Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Math... Trying to Evaluate Class Fit

My PG boy seems to be allowed to work 6 months ahead at school. I'm not sure he has learnt much in the past 2 years. We have 10 more weeks of this year and if things aren't better next year i am going to start a campaign.

Thanks for the Aleks link, oncegifted!

They are going to try the assessment test from the end of third grade with him next week. The plan is they will read/explain directions if needed, with a goal being to see how much he may already know. Which is an interesting approach. I'm a bit skeptical, since he hasn't taken third grade math beyond the few weeks this year, but he did do some fairly advanced work in K (Montessori) and has done some online work for fun. They know he hasn't covered it, but the GATE instructor thinks it is worth seeing what he comprehends. We will see!

And... he's off to fourth grade math! I give the school a lot of credit for handling this on their own. They had the GATE person give him the end-of-year 3rd grade math assessment, which he completed in 30 minutes (I got the impression that was unexpected). He missed some questions but scored solidly enough that they decided he had mastered the 3rd grade material and that they were not providing adequate instruction by having him in 3rd grade math. So he has also now taken the 4th grade end-of-year math test, only scored about 40% on it so they are going to try the 4th grade class for math next week.

The teacher has already called me and explained where they are at, their online resources and so on. Schedulewise, it's a bit less smooth due to the time of math for that grade, but the two teachers are working out a plan. Wow.

Wow indeed. But isn't it sad that we are so surprised when teachers do their job.

Much of this has been led by the principal, who was central to our decision to move him to this school, along with the GATE lead. We really appreciate the way they have been handling this recently, which is exactly as promised. Yes, it is sad that we have to worry about whether this happens or not, and it sure didn't at prior school!

Of course, needing something to worry about, I'm now worrying whether his seven-year-old behavior will work in the class.

I know, a week or so ago, we were starting to get really anxious. It still needs to work to have him in that grade for math, but I got the impression they wouldn't stick him right back into the 3rd grade curriculum regardless.

We've also learned recently about some of the language arts one-on-one time he's been getting and it's pretty neat.