Heartland

My daughter has undergone an assessment which formally identified her as intellectually gifted (not too surprising given her breeding ) and as such has she is now being offered the chance of one-on-one mentoring.

At this stage in her life, I’m not too worried about her development socially; she will spend the majority of her time with her classmates, but moving forward a year or so, I do have some concerns, they’re talking of putting her in a centralised, and small given the demographic, class of gifted children. This obviously has pro, but also, some con.

I know they’ve been doing similar in the USA since the mid 70’s, and with limited and sometimes damaging effect. We’re taking extreme care not to hot-house though.

Any other thoughts is this a good, elitist, worrying, trend. Are there other HL’s out there who are/with gifted children?

Danke

tricky.

on one hand i think you have to give her the best possible chance of a decent education, and one that challenges and tests her and lets her develop her skills, her mind and her character as best as possible.

on the other hand, if you pluck out all the best kids from "ordinary" schools and put them somewhere else you're just creating a 2-tiered system a la the 11plus...

I don't know about a two-tier system. Seems to me we already have that. The lower end of the ability spectrum gets special help, extra tuition, while the higher end sit twiddling their thumbs, getting bored and underachieving.

It's about time some of that imbalance is redressed IMO.

markfiend wrote:I don't know about a two-tier system. Seems to me we already have that. The lower end of the ability spectrum gets special help, extra tuition, while the higher end sit twiddling their thumbs, getting bored and underachieving.

It's about time some of that imbalance is redressed IMO.

Couldn't agree more.
I was very much the the victim of a 'mixed ability' (ie lowest common denominator) setup at school and was never pushed or in any way stretched except by myself or my family - father was an english teacher.
I remember one class where we were taking it in turns to read from a book. When it came to my turn I had to ask what page the rest of the class were on, not because I couldn't keep up but because I'd already finished the damn thing, and in fact had already read it some years previously.
I got a bollocking because it was a class exercise and then of course got roundly mocked and abused for being a 'swot'.
By the time it got around to A levels I was lost. I had no idea how to learn. I had never revised for anything and had never really written anything down; something that continues to this day.
I'm not saying that I was entirely blameless in this but when I managed to get myself expelled for the grievous crime of "not spending enough time in the library" a number of my tutors lamented that it was a crying shame that I was "wasting all that potential". Laugh? I nearly nearly vomited at the irony.

So; to sum up: get the mentoring. Get in now before they take it away. Your daughter will I'm sure lose and gain as many friends as part of this as from any other reason far less maeningful, eg too spotty, too fat, too 'wierd', too 'gay' etc etc.

I certainly wish I'd had the chance of streaming and sets never mind blummin 1-to-1 mentoring!

Mik

mik wrote:I had no idea how to learn. I had never revised for anything and had never really written anything down; something that continues to this day.

Without wanting to claim being overly intelligent, I've got the same problem, and it was a huge problem at University, and perhaps one of the reasons why I failed. At school I never did a thing but the last couple of hours of the night before the exam

So, I think it isn't necessarily a bad thing to split the smart ones out. Give them a group where they fit in, where they have a challenge. There's nothing as terrible as going to a school where there's not a single challenge. But on the other hand, it's important to let a child see the world isn't always as smart as the ones surrounding her.

I think in the end it's mainly a choice that has to be made by your kid (depending on the age and how 'grown-up' she is) and what you feel to be the right choice in your philosophy of raising children...

Reece (12 yr old) is being pushed towards an early German GCSE, to be taken next year (Third Year, or Year Whatever they call it these days). He hates it, and it certainly seems too early to be doing such important exams, but as he is a brainy git he doesn't seem to get much say in the matter. It's 'expected' of him. And of course his mum thinks it's great. I don't think it's unreasonable for a 12 yr old kid to want to spend time on his xbox, certainly not at the expense of something he hasn't much interest in in the first place.

And he hates his 'swot' (or 'spoff') label. Obviously. Luckily he plays for the local footy club and is never too far from a phalanx of foxy girls, so he avoids too many beatings.

Poor kid. Who'd be 12?

Living in one of the few places in the country which still has the 11+, it doesn't mean shít on such a broad scale. If this is really the top 5% of the country, then we're doomed

My GCSE performance had me singled out as gifted, but nothing's been said about it since. If you think that your daughter will benefit from the higher level of work, go for it. From an entirely subjective point of view, I am for example gaining more from maths (in which I'm the most enthusiastic but possibly statistically lowest achieving, probably due to time spent dwelling on extra-curricular topics and not homework) than from computing (in which I can spot errors in exam board mark schemes yet am completely bored). If she recognizes her own strengths, then she can probably honestly tell you whether she'd rather be stretched by a difficult class or bored by an easy one. Just make sure that she understands that she'll possibly be going from being a big fish in a small pond to being a tiny fish in a bigger pond. If she aces the gifted class, then great, my parents warned me that grammar school might cut me down (it didn't, but A Levels have, even if that has happened to everyone) and it didn't bother me. Of course this is all subjective personal experience, but hopefully it has some relevance.

Socially it really shouldn't matter, but be aware that if she has any swotty pastimes they'll probably diminish. Through the GCSEs, the school day was arsing around doing very little of anything (because the anything available was very little) and evenings were spent reading, writing and computer programming. Now that school is providing intellectual stimulation of some description, I look like a lazy bastard at home because the interest that led to extracurricular study is to some extent being satisfied by school.

I'm sure there's more to be said, but you know her better than we do and, definitely emotionally/possibly academically, than her teachers do. Talk it through, ask her what she wants. She probably won't be harmed either way, but this could well be an opportunity to use her time in school more productively.

Hope some of that made sense

mik wrote:I remember one class where we were taking it in turns to read from a book. When it came to my turn I had to ask what page the rest of the class were on, not because I couldn't keep up but because I'd already finished the damn thing, and in fact had already read it some years previously.
I got a bollocking because it was a class exercise and then of course got roundly mocked and abused for being a 'swot'.

I had the same experience in school. With "Lord Of The Flies" IIRC. And this wasn't even at a mixed ability school; I went to a selective grammar. Top of the classes I was interested in without even trying, and bottom of the classes I wasn't interested in, well, because I couldn't be bothered.

mik wrote:By the time it got around to A levels I was lost. I had no idea how to learn. I had never revised for anything and had never really written anything down; something that continues to this day.

With me (like Zeno) it was my degree course by the time I stopped being able to coast through the exams just by having been in the lessons (and it sounds dreadfully arrogant of me to say that I managed to get three As and a B in my A levels just coasting, but there you go.) mainly because I didn't bother turning up for lectures etc. being far too busy getting drunk, laid, and all the other things one does at Uni. *ahem*

It's taken me a long time to develop some kind of self-discipline; self-discipline that I needed when I finally went back and got a degree.

Mark, a statement of fact cannot be arrogant

The lack of discipline is a scary thing and it's extremely pervasive here. The amount of homework not handed in has seemingly tripled over the Summer and, although I hand it all in on time, I'm starting later and later the night before and continue well into the morning. The cause would appear to be the immense jump between sections of the education system.

GCSEs are held down by the idea that people who can't do the subject should still pass. There's far more reward in being a straight B student in a difficult system than in being able to practically write your own certificate in a watered down system. The inclusiveness argument is rubbish - if a C was average and an A was exceptional, there would be no shame in getting an E or below as someone amongst the powers that be seems to think. With all the effort made to stop people dropping off the end of the scale, they've completely disregarded those shooting off of the top end - most time is spent instilling educational discipline in those who aren't going to continue in education, leaving those who have coasted through high and dry.

A Levels aren't really better. Instead of people not performing, it's people who aren't interested in the subject. We're required to do a few hours of study outside of lessons every week. How many people do? Now, since University takes this model to another level, degree courses are damaged because those who showed interest in A Levels had far less to do than they could have, since class time is spent going over stuff that should have been independently researched.

Instead of having everyone take GCSES, those performing taking A Levels and those truly interested taking degrees, would it not be better to somewhat limit courses to those who have potential and a real interest in the subject? I don't mean academically, before anyone shoots me down - I, with my complete lack of hand eye coordination, should no more be pressed to take a sports or woodwork course than someone with little arithmetic ability should have to take a compulsory maths course.

Interest should be the first metric, then performance as the stakes get higher. If you're going to make something compulsory, create one stream for those being forced and another for those there of their own volition and don't restrict transfer between the groups where there's obvious interest or disinterest.

Sorry for taking this off-topic, but I guess the various rantings give you an idea of what comes out of the other end of various teaching methods

paint it black wrote:My daughter has undergone an assessment which formally identified her as intellectually gifted (not too surprising given her breeding )

Wow, congratulations!

At this stage in her life, I’m not too worried about her development socially; she will spend the majority of her time with her classmates, but moving forward a year or so, I do have some concerns, they’re talking of putting her in a centralised, and small given the demographic, class of gifted children. This obviously has pro, but also, some con.

I know they’ve been doing similar in the USA since the mid 70’s, and with limited and sometimes damaging effect. We’re taking extreme care not to hot-house though.

Any other thoughts is this a good, elitist, worrying, trend. Are there other HL’s out there who are/with gifted children?

I was a gifted child too (well, obviously I was ) but never had a chance to undergo such a program, and so I had to waste my time looking through the classroom windows, while the others weren't halfway through their exercises.

Now very seriously, I think it will be a good thing for her. Remember she has clever parents who know how to bring her up properly, and it is the home that matters the most.
So, if there appear any "cons'', I'm absolutely sure you will be the first to notice, and to react properly before any harm could have a chance to done.
Go for it.

Motz wrote:Mark, a statement of fact cannot be arrogant

Hehe guess so.

Anyway, there are problems at the "other end" too. Mrs fiend used to work in a High School in Leeds with a very low A-C pass rate at GCSE, so what did the powers-that-be decide?

To bump up the school's pass rate, the students who didn't stand a hope in hell of doing much better than an F or G (and this is a school with a much higher-than-average intake of children with special needs, so there were quite a few) simply weren't entered for their GCSEs, and ended up leaving school with virtually no qualifications at all.

To me this is much a betrayal as the stuff we've been talking about; wasn't the whole GCSE system meant to ensure that no-one left without qualifications? Surely 3 Gs or whatever is better than nothing.

Such are the wonders of a "General Education". I'm not suggesting keeping the current system with stricter entry - that would be a step backwards. Instead, it would be great to see everyone leave with A-C passes that they deserve - not by pigeonholing people into academic roles, but by offering relevant courses that they could potentially use. I got an A* in GCSE Geography, but I'm damned if I'll ever use it. If someone's not going for a degree, then giving them options more appropriate to what they want to do and allowing them to excel in that area can't be a bad thing. Yes, maths and literacy are important, but GCSE English is fcuk all to do with literacy and GCSE Maths is going beyond essential arithmetic.

In short, a world where someone's grade A (or hell, even an ungraded system, just let people do something well and be proud of it) in bricklaying, or whatever other vocation they applies, is valued like another person's grade A in maths would be a wonderful thing, imho.

Ever wondered where all the misanthropy comes from?

I vividly remember getting shouted at when I was 5 or 6 because we were only just being taught to count to 20 and I'd been doing that when I was 18 months old. Then I had to repeat some exercises because I'd used joined-up handwriting, and we weren't doing that yet. It was quite frustrating, and it obviously pissed my bitch teacher off no end.

I was in a state school for most of my primary years, and in my last year there (when I was 8-9) I was shunted up into the year above. This didn't cause a problem academically but did lead to me being dangled upside down in the playground by the ankles by a big fat girl at one point .

Then I went to a fee-paying school (you had to do an exam to get in), so automatically I was in that bigger pond of people who were at a higher level, academically. Right from the age of 7 or 8 in that place, kids had to take twice-yearly exams in all their subjects, and the desks in the class were organised in rows according to who was first, second.... twenty-eighth.
I studied for these exams the first time I took them anticipating that I'd be somewhere in the middle of the class... maybe 12th or 15th I hoped. I got the shock of my life when I came first - I was the first person the teachers could remember who came straight into the school and did that, and I'll never forget when it was announced and the sea of little faces turning round to me with their jaws open.

Reason being it was the start of many years of unpleasantness . If you lifted a finger to someone in that place you'd have got expelled, so I was spared the traditional bullying - but there's very little that can be done about groups of people pointedly turning their backs on you whenever you approached and said hello. This was my experience in a school for gifted (and well-to-do) kids. If I had stayed in the "normal" system, I'd have had seven shades of s**t kicked out of me, no doubt about it.

In secondary school, I stopped working as hard. Matters of health were partially responsible for this, but mostly it was just a matter of, my attitude started to really suck. I wasn't proud of myself, and kept meaning to pull my finger out, but I got in a bad habit of just not really trying.
Because quite simply, I didn't have to. I barely studied for my Standard Grades and got all "Credit 1"'s, and I literally didn't study at all for my Highers (and I did an A Level as well) and got all A's. I still don't know how... and it's not something I say as a boast, I was really ashamed of myself for not working harder.

So really, I think if "gifted" children aren't stimulated enough, they will turn their excess mental energy to other, often quite destructive things.
It's also very important to get the balance right between protecting them from situations where they will just get ripped to shreds, and making sure they get enough exposure to social situations to prepare them for the big wide world. I'm sure I wouldn't have had the rip taken out of me if I had been schooled completely seperately from other kids, but unfortunately I think it's simply something some kids have to go through - any society, whether comprised of adults or schoolchildren, will always have its' outcasts, the responsibility of a parent is to encourage the child to take the strength that can come from this experience, rather than allowing it to break them.

And it's a truism, that in adulthood, the roles are reversed, and the kids that you took the p*ss out of in school usually end up employing you .

thanks for all the input will read them one day soon

just found out 5 mins ago, that she has celiac, which is fuckin' excellent when you're diabetic and limited diet anyway

to say i'm gutted is an understatement

TTFN

I'm apparently "gifted". Or was. I'm not sure.
I can't say going to a private school has done me any harm. That said, a class of entirely "gifted" children will encourage competition (healthy or otherwise), but it may take away any feel of diversity amongst classmates, which is never a good thing.
If everyone there was academic, there would be less time for her to enjoy herself as a "normal" kid (I hate using that as an adjective, but you get what I mean in that case). Let's face it, if you can't enjoy yourself at school, it's hardly going to give your education a feel of anything but a chore.
Talk it over with her, because in the end, it's her choice what to do.

Also, sorry to hear about that diagnosis. :\

You take up the offer. No doubt about it, Things have moved on a long way in the past few years. Learning styles are more catered for and children aren't just hot-housed on these programmes. My cousin's daughter was invited onto a similar programme but it was more along the lines of a day out of her normal school a week and special classes inthe holidays etc. She has absolutely thrived. She's now just started at secondary school and she has chosen to go to the local school and keep up with the other classes rather than go to (well whichever selective school she was asked to go to) . The group has not taken away her individuality and graciousness - not one little bit. She is a thoroughly rounded good-egg but with the most active mind which meant you NEVER saw her little 'tricks'

With regards to points mentioned about 'comprehensive' education...a local school has just been lauded one of the top in the country. They have taken under their wing a local 'failing comp' What they do , is send their 'less likely to get high grade' students to the six form at the other place........thus ensuring their grades stay high. Similarly, at GCSE which the government graded thingy is 5 GSCE's at c or above, they get their 'less able to gain them the right criteria marks' students to do a GNVQ in computing - this is all course work and is awarded 4 GCSE passes, meaning that the child onlu has to gain one more to get them into the 5 and above bracket. Similarly, after the GCSE's have been taken, those who are felt to have missed out, take the European Computer Driving licence (and we know how hard that is..) which gives them, yes you've guessed it, a point score of 1 GSCE at C level.

League tables - you can stick em up yer arse

Back on topic...


Who's gonna teach Amber dance floor ethics by the way

Of course, none of this matters if you get to Oxford and then chuck it in to become a rock star...

boudicca wrote:Of course, none of this matters if you get to Oxford and then chuck it in to become a rock star...

While some of us are working on it, I doubt Ez's parental visions involve distance over time

boudicca wrote:being dangled upside down in the playground by the ankles by a big fat girl at one point .

Hey, it happened to the best of us.

Nowadays I have to pay for that kind of treatment.

mik wrote:I remember one class where we were taking it in turns to read from a book. When it came to my turn I had to ask what page the rest of the class were on, not because I couldn't keep up but because I'd already finished the damn thing

Ha, the first part of that is almost word for word what I wrote in a topic about school-related stuff on another forum, except mine ends "...I had to ask what page the rest of the class were on because I was about 50 pages ahead of everyone else."

I'd tune out the monotonous drone of the poor readers and whizz through the book, then get called an idiot when a distant voice jolted me back to reality.

Going back to the gifted child topic, It's harmful to a child if they're pushed in one specific direction. In the early to mid 80's there was a girl on Blue Peter, she was called Ruth I think. They featured her as some sort of a child genius, giving us facts like she'd done her A levels at age 11 or something, then she showed off how she could solve some really difficult maths problem using a computer.
Fast Forward 20 years and she's more-or-less a recluse and can barely hold a conversation because she concentrated too much on maths with the exclusion of everything else. EDIT:It seems wikipedia begs to differ. All I can say is she must have come on in leaps & bounds, she was a right mess when I saw her on TV five years ago.

It seems we're all a bunch of geniuses (genii?) on here!

markfiend wrote:It seems we're all a bunch of geniuses (genii?) on here!

Who ever doubted that

paint it black wrote:thanks for all the input will read them one day soon

just found out 5 mins ago, that she has celiac, which is fuckin' excellent when you're diabetic and limited diet anyway

to say i'm gutted is an understatement

TTFN

Why does it always seem to be like that? Almost everyone I can think of who is somehow gifted, or talented, or just extraordinarily sensitive, seems to be doomed to experience some kind of misery, physical or mental or emotional, just as if it were necessary to keep the balance.

markfiend wrote:It seems we're all a bunch of geniuses (genii?) on here!

That's strictly related to being a Sisters fan, you know.

Honestly, 15 years down the line, I don't think it'll matter. Special classes aren't gonna change the person she is, and that's what it comes down to. Sure, it may open up a few doors or look good on a resume. But ultimately, I don't think she'll look back and think, "f**k, I wish they would've put me in the special class."

The competition won't make her work harder if she doesn't see importance in getting good grades and if that's not what she values. Being in "normal" classes won't make her stupider.

I don't know anything about the UK education system, but in the US I was put into the GATE (gifted and talented education) class when I was 6 and stayed their until intermediate school at 12 at which point I just went into Honors classes, along with kids who had come from both normal and gifted classes. I hated the GATE stuff when I was doing it because I felt isolated from the "normal" kids and hated my parents for making me leave my friends. I look back on it with a lot more indifference. It had it's plusses and minuses, the plusses being some very cool teachers. Another thing to keep in mind if it is a public thing and paid for by the state is that if it's anything like the US, the highest percent of money that goes into education is spent on "special education" programs, which not only includes the mentally disabled classes, but also and perhaps moreso, the gifted classes. So she may maximize her educational experience in that sense. If it's anything like the US, the average kids are more or less ignored by the system and exepected to slide along.

I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the "gifted" kids who would be her closest peers, or what positives and negatives you may think would come from that--some of the best students/highest acheiving students I know were never identified as gifted and I also know that some of my very bright classmates in elementary school were playing with drugs at 10.

I suppose that because she is young, it would be a good thing to give her as many options and keep as many doors open for her now and down the line she can decide if it is for her and if it's something she wants to continue pursuing.

Hope that helps. And so sorry to hear about the diagnosis.

Dan wrote:

mik wrote:I remember one class where we were taking it in turns to read from a book. When it came to my turn I had to ask what page the rest of the class were on, not because I couldn't keep up but because I'd already finished the damn thing

Ha, the first part of that is almost word for word what I wrote in a topic about school-related stuff on another forum, except mine ends "...I had to ask what page the rest of the class were on because I was about 50 pages ahead of everyone else."

I'd tune out the monotonous drone of the poor readers and whizz through the book, then get called an idiot when a distant voice jolted me back to reality.

Going back to the gifted child topic, It's harmful to a child if they're pushed in one specific direction. In the early to mid 80's there was a girl on Blue Peter, she was called Ruth I think. They featured her as some sort of a child genius, giving us facts like she'd done her A levels at age 11 or something, then she showed off how she could solve some really difficult maths problem using a computer.
Fast Forward 20 years and she's more-or-less a recluse and can barely hold a conversation because she concentrated too much on maths with the exclusion of everything else. EDIT:It seems wikipedia begs to differ. All I can say is she must have come on in leaps & bounds, she was a right mess when I saw her on TV five years ago.

The Ruth (oh I'll remember her name in a min) case. She went of up to Oxbridge at 13 and Deddy went too....all through her life , Daddy went too. I'm sure her inability to socialise (if that's the truth) is because daddy came too. He was a creepy so and so, from what I can remember.