Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Expected grades after grade skips

I think this is great!

I've been thinking about what I'd like to see PG kids get out of school... and yeah, because of how school is set up, there's no amount of grade skipping that will make school finally be a challenge at the right level, happily ever after. Matilda may have lost her psychic powers because she was finally in the right class, but if such a thing existed in real life, she would likely have gotten them back after the book ended. PG people catch up to accommodate the intellectual demands that are placed on them.

I had a friend who skipped a grade and went to a prestigious math/science magnet high school, and when I met him (his senior year of college), he was still having nightmares almost every night about being attacked by a gigantic horde of monsters that were extremely easy to defeat - the part that made it a nightmare was that there were just so many of them, and defeating one didn't make a difference. He'd never been "challenged" in classwork, difficulty-wise; in fact, I'm not sure that would have really had a meaning for him.

I wish I could have learned the lesson aquinas's son learned from the foreign language experience earlier than the second half of college (when I changed majors and had to skip prerequisites/take classes out of order, which made some classes actually fun in the beginning). I'd been afraid of "hitting the wall" and not having the proper foundation and being shown up by all the other students who did, who were probably "so much smarter" than me. I wish I'd known that taking a class I was not technically ready for would be appropriate for me, and that not being "ready" for it was what would make it fun. (My university had a registration system that didn't check whether you had the prerequisites, which was how I got away with this.)

(I did hit the wall my senior year of college, but it wasn't because the work was "too hard"; it was because my mental health collapsed and I wasn't able to make myself do the work. This was the limiting factor in my educational attainment.)

I also wish I'd gotten to understand what it's like to work on novel problems/projects earlier; this doesn't really have the same problem for a PG individual that regular classwork does, because there is basically no ceiling on it.

I am a little confused. I was skipped twice, so at 13, he should be 10th grade? I was. Hence, my assumption. Isn't he allowed to chose his courses pretty much? I also, could get A's with little work, even after 2 skips. But I think extracurriculars and time management are good things to work on. You have to do some work, research on papers. And can he take some online advanced courses to fill in challenge?

This reminds me of "The Calculus Trap" - https://artofproblemsolving.com/news/articles/avoid-the-calculus-trap

"If ever you are by far the best, or the most interested, student in a classroom, then you should find another classroom". This can be a challenge in most school systems.

My D has thrived being involved in a local math team that has attracted about 30 of the top math students from this half of the state, led by college grad students.

She's at about a 99.6 average from 7th-early 10th grade at school, but typically scores about 10th on her team in competitions. She's learning a lot more, and is a lot more interested, at the program than she is in school. They study advanced topics, and they move fast. (Want to know why e^(pi*i) = -1? She can explain it to you. Euler's totient function? No problem...)

We've found similar stretch/enrichment programs through various programs in the area. CTY, for example, has fast-paced HS science courses. A full year of honors physics, for example, in a 3 week camp.

It takes some work to find them, but I believe programs like these are better solutions than just moving up to the next grade in school.

From my own experience - accelerated one grade and my parents declined the suggestion to move another - Saturday classes at our local college were favorites of mine.

I am, maybe, a bit more jaded than you all. My baseline for children is to not leave the school system damaged, in ways that will impact them into college and adulthood, and if they are actually happy, I am happy.

He WILL need those A grades in order to get into an appropriate university environment for him. You don’t want him to be constrained in his choices by a B average in his high school record. Nor do you want him to develop impostor syndrome, thinking “I can’t really be gifted, other kids get As all the time and I don’t”, disregarding the fact that his classmates may be 2 years older. Should kids have perfect As all the time? No, it’s not healthy, the occasional B and needing to work for that A is. But it’s hard to find that sweet spot!

The problem is that accelerated kids may have other struggles, socially, physically and functionally, and you don’t want to accelerate them beyond their ability to cope with those, even if intellectually, they’d still be fine.

Speaking as someone who has three kids at various levels of acceleration and “deceleration”, and for whom the choices had to be very individually determined, depending on both the kid and the environment, and who is currently watching accelerated classmates floundering and considering making a post about it.
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Those concerned about social detriment of acceleration may be interested in reading research and anecdotes.
This old post is a roundup on pros and cons of full-grade acceleration, also known as a grade-skip or skipping a grade...
many posts discuss social aspects including early high school graduation, early college and/or gap year.


Those focused on the meaningfulness of achieving grades of A rather than B, for admission to college, may be interested to know that since the introduction of Common Core in the USA, public school teachers are evaluated and US public schools are rated/ranked based on closing achievement gaps and excellence gaps (achieving Equal Outcomes among their students); this may necessitate capping the growth of students at the top.
- data collection is used to force equal outcomes
- ushered in by common core
- educational plank of party platforms
- rationing opportunities
- Nature versus nurture
- supplanting gifted students in "Gifted" programs
- coaching to create a self-limiting mindset
- counterpoint statements
- The Gifted: Left Behind?
- one-size-fits-all
- replacing the classics with anthologies.

Grading practices which tend to produce equal outcomes:
- Standards-Based grading
- list of grading practices
- policies which lack transparency
- requiring students to list new vocabulary words in the reading material, when there are none
- collective grading

These are not exhaustive lists, but provide enough information to raise awareness among parents and students, as to what to watch for.

NOTE: The old posts linked here may contain external links. If a linked website is NOT FOUND or has been changed and no longer contains the described content, try finding a copy of the old webpage on the WayBack Machine, internet archive (link: https://archive.org/web/).

I'm new to this forum & therefore late to this thread, but wanted to agree with your comments. My girls both started school very early and though they've performed well, it took years for them to think of themselves as smart and capable, whereas my son, who is academically stronger than his sisters, wasn't socially ready for school at three, so he is in his age appropriate grade, but has always had total mastery over any subject taught in class (so much so that in most of his reports, his teachers have graciously included comments that he's taught them a few things). He's had individual subject acceleration, but declined offers to grade skip because we agreed 1 or 2 grades wouldn't have made much difference and any more would have been socially uncomfortable. As things are, he enjoys wide popularity because he's very entertaining with skills in speedcubing, origami and other creative outlets and he excels at many sports (he coached himself in various track, field & swimming events by researching the Internet). He's usually been given a fair bit of latitude to use class room PCs (in primary) or BYODs (in high school) to explore topics on his own, so he's really enjoying the best of all worlds.