Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Compacting Curriculum-Success Looks Like...

When it comes to compacting curriculum within a public school setting, what has your successful accomplishment of this looked like? Has the school allowed your child to test out of segments of a subject and if so, do they spend time one-on-one teaching just your child where they are at?

If that was not possible, has anyone been allowed to partial homeschool in that subject so they can achieve compaction at home so as not to disrupt the flow of teaching the rest of the students?

Did the school object to compaction by saying that the child would finish all instruction with too much time left in the year? If so, did they allow your child to move to the next level even though it was unlikely they would finish it before school is let out for the summer?

Sorry for all the questions. I just don't know what successful compaction really looks like. We are considering asking for this for our son and want to know specifically what we should ask for and what possible roadblocks we may face.

I have been successful with the pre-testing, but then the teacher just lets the kids who test out play games. So it is not really successful.

I would specifically ask for your child to receive instruction on new things, not just testing out. I think another option is to have independent projects, but that will work better with a highly self-motivated child.

I think partial homeschooling is a good option, but it is not allowed here.

Thank you for asking this question. We are wondering about this, too.

For my son he took the beginning of the year test (which is the same as the end of the year test only different numbers) for second grade and got a really high score (like 80%). So for the next two weeks the teacher gave him end of chapter tests one after the other (really just to have physical proof that he didn't need 2nd grade math). When he got to a chapter where he wasn't getting 100% on the chapter tests he stopped and worked through the chapter. Once all the chapter tests were done he took the end of the year test. She then walked to the third grade work room and picked up one 3rd grade book, workbook, the book for extra challenge, and the testing book.

Her strategy was...each math period the rest of the class got a set of 5 warm up/review problems projected onto the smart board to work on individually or in pairs. During that work time she presented my son with his math lesson. Then he got to work while she presented the class their lesson. Then she walked around the classroom helping kids in their independent work, during that time he could get additional help or get a challenge assignment if he was done. He also had access to tons of math programing on the computer (his math series has an online component and they had several additional websites they subscribed to). So that went on all year plus he started in on a bit of 4th grade math.

As far as I could tell it wasn't the least bit disruptive to anyone's learning and just woven into how she ran the class.

But when I was a kid that is how classes were run. Usually two groups (sometimes 3) different reading groups in one class and the teacher divided her time. There were two teachers per grade in my school and usually one teacher taught math to a whole class but the other teacher sometimes had two math groups and sometimes an individual kid walked up a grade to that math class.

2nd grade for DS: The teacher always trained student teachers - she'd put the student in charge, and then pull kids back one at a time to work with them on strengths or weaknesses. DS got taught 2-3 missing 3rd grade math skills then.

Our school has a 4/5 compacted math for kids who test gifted in math. It covers the two years in one, plus additional problem solving skills. The next year covers just 6th grade math, but tons of extras parallel to a typical math curriculum. This year, 5th graders who tested highly for the first time are getting 5/6 compacted as well.

Ametrine, yes, we were limited in terms of how many functional grade-accelerations the school would permit-- though in some ways, we agreed with them after the third skip anyway. Because, asynchrony.

So we certainly did compaction, but not for the purpose of moving ahead of peers. In fact, we were forced to exist in a rather rigid solution space there within the school's idea of what was okay and what was not. Understand that schools mostly cannot really believe the rate at which HG children can plow through material if you let them do so. Not don't want to-- truly, cannot understand it. They spend a lot of time hunting for the 'trick' in the illusion, not stopping to consider that maybe it isn't an illusion at all.
{ahem}

So we learned to nod and smile and follow some don't-ask-don't-tell while we did our best to meet their paper criteria for seat time, and DD's need to be less irritated by that seat time.

This is where cyberschool really held the key--

pretesting, post-testing if pretesting went well, and then move on. Reading, sure. Understanding that it was going to take her exactly 13% of the intended time, and supplying her with related reading material to get things up to more like 60% of the anticipated time investment-- off to the library for us.

Rinse, lather, repeat. Add enrichment and extension as desired/needed, and build a work portfolio which demonstrates true mastery (and not just test-taking prowess, as those two are not necessarily synonymous).

Then, since this (clearly) didn't take all that much of DD's time, given that she was (even in secondary, even with acceleration in place) mostly not working at an appropriate level, but somewhat below said level-- we added additional extracurricular commitments. LOTS of them.

Volunteering in the community, developing leadership skills, music, sports, etc.

The other thing that we did was have a list of permissible "schooly" activities that she could select from-- I'd give her a couple of choices based on what I thought she needed to work on for personal development (so, in a year when her writing wasn't growing much, I'd encourage her to work on her script/novel, or in one that was writing intensive, I'd offer something science oriented instead).


Reading was ALWAYS on the table as an activity that I'd count as "school" in terms of reporting her daily seat time.


I guess I'm another vote for partial homeschooling with the caveat that the ideal there is probably a half-day in which your child pretty much has the same expectations as classmates-- just within half the time that they invest.

I suspect that this balance point may be different for individual kids, and a lot of things other than academics get learned during a school day, to be sure. Still, I think that the basic principle is sound. Kids at higher LOG, they probably need a variety of accommodation strategies-- so enriched curriculum, maybe compaction to move into higher level curriculum (accomplishing an acceleration), and limiting the time to something that isn't so mind-numbing, which does two very important things, IME:

1. It keeps the time investment at a developmentally appropriate level. NO way would I want a 12yo spending the kind of time that an average top-10% high schooler does on his/her AP schedule. But an EG/PG kid? Well, that schedule simply doesn't REQUIRE that kind of time investment-- so don't allow it.

2. Brings the pacing up to a level which feels more comfy to kids at higher LOG. Yes, it's still spread out in time-- but if you fill that other time with additional fulfilling pastimes, it can feel okay to some kids, and that keeps them in step with classmates.

That second point is really a brilliant thing, IMO. If you keep the social currency associated with group work but can take out the issue of the pacing being too slow, it really can work to have an EG/PG kid grouped with MG ones who are slightly older.

Hopefully that is helpful. I realize that not all teachers or schools can be this flexible, but that really is the key.

We just started compacting precalc for our 9th grade twins, and so far it is going well. They work independently (on math) during their math period at school, and take the tests when ready (much more frequently than in the regular class). Our goal is for them to complete 2 yrs of math (precalc and AP Calc AB) in one year, so that they can then do Calc BC next year in a regular class.

So far (we started a month and a half ago), it is working well. The kids realize they've gotten a special deal from the school and that motivates them to make it work. Another benefit is that we are effectively partially homeschooling. It is nice for us parents to have an excuse to get involved, as it gives us an opportunity to point out connections between the material and other interests.

Good question, I have no idea. The reason I can't answer is in my school district we will only start compaction in math next year so I really don't have a lot of answers. Until this year when the junior high has started implementing common core. Before honors/advanced math students were more likely just to skip either 4th grade math and/or 7th grade math. Math did a lot of spiraling and 4th/5th grade math curriculum were really not that different.

amylou: Your compaction of classes sounds unusual. Everywhere I've seen it.. (including the AP description of classes) AP Calc AB is the first semester of Calculus in one year, AP Calc BC is two semesters in ONE year. When you take the Calc BC test.. you get an AB 'score'. At our school one doesn't take AB Calc one year, and then BC Calc the next. The entire first semester would be review that way. Are you planing on them taking the AP test this year? I assume you know what the curriculum is for your H.S.'s AP Calc BC class. That said, at our school the first few chapters of AP Calc BC class is included in honors pre-calc and since my son isn't honors if he takes BC next year he will have to do some summer study.

Thanks for the fascinating revelation, Bluemagic. This is the recommended course sequence from the HS catalog:
Alg. 2/Trig. Honors (1 year)
Precalc (1 year)
Calc AB (1 year)
Calc BC (1 year)

For our kids, much of precalc is review b/c the Alg. 2/Trig. they had at the middle school was more in-depth than the HS version - that is what prompted the independent study at the HS. And DH and I were aware that this sequence was way slowed down from our HS days back in the dark ages (no precalc, and one year of calculus-with-no-letters). But I didn't realize it was different from other schools -- that is what you are saying, correct? So our "compacting" is effectively putting our kids on a schedule that is "normal" at other schools?? Its no wonder the kids were bored to tears in the classroom, and it also makes more sense that the school went along with our request….

This is not slowed down from my H.S. days. To be honest it's about the same although classes are called slightly different things, and topics are moved around a bit.

The 'current' top honors sequence goes. This assumes taking Algebra & Geometry in Junior High. THIS WILL CHANGE NEXT YEAR BECAUSE OF COMMON CORE.

Algebra 2 Honors (freshman)
PreCalc Honors (sophmore)
AP Calculus BC (junior)
AP Stats or AP Computer Science (senior)

There are one or two kids that are one or two years ahead of this. My son didn't get high enough grades to stay in the honors track (but he is still accelerated), and his non-honors pre-calc class is a LOT of review of Algebra II trig and he has been a bit bored, but I don't see the harm in his getting really solid in the algebra and getting better grades. As long as he can take AP Calc BC next year, his semester final is tomorrow. IF he can keep his A then he is probably good to go. Trig is included in geometry, algebra 2, and pre-calc. Pre-Calculus is really mostly a class where topics that haven't been fully covered but are needed for being sucessful in Calculus and varies from school to school.

If you look at the college board web site. You can see that while you can take AB one year, and BC the next year. You can't take both tests in the same year. And BC is designed as a one year course. All the schools that I know of teach this as an either or option. That doesn't mean is HAS to.
http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_information/8031.html