Hello,
I'm new to posting but have been reading a lot. I'm from Australia and enjoy your website.

My DS7 was identified in January and testing revealed FSIQ of 143 and GAI of 153 on the WISC IV. He tested fairly similarly across the board in all but Processing Speed where he was average.

His existing school just wanted to do pull-out enrichment 2 x 1 hr sessions a week. Another local school suggested accelaration into a gifted 4/5 class. (He was 4 weeks into yr 3 at the time.)

He has been there for about 7 weeks. I have thought he is thriving. He is excited to be around such a wonderful bunch of kids and his teacher is unique. He has enjoyed the more challenging work also. He is engaged for the first time ever at school and while he has taken some time to establish a solid group of friends, he is getting there. He did start an entirely new school.

I have not had any feedback from the school in that time except when I have bumped into the teacher and she has said he is doing well, but is a little disorganised and not used to the systems in yr 4. She went on to explain that the other children have had a fair bit of time to get used to it, and so should he.

I popped in to see the teacher this afternoon after DS revealing he has extra homework because he didn't finish his in class tasks. (He can be a slow starter). I wanted to ask her could he spend time in the library at lunch time finishing off the tasks as he already has 3 hours of homework a week and it is quite a load. I also thought this might encourage him to get the work done in class time in future.

She proceed to tell me he was immature compared to his class mates and is disorganised and that it is a major problem. She also revealed she thinks he will need to repeat year 4 next year to gain more maturity!!! She also stated that the year 4's at this school are particularly mature and that any children who transfer into this school have issues and they aren't as mature. She acknowledged he is having no trouble at all with the year 4 work, however he has a writing project to do and she doesn't think he can be organised enough to do it.

I'm astounded. The school had his report and the teacher and the Principal read it before they met us. She interviewed my DS, as did the Principal and the Learning Support Teacher; all before they suggested the grade skip. His report is very clear in stating that he needs encouragement to tackle things, that he is often slow at completing tasks and that his writing could be an issue and he may need a keyboard.

I feel like he's been thrown to the wolves. She also mentioned she hadn't planned on letting me know about these issues until the end of June when mid-year reports come home!

Has anyone else dealt with this? I really get the feeling she was having a bad day. It was that 'out of the blue'.

Tory