Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Advice on talking to 5yo's school?

Hi all,
I've made a few posts but I don't think I've really introduced myself. Now I'm wondering how to approach our first meeting with DS-just-turned-5's teacher, and could do with bouncing ideas off people who have BTDT, so probably I'd better.

We've done no testing so far, and I'd rather not unless there's a clear reason for it, but DS taught himself to read aged 2 and showed most of the cognitive classic early GT signs, from everyone saying "ooh, isn't he alert!" onwards. However, as regards motor development he's always been pretty average, and he was very late to start talking (but since he started, he's hardly stopped :-)

He started school in September. He's in P1, the normal year for his chronological age, but because of his birth date is one of the youngest. I estimate his reading age is now around 10y. His teacher, who seems lovely, picked this up immediately and e.g. exempted him from the early reading homework the others were doing. He's been bringing home books with a reading age of 8/9; they are very easy for him, but most hold some interest and he is happy to read and discuss them. I would like reassurance that his teacher *knows* they are easy for him to read, but provided she does, I'm happy with that side of things. Maths I'm more concerned about, even though he's less far ahead. He has once said "maths is boring, I have to do the same thing every day"; it seems that most of what they've done in the first half-term is about recognising and ordering numbers 1-20. (I am a bit concerned that in half a term with a small class, it was not found out that this was something he had mastered long ago.) DS had homework involving number cards to order the other day, and having done the specified task once, opined that playing a division sum game with the cards would be more fun. So we did that instead, and I seized the opportunity to write a note saying so in his homework book. He reported the next day that his teacher had asked him to do lots of sums on the whiteboard for her (good!) but that he'd got most of them wrong (not so good!) I may be borrowing trouble - maybe his teacher deliberately went above where he can get them right just to see what he can do - but he does have a "just guess a number" mode, and if he went into that, there may be a danger that she didn't see at all what he can do and that I'm labelled a pushy parent to boot... Which makes it quite hard to know how to approach them. The upcoming meeting will be an informal social thing, so not an opportunity for a real talk, but it will be a general opportunity to say that things are/are not going fine and hopefully to set up an individual meeting if necessary. I am really torn about what to say.

In favour of nodding, smiling and doing nothing: DS says he loves school. One of the reasons we picked this school is precisely that it doesn't push them hard academically in the early years, but has a wide variety of activities. He doesn't have a lot of homework, typically just reading (which is fine) and practising writing letters (which he needs). He does loads of mathematical and sciencey things at home, reads lots, etc. Although his writing is much improved - this is his major challenge area at school, and he's engaging with it well - I think it makes a grade-skip (even if we thought it would help) out of the question.

In favour of pushing, e.g., to be told exactly what differentiation they will do: DS's learning pattern is not typical. E.g. in maths, he took on board a huge number of concepts in a gulp a few weeks ago (he started school doing basic addition and subtraction, and has now gone through multiplication, division, place value, fractions and decimals, with a lot of geometry on the way) and is still digesting them. At this point, I think he doesn't look like a typical 5yo, because he obviously has concepts that a typical 5yo wouldn't be getting at all, but neither does he look like a child of the age where you would expect them to be doing those things [I realise I don't actually know what that age is] because by the time a child is interested in fractions etc. you wouldn't expect them ever to make errors in basic addition, would you? I'm not worried about this pattern as I've seen DS do it before, take a lot of things in all at once, be inaccurate for a while, and gradually sort it out. However, I'm concerned that his teacher, who may not have seen this before, may just take his inaccuracy as a sign that he's not ready to do those things and bore him to tears with 1 + 1.

Any thoughts?

(PS does everyone have that flashing envelope next to the My Stuff menu, even when there don't seem to be any unread messages or anything? Can one get rid of it?)

(i have a flashy envelope too that won't go)

I have gone with polite and willing to communicate. As she has recognised his reading then she seems interested. I would go into the meeting with no asummtions (hard i know) and just see what she says. He may not have got all the sums wrong but only focused on the ones he did IYKWIM.

I don't have much advice because i'm on the same path as you . So far i've come to realise that my DS is going to learn very little academically in school this year (except handwriting which like your son is age approapriate). This i find very annoying and i think it's dreadfully unfair too. So far he has learnt to skip count in 2s,3s,5s (on day 2 of the last 1/2 term) and that 1 shared by 4 is 1/4 and 1 shared by 2 is 1/2 (on friday last week). Other things he has done include memorising the order of the phonic sounds and which children have show and tell on which day Mon-Thurs (5/6 kids names per day) - so i know what he is doing for simulation .

I thought that you could benefit from these links:
http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/subjects/mathematics/keystage1/index.aspx
http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-st...=/key-stages-1-and-2/subjects/index.aspx
I'm not sure if the curriculm is any different where you are.

hope i've helped a little

Glad it's not just me with the flashing envelope :-) Thanks for the moral support, it does help.

A curiosity: DS5 hasn't done skip counting in school, that he's told me; I've shown him it, but he is not in the least interested. I wonder what it's for anyway. Eratosthenes' sieve I suppose... Maybe I'll tell him about that, come to think of it...

Those links are for the English national curriculum; Scotland has its own 5-14 guidelines, which are similar but not quite the same. However, the school doesn't strictly follow either (being private it doesn't have to). I should have said, it's sheer laziness on my part that I don't know when children are expected to do different things, I do know how to find out! (Well, efficiency maybe: I don't have a clear need to know.)

Ah, i didn't realise Scotland had different guidelines. I don't like looking on the guideline becuase i am seeing that my son already knows alot of the things he will be being *taught* in 1-2 years time.

My DS was taught skip counting by his nursery teacher during 'freeflow' time, so i was told. DS uses it occasionally for quick multiplication or to see how many cars he has in a traffic jam! the teacher showed him 2s and 5s (he could already do 10s) and hes worked out 3s (and 4s to 16).

We are waiting for then to test his reading again, then we are thinking of writing a letter of concern to the Head, so we can arrange a meeting - this way they have time to gather information etc and not be 'put on the spot'.

This seems to me to be REALLY good advice for anyone dealing with the schools.

I wish I'd gotten that advice from the start of this journey.

I agree with Kriston, this is just what I needed to hear, so thank you, master of none. DS's teacher does seem to be great from almost all interactions I've had with her.