Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Push for grade skip now, or wait?

Yup on the "good enough." I get lost in over-thinking. I'm not playing chess -- I don't have to try solving everything several moves ahead. (Speaking theoretically, 'cause I can't do it in chess, either.)

I had a nice conversation with a GT-ed specialist working with our school. She's going to explore the grade-skip, because that's what she thinks would be the best "initial" move, and then working with subject acceleration on top of that (keeping on-line math for now). It was a promising conversation... finally.

This conversation helped considerably.

(Please excuse the partial duplicate posting here... wanted to tie up the loose end I left here. When reading through all the archives, I hate getting to the end of a long discussion where the resolution is never posted.)

After a very productive meeting with the school this week, we've got a real plan!

The gist of the plan is that we will select one or two courses for DS to take in 5th grade classroom (to "test-drive the environment") and continue with on-line instruction -- IN CLASS! -- for Math & probably Language Arts. (School to pick up EPGY tab!!)

If things go well for the remainder of the 1st half of the year, he will be allowed to move to 5th full-time, while continuing any on-line work he is doing. The teacher & principal both agreed that the 5th grade is a terrific bunch of kids in every respect -- one of the best groups they've had in awhile.

We all came away with a common understanding that nothing is set in stone, and that flexibility is paramount in finding the best fit for DS.

What an unbelievable relief.

thats great news! flexability AND a great bunch of kids. Yippee!

Awesome Dandy!!!! It's such a breath of fresh air to have a supportive school - even when there are still molehills to climb over! So many parents of GT have to climb mountains instead!

Yeah!!!!

Wow, we just went through that as well. I had posted before about how DS5 told me on the second day of school that he asked the teacher for something harder and she printed out double and triple digit multiplication and addition, but she couldn't find addition. Well guess what? we went to his meeting yesterday and the teacher says that never happened and DS5 has never asked for harder work. I was shocked and then got really sad about it. My guess is he was imagining what he would have liked to do. That's really sad that he felt stuck and couldn't do it. We talked about a plan for him to put letters on the top of his page to indicate how he feels about work (like TE = too easy, TH = too hard, and GMM = give me more). That way he doesn't have to say it out loud and be disrespectful and stand out any more than he does. We will see how that works or if they use it. Hopefully so.

It's tough about skipping. DS5 skipped K, but since he is way above 2nd grade curriculum they still aren't sure what to do. His school only goes up to 2nd. So they are going to attempt that he does math and reading (and maybe even science hopefully) individually at his own pace. Not sure how long they will do this for and I feel another grade skip may have to happen...but I have been trying to avoid it if not necessary because while it brings him a little closer, he still has to work individually.

Oops, just read your latest post. Sounds like a great plan!

Shellym i love ur system ..th.te.gmm great idea for all students actually.

OK, Grinity, I thought this was some more of your creative spelling and it was just beyond me! I searched back to find Shellymos's post, and I agree with you - what a great idea. I'm going to steal it for our conference meeting....

I like it as well! We're to meet back in about 4 weeks to discuss DS's progress in 1st. And hopefully I can get him to indicate how the work is with this!