Editing for length since my first post didn't get any replies.
In this forum, the first post of a new member takes quite a while to appear, so the delay before responses was more likely to be due to this reason, than to the length of your post.
Despite clearly having the ability, she is starting to present as frustrated and disconnected about school. She has started to be really resistant to doing schoolwork in class in a timely manner, and earlier this year was outright refusing to do math practice. Bizarrely, we found out that she has not been reading the assigned book for her class book club - despite the fact that she reads for 2-3 hours a day for pleasure at home. We've tried to raise the issue with her at home about her resistance/motivation levels, but she gets frustrated and can't really explain to us what's going on. I really don't want to push her too hard, but I do want her to be happy and fulfilled at school. I don't want the situation at school to get to the point where she checks out or loses confidence.
She clearly appears bored by the level of class work set for her.
Unfortunately, all too often, gifted kids risk falling into catch22 situations - schools won’t provide extension materials unless they excel at class room task assessments and the child doesn’t engage in the standard tasks because they are far below their capabilities. Hence, as parents, we face conflict between encouraging the child to ‘prove’ their eligibility for enrichment programs or support the child on their independent personal learning journey.
IME, if the child is still engaged in learning, the more effective strategies have been various ways of the latter. In practice, this includes supplying outside resources (books, software programs etc) that the child considers useful and giving them permission not to complete tasks well below their level (I’ve attended parent teacher interviews specifically to make my position clear that I would not enforce tasks that have no learning value for the child).
There are some ways to achieve both objectives at the same time - for example with math practice sheets, the child could complete different sheets with different number systems - Roman numerals, binary, or a different base (perhaps even design single symbols to represent a base with two digit numbers to creatively stretch mathematical thinking beyond the practical use of human anatomy). This transforms pointless, otherwise repetitive, exercises into interesting challenges and also provides demonstrations of the child’s superior capabilities. If the school still refuses to recognise and accommodate the child’s needs, at that point it becomes clear that the parent is the child’s main ally and both are better off exploring alternative resources.
