer for gifted elementary education.

His teachers did realize that he was reading WAY above the other kids. But he wasn't the only one in my school. He was one of 4 out of 60 kids who could read like he did. And all but his 2nd grade teachers did try and be accommodating when they could. It wasn't a grade skip or a different class but his school did form "gifted clusters" for 1st-3rd and did a lot of small group work for reading & math in those grades.

I don't really regret what I did for K-3rd grade. What I do regret was putting DS in the intense gifted program the district had to offer for 4th-6th as it turned out not to be a great fit.

This kind of thing may happen no matter what you do as parents, by the way.

I've decided that it comes with the territory of having a PG child. Whatever you do, rest assured that Monday morning quarterbacking will make it out to be profoundly wrong. Sometimes this occurs on a level which is downright crazy, to be perfectly honest. I mean, if your child is robbed or their academic program disappears under them, being emotionally upset would be pretty normal at either 15 or at 21-- but you can be sure that them being 15 will be a thing for some people anyway.

It makes me wonder what it's about for those people who aren't accelerated-- because they don't have that handy excuse of "immaturity" to blame for every thing that doesn't look just like Pleasantville or Stepford. I've often wanted to ask what they would blame instead-- though I don't have sufficient cheek in the moment, I fear.

~Mom to a successful and accelerated college student.

I don't know. In a couple weeks we have a meeting with the g/t coordinator, principal, DS's IEP manager (and the IEP is NOT for giftedness), and DS's current 6th grade math teacher (he's in third grade) to figure out what DS is going to do for math next year. He has pretty much topped out the material at the school. DS is NOT perfect and he's NOT mature like a 6th grader by any means. He can barely write and probably acts like a goof ball during his math class. So it will be fascinating to see what people say in this meeting. People either "get it" or they don't, and I discovered long ago it's very difficult to get people to see the light or change their minds. So far I haven't heard anything from the math teacher like "What the **** is he doing here?" and she hasn't complained about him, so we'll see. I think that as long as the school sees the goal as learning rather than work production or achievement, they tend to be more open and flexible.

At that age, yeah, I just decided not to advocate. But DD went straight into year 1, thank goodness her birthday meant none of that year 0 business School was new enough an experience, she sort of liked just doing 'stuff' at that age, playing with friends was fun, and it wasn't until about year 3, year 4, that she was undeniably extremely ahead of everyone else. And it seems to be around age 9 (year 5) that both my kids eventually realize that school is too slow/boring. Before that, they love it!
Having said that, I WISH we'd skipped year 2. They say the earlier you skip, the better, and year 2 teachers always seem bad, why is that? But the Catch-22 is that at that age, DD was only about a year ahead of the standards, I would have been laughed out of the office if I'd asked for a skip. Even now (year 4) that she's crept up to be around 4 years ahead, school is only slightly less dubious about skipping. Perhaps in another couple of years when she's 6 years ahead, they'll consider it!
I honestly think schools only talk in their language, which is achievement testing in literacy and numeracy. Until those PATs start to look alarming, the school has no idea about or interest in what you mean by 99.8th percentile

My 8 year old goes into year 5 next year so we will see. I think it was about form 1 [year 7] that I realised that not only was school horrible but it wasn't teaching me much either. I left as soon as I turned 15 - ten years torture was enough. Year two was a waste of time for ds8 who went straight into year 1 so I can't see it being much use to ds6 who did 3 terms in year zero. He is not as advanced as he could be in maths but he is better at word problems so I suspect he will do better when it becomes more abstract. He knows his facts but they are not his favourite thing and when he gets bored he guesses or answers wrong on purpose.