Gifted and Talented pupils often ignored . . .

This is a (slightly-edited) conversation from my friend Tabitha this week [names have been changed]. She's a Mum with an eleven year old boy who many of us agree is really pretty bright. That is, he's always ahead of the other children his age, but no-one at his school has ever tried to measure his intelligence or aptitudes . . .

" . . . . It feels a little pretentious calling one's son "gifted" but according to the government website definition . . . . I believe he falls into that category and I will at very least be in contact with Head of Year 7 accordingly. (Interestingly he has already dropped the word "gifted" into conversation with regard to ' Johnny and computers' at least twice at the Year 7 Parent Teacher meeting.)

I've had enough of having to tell Johnny to "keep his mouth shut" about his knowledge at school, and with teaching staff always referring to what I see as his rather remarkable talents as a "problem".

The rhetoric seems to be there on the official website - in practice I have yet to see [it]. Certainly when I (and my mother before me) [were] at school no such thinking was in place. It was criminal the hours, days and years I wasted at school (and even at college) bored out of my brain knowing I was capable of far greater challenges. I remember wasted English lessons in Scotland being forced to spend an entire "lesson" watching 15 year old boys in my class getting the belt - boys who were roaring with laughter and . . . etc. When I think back to all the dreadful so-called "lessons" I sat through wishing I was elsewhere it makes me so angry.
Not just that, the secondary school where I sat my A levels lost my course work, claimed I had not attended exams which I had . . . . and failed me in music when the invigilator, nasty pervert, had for 2 years . . . . when the two of us were alone in the room.
God knows how I was so shy I thought I should not say anything, just thinking back to those days makes me feel like . . . - and demanding some recourse from the school for all their failings.

Ah well, that was then, this is now, and I am hopeful this secondary school will prove more suitable than the primary he attended.
I am increasingly convinced that I also have a duty to Johnny to stick my neck out a bit.
On a day when [Gordon] Brown reminds the nation of words of a former US president, I too must think of the wisdom in the words "If not me then who, if not now then when . . . ."

Every school in the UK is eligible for this extra funding. It will provide resources for any children at their school who may be Gifted and Talented. Click on my post header above to go to a list of resources. Your child may be one of these . . . Do you want to help them ?