Things have already devolved to being rather tense with the preschool. I am guessing they are as glad DD is finished as she and I are. I am trying to find a way to compliment what was great, and that is the part of the letter already written, but I honestly feel that they need to start looking for giftedness along with all the other developmental issues they are watching for, given the apparent prevalence in the school community. And they need to cater for it, either through willness to accelerate or through developmental play that is actually developmental for advanced children.
I am concerned about not burning my bridges, but I am equally concerned that the preschool that feeds into the school is turning off the parents of bright & gifted kids. I have started hearing about the kids that have been pulled out because it wasn't challenging or engaging enough. If we did not have an older DD already in the school and thus have the experience of good differentiation in the school then we would have been long gone too...If parents just keep leaving and nobody speaks up and points out the problem then the pool of similar children for my kids to go through school with will shrink.
On the other hand depending on how things go over the next 6 months we may have given up on school and started homeschooling before DD#3 ever becomes an issue.
The environment is really wonderful in many ways. If I could spend 3 mornings a week there with my 16 month old she would be like a pig in mud. At 3.5 yrs the 3 yr old room was really pretty fun for my DD to go without an adult by her side. But it's just too ceiling-ed for a gifted 5 yr old and they are SO aghast at the idea of accelerating a child because children should be children and play for as long as possible, etc. The preschool is deeply deeply entrenched in what is age appropriate for a 4-5yr old.
If DDs friends had not all been moved to school and left her behind, if the play had been developmentally appropriate, rather than age appropriate, as per Grinity's dream school, then DD would have been SO happy to stay on at preschool. But that is not the case. She made friends with children 6 months older rather than 6 months younger than herself, felt as ready as they were to start school and then watched them all leave her behind with no friends in an environment she had exhausted her interest in. It's a weird and difficult system having two intakes per year, and she unfortunately falls into being one of the eldest of her intake rather than one of the youngest...
A friend with a DD a year younger than ours has learned from our experience and tested earlier in order to have better chance of organising acceleration or changing schools in time. And has met the exact same response we did. "Don't rush their childhood" and "Oh look at this wonderful social activity from today!" - without ever acknowledging that our children's needs are not being met and that by staying on for the extra 6 months their social needs are not being met either. We go in trying to talk about our child's developmental needs and get met with a social story, one told as if we had just come to them deeply concerned about our child's social development, which neither of us are.
Being a private school they strictly and absolutely limit places in the classes, class size being one of their selling points, and the first year of school class is always full. This makes it very difficult to move a child at the last minute, which is one of the many arguments for either knowing which children need acceleration well in advance or offering them truly developmental play if they are not going to engage in routine acceleration. At the moment they are regularly missing gifted kids and messing up the transition to school (or loosing them all together), which is why I want to write a letter.
Sorry for waffling.
DD is SO excited to finally be going off to school, I so hope it works out for her.
Last edited by MumOfThree; 07/19/11 07:05 AM.
