Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments How critical is school selection?

My son maintains that he went to primary school for the games and sports and learnt nothing from the formal lessons provided in his six years there after his kindergarten year. Instead, he read up, and watched videos, on a wide range of maths and science topics at home and spent his time in class contemplating these concepts. His ceiling-bumping achievements across a range of statewide and nationwide assessments, as well as extracurricular maths and science competitions, back up his assertions (although he was reasonably fortunate to have encountered several teachers who recognised how much of an outlier he was and enabled him), so in this digital age, and with gifted and accomplished parents as mentors, the content offered at school may be less important than it was when we were at that stage.

Encouraging them to lead their own learning and providing access to good resources (books, e-books, online programs, educational outings) may, in the long term, be more beneficial than constantly campaigning for IEPs at school, as teachers often don’t tailor IEPs well (such as when my son lamented having to do maths worksheets one year ahead of his third grade cohort when he had already mastered the content three to four years ahead of his grade and just wanted to be left alone to ponder such questions as what a planar graph would look like if all rational coordinates were one colour and all other coordinates were another). Your concerns are understandable, but find ways to proactively support his self-development, rather than constantly worry about the level of delivery by the school.

ETA, after completing secondary studies at our local high school, where many students focus on trade apprenticeships, but teachers accommodated my son to use his laptop to learn at his own pace, he is now in his second year at Uni, studying advanced level subjects for his research and design engineering degree and absolutely thriving in an environment best suited to self directed learners. Recently, he called attention to an error in a question of a major exam, written by a professor who has achieved ministerial prizes, and someone had to be called in by the invigilator, to revise the question to make it viable.