Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Any PG kids never skipped a grade?

Dottie,
Thank you for your tremendous help! I come to think of you and other parents in this forum as my 'little circle of friends'! We'll miss you terribly! Do visit from time to time.

Wow, I don't know if I'd be comfortable putting my dd in a spot where she'd be around the 70th-75th percentile. I was only comfortable with accelerating dd12 b/c she was going to easily be in the top 10% of the receiving grade and she actually wound up much higher than that once she got there. Math is the one area where I'd say she's right at that top 10% point or a bit below or a bit above at times post-skip. However, I wouldn't want her at that same spot in all subjects. I think it would make her feel pretty bad when she was used to being the top student in her grade in most subjects pre-skip. I guess that, if that "bottom part of the top third" was a very temporary thing, I might be okay with it.

With a kid going into high school, I guess that maintaining As is more important when she'll be looking at college applications and scholarships as well.

In terms of what less than perfect grades mean, I guess that it depends on the child. In my family, I've seen in mean poor study skills, 2e issues, laziness... I can't recall for sure at this point, but I don't think that the IAS recommends against accelerating kids who are underachieving. That's a tough one, though, b/c it can breed continued underachievement to never appropriately challenge the kid. I'd vote for supplementation and work on whatever is lacking (study skills, work ethic, etc.) to get the underachievement under control before major acceleration. Perhaps subject acceleration coupled with support could be a good first step for an underachiever. We had some luck with that with our younger dd this past year.

You don't worry about perfectionism? Being in the second tenth from the top sounds like a normal and healthy adjustment to make.

Sweating your grade is an important part of education. I mean when we tell all the students in the school to try their best, there's usually a significant number of students who know that we don't mean *them*, that we want *them* to hold back. Giving a brilliant student some room to reach is a wonderful gift.

Do you realise how bizarre this sounds from outside the US? I realise you're talking about your DD's specific situation, Cricket, so don't take this too personally - it's more than I've been looking for an opportunity to attack the US teacher-given-grades-led system for a while... Following it to its logical conclusion, if only 10% of any class can count as high achieving, no wonder so many people see school as stressful and even counterproductive. And then the system is even reinforced with this valedictorian thing...

Our system is much less pernicious than this (details in a moment) and even so, the "I've always been at the top" phenomenon is a major problem for many students entering the much more selective environment of a (our) university department. One of my colleagues likes to address this with a large lecture class thus:
"How many of you were in the top 10% at school?" [Almost all the hands go up]
"How many of you expect to be in the top 10% here?" [Over half the hands stay up.]
"Look around." !!

The UK system(s, it's different in different parts of the UK, but it's similar enough for this purpose) has its own problems, but at least it is not set up so that you can only succeed if enough of your classmates fail. University entrance is done on the basis of national, externally marked exams (yes, I know about the SAT). [I'm calling them exams for short, but some involve extended pieces of work done under different conditions, e.g. an art portfolio.] Grades on those are overwhelmingly the most important element of getting into your university of choice, although there are some courses (medicine) and a few universities where you need top grades and then other things also matter. (Interview; the university's own supplementary exam; your personal statement; your grades at the earlier national externally-marked exams you took at 16; and, somewhere low down the list, teacher reference [IME, in a qualitative, "what is this student like as a learner" way].)

Crucial: all the things on the list put all the students in a school class, and their teacher, on the same side. They aren't competing with one another but with an external standard (of course ultimately there are only finitely many university places, but nothing stops your class getting disproportionately many of them). As well as there being no limit on how many students in a class can do well, we also have the other side, of course: everyone is aware that being the top student may not be enough.

Earlier in the school system, too, right down to preschool, when students are given number/letter grades [too often IMHO but that's another matter] these are defined nationally (in terms of e.g. what a student who is awarded a Level 3 in writing should be able to do) although they are generally assessed by the individual teacher. If the teacher has evidence that 80% of her class are working above nationally expected levels for their age, nothing stops her assigning levels that say that.

Isn't that better? Why don't you change it?

If I could choose a position for my DS in class, I'd say the 50th percentile would be nice. Ideally I'd like him to have no idea where he is in the class because it's never occurred to him to think about the class that way: I want him to compare his progress with his goals, not with other children who happen to sit in the same room. I know, dream on.

[And Dottie, so long and thanks for all the fish. Enjoy life!]

WTH? Wow! This ought to be an interesting tangential adventure.

I'm suspecting a bad bottle of Irn-Bru or something?

I'm completely serious - are you thinking I'm not? Whenever students and their parents care about achieving something for which the system is set up so that only a limited number of classmates can achieve it - whether it's straight As or being valedictorian - you have a situation in which someone can only succeed if enough of their classmates fail, for that particular definition of success. I think that's a bad situation.

I don't see that the UK system is so different from the USA system. I studied for a year between college and medical school at a university in Germany- admission was based on your Abitur (leaving school exam) scores. If you achieved a certain score, you were guaranteed a spot, which led to overcrowding at the university.
What if you freak out and blow that exam? At least with grades, you have lots of individual classes to work on. I think it's less pressure than having your admission to university determined by just one exam.
I feel having a good work ethic for the child is very important. They need to be able to harness their potential and drive it somewhere that they want to go. We have alot of "Tiger moms" where we live, and we see alot of kids having very high test scores who probably aren't gifted, but they are extremely hard-working and motivated.

A friend of mine mentioned on Facebook yesterday that a principal had told her that 80% of her grades needed to be either B or A. So, do not assume for a minute that American grades are norm-referenced. When you get right down to it, a significant portion of American grades are essentially meaningless.

I use a standards-based grading system to come up with traditional report card grades in a middle school (it's a weird hybrid of both systems). The school poster on the wall of my classroom says that B means proficient, and A means Advanced, exceeds expectations. So that's how I grade. I rarely hear from the parents of students who get Fs and Ds in my class, but I do hear from so many parents who tell me their child has always gotten As, they are A students, so the problem must be with my grading system.

In a way, I can see the advantage of a system that takes that tension out of the equation and unites parents, teachers, and students against a common exam.

but then... isn't that teaching to a test?

I think that the term "work ethic" is pretty loaded and doesn't accurately represent the underachievement pattern we are talking about here. It's not really a matter of ethics or morals to me. I think a school psychologist is likely to call the complex of behaviors here an executive function issue. Let me dig around on my floor for a book that talks about this.

Here it is!

Rimm, Sylvia (2008)_Why Bright Kids Get Poor Grades And What *You* Can Do About It: A Six-Step Program for Parents and Teachers_, Scottsdale, Great Potential Press.

The six steps are:

1. Assessment
2. Communication between Teachers, Parents, and Students
3. Changing Expectations
4. Role Model Identification
5. Correcting Deficiencies
6. Correction

I need to finish reading this book--as soon as I finish cleaning the living room. I'm hosting the Book Club tonight!