Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Early Entrance Advocacy

Do you have outside testing? Or is the advocating based on her performance this past year at school & your experiences at home?

On the upside the school's schedule organisation is very impressvie!

And the consistent schedule makes it possible to remove the child for one subject if necessary.

We didn't bother with the testing because at no time after meeting her did they question her intelligence level. The decision was made because they feel that the ONLY way for a child to be brought up for early entrance is if that child demonstrates the behavior of a 6 year old 100% of the time. They were also concerned because at 4 she's very tall (she wears a size 6 so her pants will reach her ankles), but she's thin (we love adjustable waist pants).

We made the decision based on the fact that she is currently top of her class in Pre-K (all children going into K next year) and her Pre-K teachers told us that she was indistinguishable socially from the older children & recommended she be in K next year because there was no way she'd remain interested in Pre-K academics for a second year. We thought we had all our ducks in a row, but on the public side our county strictly forbids children under 5 from entering school, no exceptions & due to this, the private side is VERY picky about doing it. They've allowed it 2 times in the last 5 years among the 3 private schools we've interviewed & the kids in those cases were born within 1 month of the cutoff (we're at 3.5 months).

I agree -- that's what we liked about it. It allows for kids of varying ability to get the level they need while not feeling segregated from their peers since everyone is going elsewhere for their subject matter work.

Well, it may work okay. You have one big thing going for you--they want to keep you and your dollars at the school. So, they may want to make this flexible schedule work out.

This is weird to me:


So they don't want to advance her because she's thin? Hmm, maybe we should hold my 3rd percentile DS back a grade...

FWIW, my DS, who is socioemotionally mature, goes to 1st grade for a good chunk of his academic day but stays with K for specials, lunch, recess, yoga and dance, etc and seems happy with this. I mean, I think he would also be fine in 1st, but he likes the "fun" "play" elements of K. As he should, because he's K age.

Yeah -- I found that VERY odd too. She's the same height as all of the other kids, but she's 10th percentile for BMI. As a kid, I was ALWAYS skinny - I didn't even crest over 100lbs until I was in my mid-20's!

My daughter is very mature for her age, but they are still very hung up on that *age*.

Our SD said the same thing, and we dragged in everyone, because they have a written policy for acceleration, so we tried to follow it. Turns out it's not possible unless some combo of parents/school or parents/district agree, and they flat out refuse to do so in any case.

And then we found the crack in the system, via word of mouth. It turns out that you can homeschool your child, then re-register them at the grade you say they should be, and they'll accept that at face value. DD's school offered no resistance at re-registering despite knowing full well what we'd done.

Maybe that can be your plan B.

Homeschooling isn't an option for us at this point. We both have careers and giving up either of them would be very detrimental to our ability to continue living in this area!

I've also heard the "hire a tutor to homeschool" idea, but then she'll miss out on the social interaction -- which my little extrovert would be miserable without!

I'm hoping this works out & that it goes along with some of my other friends experiences (once they are past age 5 they will place them to the appropriate grade -- they just refuse to look at kids under 5).

We were very reluctant to homeschool our highly extroverted DD for the same social reasons, but it worked out pretty well. She found having her educational needs met to be a higher priority than having her social needs met... though we were able to help with some of that when we hooked up with another homeschooling mom down the street for daily "recess" together.

This year (her first following the grade skip) DD is being appropriately challenged for part of her school day, and is enjoying the social benefits of school as well... but she's still saying that, all in all, she'd prefer to be homeschooled again.

As far as outsourcing that, that's not something we had to worry about, but assuming the price is right, obviously finding the right homeschool tutor presents a major challenge.