We recently bought a house in another school district, but we are living in both until we decide what to do about schooling.

At my son's current school he is grade-skipped, subject-accelerated, and in the gifted program (which is integrated into his home classroom but allows for basic gifted needs to be met like curriculum compacting, differentiation, so on). The gifted program with a separate classroom begins next year in 3rd and is grouped by age with academics being one grade ahead and he would bussed to a non-neighborhood school. His current situation is just enough that he isn't bored, but he *LOVES* his teacher.

When the new school asked about his assessment information (cogAT, reading and math scores, classroom performance) they thought he should be immediately given another grade-skip (so a smallish 6.5yo will move into 3rd grade). He would also qualify as gifted and receive similar in-classroom accommodation, and then in 4th grade the gifted program in a separate classroom begins. This is a multi-age classroom (4-6th) at his neighborhood school where true differentiation happens out of necessity, so he could be learning with 12 year olds doing Junior High level work.

If he doesn't get academic challenge, he will underachieve and misbehave. So his intellectual needs have to be met, even if that means we have to homeschool.

I'm worried about the social aspects of schooling a child like this.

Even if he is in a separate gifted classroom, the lack of social peers will remain because statistically there just aren't other kids like him in a school of only 500 students, or even in a district of 10,000. He makes friends but the only time he has ever felt truly understood was when he met other local Davidson Young Scholars.

Also, because he is so small for his age, and yet talks with an educated adult vocabulary, he obviously sticks out and we have had problems with bullying by older kids who are insecure around him.

What has worked for your children?
Anyone successfully done a double grade-skip before 3rd grade?
What would you recommend for us? Advice?

It's so difficult to raise a child like this because they just don't fit in and they never will, and making the school system work for them is so difficult. It breaks my heart sometimes.

No experience with skipping a young child, but my son skipped 5th and 7th and so was 11 years old when he started 8th grade last year. He was accelerated in math by an additional year.

Socially things were ok but not great--mostly because he was in an ultra small school. He has since left the school (see below) and remains pretty good friends with one kid who is almost three years older than him. I believe this kid is MG.

From a cognitive standpoint, the only correct placement was math, and that we were doing at home anyway because he needed an honors level course, which the school didn't have.

From an executive skills standpoint, it was occasionally too much--though not always--and I don't know if it was also too much for the other kids as well.

We decided to go back to homeschooling as the lack of academic challenge was actually painful for him. At home he is using a combination of high school and college materials, and I am able to tailor the output expectations to his needs.

I honestly think that we would have had to do at least one more skip and possibly two to get something approaching an appropriate academic challenge. In a few years that sort of acceleration might make sense as his executive skills will be further along and there will be less social awkwardness stemming from being a prepubescent child in a class with kids on the other side of that.

We homeschooled K-4 and we were fortunate to have a homeschool "school" locally where there was a great cohort of gifted kids my son's age. If you can find something like that, homeschooling might be your best option.

Honestly no-one I know has ever been allowed to do one skip let alone two. In fact according to ds7 the gifted kid who was allowed to go up despite missing the cut off at another school and then was homeschooled was forced to repeat a year when starting at my son's school. I must check that.

It depends on the kid really. He may find he relates with the kids 2 years older better or he may find it too stressful in PE etc. Is there anyway that until he gets used to a new school he could do subject acceleration instead? I do think not having to bus to another school for the gifted programme is good but since NZ doesn't have gifted programming I don't know how much of a problem that is.

We grade skipped DD from grade 2 into 3 but academically it should have been to grade 4. We tried lateral extension to supplement including a third language and piano which were both pull out and ballet and art after school. None of it made up for a lack of stimulation in the class for hours each day. Her next move was a full time gifted class for grade 5 which was highly successful but we are now doing a second grade skip at 13 into year 11.

I wish we had done the second grade skip earlier. We considered it from grade 6 to 7 at age 9 but like you worried over the social side. I think we have lost a lot of time.

The skip itself may not generate peers because there still may be no one like your child but at least he will have the satisfaction of stimulation and challenge and working with kids at a similar level of academic achievement. If it doesn't work you will need to seek another solution like homeschooling etc.

Leaving our DD unstimulated didn't help her make friends, it just made her depressed, stop reading and stop participating. She has friends now and in the grade to which she will skip.

We homeschooled kindergarten and then double-skipped DD6 into the end of the third grade year. Virtual schooling, though-- so it wasn't as though the classroom executive demands took that same jump-- they did not. Well, not at that point, anyway-- later, the executive demand jumped even MORE than is typical. We also placed DD in GT coursework with that older cohort (mostly near-MG and MG).

See above, though it was NOT enough-- by the time DD was 7, we did it again by compacting 4th-5th into one year. And more or less again when she was 13, though we should have done it again at 12, maybe 11. DD15 is in college now. It's a balancing act between executive and output demands, and their cognitive need for higher/deeper material. I'll also note that "higher" =/= "deeper" necessarily, either. Secondary curriculum in N. America leaves a lot to be desired there at the moment, making acceleration in some respects a thing that makes the fit WORSE rather than better. I hate to say that, but in our experience, 8th through 11th grade coursework was a bust.


Well, I think that the thing to know most critically is that NO "school" setting is really intended for a child like this, and that "good" placements are largely: a) temporary at best, b) a matter of "good enough" or maybe even "least-worst" options, and c) a matter of a lot of behind-the-scenes advocacy on an ongoing basis.


As noted, this is half the battle, knowing that.

I found an old copy of the Iowa Acceleration Scale online and filled it out. It states that "acceleration is recommended."

So, regardless of what school he attends to finish the year, it seems like a double grade-skip is objectively recommended. I just have to get my heart around that and be OK with it.

Unusual is still okay.

Not sure if you mean a double skip all at once, or a second skip after one has already occurred. Our first was early entered, skipped once (skipped fourth grade), and now is homeschooled, with a nominal grade for reporting purposes only. It doesn't seem to have been a source of difficulty socially or with regard to work skills, and probably was inadequate academically both times, especially in math, but was sufficiently within range, when combined with positive social experiences, to be net successful. We did have the advantage of excellent fine motor skills and advanced social skills. Also teachers in tiny private schools who chose to make allowances for age-appropriate executive functions, and enjoy cognitive/academic strengths.

DS12 skipped kindergarten and then sixth grade, but I wish we'd done the second skip earlier. I think he would be in a better place with some things if we had.

DS8 has been entered early, though with a fall birthday, so he is currently the youngest in his third grade classroom only by weeks. The psych who tested him has recommended a second acceleration into fourth or, alternatively, have him skip fourth and enter fifth grade (first grade of middle school and first congregated gifted classroom) next year. He is tall for his age and has good fine motor skills but is anxious and socially awkward. So, we're of two minds, just like you.
He has been allowed to take part in fourth grade math class since after Halloween vac, the school psych (who does not know him yet) is scheduled to observe him next week and we will have the big conference about how to proceed before Christmas.

I had a couple more thoughts but they seem to have disappeared, so here we go again:
The gifted program in your new district (4th to 6th grade combined classroom) sounds very interesting. In such a setting, it sounds like it would be feasible to correct for grade, so whatever you decide for this year would not be set in stone. Can you meet with families who are currently in the program, find out what type if kid it serves, what experiences they have had with accelerated children and what happens in 7th grade?

In addition to all the great points about a child's readiness and ability to handle the double skip, I think a successful double skip relies heavily on the school environment. If the school is very diverse (for lack of a better word) in their tracking and class placement, then it will be socially easier on the child than if the school is very rigid. While the socially part might not be an issue in the lower elementary grades, I think there are some significant challenges with it in middle and high school.

We didn't do an official double-grade skip, but DS10 now in 6th skipped 1st grade and then switched to a FT GT program that worked ahead at least a year, so an effective grade skip. First of all, you sound like you have some very decent options in both districts --they actually have GT programs and seem to understand where kids need to be placed. This is rare.

Maybe I'm doing the math wrong, but it seems like your son will be about the same age as mine if you do the double-skip. My son is also smaller for his age. In elementary, he was not quite up to grade level in physical education, but that was not a huge problem. Now he seems to be getting a bit more coordinated and can hold his own in the rec sports at his 6th grade, like soccer/ultimate frisbee. The current school is new and has no GT program, but they are flexible so that he's now subject accelerated in math to Algebra. He seems to get along fine with all the kids in the different grades, though I think he would prefer if all the kids were his age. But since that can't really happen at his current school, all in all things are pretty good. There is a lot more project-based work at this school so DS10 can do work at his level, which makes up for the lack of GT program.

I am sorry your kiddo has had troubles with bullying by older kids. Does the new school seem to have a better environment or a program to deal with this?

I suppose my DS also effectively double skipped, having skipped second to go into a full time gifted program.

On the social realm, he fits in fairly well with his class. However, he had a chance to hang out with some gifted kids three years older a bit ago and they had the best time, totally fired him up. Until you see your kid amongst peers, it's hard to see what's missing.

Agreed.

THIS. I was so grateful for this nugget of wisdom when I was deciding to take DD6 out of school recently. Saved me from wondering if I was just being Perpetually Dissatisfied Lady.

I would, and I have. My 7 year old is very easy going, social and makes friends fast. He is also very tall for his age, so he will not stand out physically in a grade skipped class. For the most part, we have seen him thriving in an environment where there are peers who have abilities similar to him.

But, we have had 2 problems. One was when he easily surpassed some other older boys in his gifted group who had been in that program for 3 years (DS was a newbie). He was physically bullied because of that, his things taken from him etc. DS is very adept at self defense and he can face up to a moderate amount of bullying normally. But, being bullied by a bunch of older boys aggressively and unexpectedly was too much for him to handle and left him in tears. The matter got resolved very quickly as soon as the teachers found out about it. But, DS who is very Pollyannaish about all the students he interacts with got a rude wake up call.
The other problem is that the preteen boys in his class discuss a lot of topics that are very sexual in nature during breaks etc. This has mostly been beyond DS's comprehension so far, but we are expecting that he will begin to catch on to it soon. We don't know yet how to deal with this.

In this old thread and others, several parents mentioned finding age-appropriate books and helping their children learn about sexual matters, bodily changes, and vocabulary (scientific and slang) at home before they learn it at school.