What have school done for your mathematically G&T child?

[OliBenji]

Following on from my other thread about my son who has been identified as a G&T mathematican, snorkle said:

'There are a surprising number of mumsnetters with very mathematical children OliBenji, though I'm not aware of any mathematical dcs that are older than about 15. I include myself in that, though I think my ds wasn't as advanced as yours at his age. I'm fairly sure some of the others have been though. It might be interesting for you to start a thread on what accomodations schools have made for mathematical children & whether parents feel it's been a good thing longer term or not.'

So, I'm wondering, what did school do to accomodate your chld and was it beneficial in the long term?

Thanks in advance.

[Fivesetsofschoolfees]

My DS is in Lower 6th and doing full A-levels in Mathematics and Further Mathematics this year. He did do a couple of modules of AS alongside IGCE Mathematics in Year 11.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

dd is pulled out once a week with a few other children and given some really good fun open ended problem solving to do. And for the first time ever she has a teacher who makes a huge effort to give dd decent homework (rather than relying on me to extend what comes home)

dd is in Year 4. Her idea of a fun conversation on the train with dh today was to ask what happens if you raise 10 to the power of 0.5 and then giggled at the answer and asked about raising it to 0.25

[ShrinkingViolet]

DD1's school ran an accelerated GCSE class, sitting the exam in Y10, then are doing a FMQ in Y11. DD1 will be doing Maths and Further Maths at A level (Maths in Y12 and FM in Y13). Thye'll also do whatever is needed for the STEP in Y13 as she's looking at Maths of some kind at university.
Teachers are very accomodating about going off-topic during lessons, and letting Maths discussions range widely.
We've been very impressed tbh.

[Kammy]

My ds (year 2) gets a mixture of extension work similar in operation to what the others in the class are doing - e.g. if they are working at adding 2 figure numbers, he gets 4 figure numbers etc. He also gets to do Key Stage 2 'mental maths' - sometimes on his own and sometimes having a session with a teacher or teaching assistant outside the class. Also more 'problem solving' type exercises.

[EachPeachPearMum]

Not my DC (though my DH was gifted at maths, and tbh knew more than his teachers by Y8, so maybe in the future...) but the Primary school where I was a governor had one of the other governors (who is an retired lecturer and university admissions tutor) go in and work in maths extension with gifted Y4,5 and 6 pupils twice a week- not on curriculum maths, but interesting parts of maths, puzzles, etc. Unfortunately we lost him to cancer last year -it was a unique talent that he had though.

[crkm]

Can i jump in on this thread, as i am about to tackle my ds school about his maths ability. Ds is 5, just started in year 1. Last term he was given year 2 sats papers to do as an assessment as he has an excellent head for maths and numbers. He got a 2b which is the same level as the top year 2's are currently working at. I want my ds to do his numeracy with these year 2's as i believe he needs to be working with children of a similar ability to himself. At the moment he works on his own doing work that his teacher gets from either year 2 or 3. His teacher also agrees that he needs to work alongside other children, so i am going to see the head tomorrow, with the schools gifted and talented policy highlighted in the relevant areas, and the last ofsted report that says the school is not doing enough for high achievers!! Has any one else had a similar problem or have any advice on how to tackle this situation? (ds's literacy is also well above average for his age, but its the numeracy that concerns me more).

any genuine advice welcomed, thanks .

[snorkle]

Just seen this OliBenji & I wonder if others might have missed it too, so I'll bump it in case. People who I might expect to post are Piffle, Roisin, ClarkKent/Fauve (though not seen them about for ages), Swedes & there have been others too.

For ds, the school seemingly did very little extra, but it is an independent school (not hugely selective) so had small class sizes and may have worked slightly ahead of NC levels (but I don't think by much). Some teachers gave extra work (expected to be done in addition rather than instead, so not ideal), some differentiated in the class a bit & the odd one seemingly did nothing at all. From year 5 maths was setted, though he still always seemed to already know everything done at school. I'm confident he learned way more from reading murderous maths series than in class.

So with very few accomodations (but he's lucky that he has another very mathematically able child in his year), he's still shockingly good at maths and continues to work at a level well above his age. He will do GCSE/A level (maths + f.maths) at the usual times, (though he's capable enough to have done them early and achieved top grades). I did used to worry that he wasn't being stretched etc, but really I don't at this stage think it's mattered. I suppose I do have some lingering worry that by not getting ahead with exams he may find STEP papers harder (allegedly fiendish Cambridge entry papers done after A levels), but his teachers don't seem to think it will be a problem should he choose to go that route.

[Bink]

ds (9.5, year 5) is a very natural mathematician - the ease of it hasn't really needed much help from school - in fact, it's the bits where he can't get on with his own self-directed learning (such as copying down neatly from the blackboard the three rules of triangles ... aagh) where we get problems. The grabbing a new concept and charging with it he does by himself.

We have to do a lot of getting him to understand about protocols, and processes, and other people's ways of seeing things, and showing-your-working, and so on - that's where school and we have had to put in the effort. The social-contextual-group-learning side of maths, if you like.

I guess what I am saying is that a whizzy numbers child tends to get on with loving numbers by him or herself (we were lent a great textbook by ds's school for him to play about with at home), but that being a whizzy numbers child tends to go along with certain qualities (strong own agenda, possibly rigid thinking, not great skills in working with others who don't 'get' things as quickly) which the school (and the child) needs to focus on in a different way. That's our experience of what's been beneficial.

[Bink]

Oh, I suddenly noticed snorkle's ref to the Murderous Maths series - yes, we love those, and hugely recommend.

[indignatio]

I shall watch this thread with interest.

Thanks for the book recommendation Bink - ds loved the MMaths one.

[LunarSea]

ds1 is in yr 2, and currently assessed as NC level 5 already for maths. Basically we send him to out of school maths (which we pay for so just an hour a week of it), and the school have agreed to his homework being working on workbooks at that level (which we have to supply ourselves) rather than what the rest of the class is doing. They don't really do anything in school though

[foxinsocks]

ds (year 2) does different work when the others are doing maths but along the same line iyswim and in the same classroom.

so I think the class are doing halves at the moment and he is doing long division (well not like we learned it but dividing big numbers by big numbers iyswim!) and remainders and fractions etc.

he also gets given maths worksheets to take home (as he likes doing them) - they are not 'official' homework so if he doesn't feel like doing them, he doesn't do them but generally he enjoys them so does them when he wants to

I don't want a big fuss made tbh. He is very good at maths and enjoys it but school, for me, is far more than this. It's as much to do with learning to get on in the playground etc. so I'm happy with him just pootling along like he is (but he is primary school now. Will probably feel different in secondary school).

Think, in general, the thing about children who excel at maths is that they are self motivated and 'see' number problems everywhere anyway (like adding up the shopping, working out the change, figuring out what the bill will be in the restaurant before it comes etc.).

[foxinsocks]

I was also very good at maths at school....there was nothing like G&T when I was a kid. You just got on with it. Can't say it ever held me back. Didn't do exams early because our school didn't do those sorts of things but I did get excellent marks in all my maths exams and I went on to progress to a career that uses maths.

Thing about maths is you can do so much on your own without the guidance of school or even parents. I honestly believe that gifted maths children will just get on with it. Secondary schools stream so even if there is no G&T, they will be top stream (like it was when we were at school).

I used to do lots of building stuff and card games when I was a kid. Card games VERY good for maths children and things like poker and roulette where you think about odds etc.

[foxinsocks]

sorry that sounded a bit negative. What I mean is that I think it's lovely if there is a programme but not a disaster at all if there isn't because long term, if they really love maths, they will stay involved with it anyway, no matter what provision has been made for them imo.

[Katiestar]

I have a DS in yr 6 who is very good (IMO) at maths.I have been told he is best in his yr at Maths but haven't been told he is G & T so I don'tsuppose he is.
But the school provided for his ability in yr 4 by putting him to work with the yr 6s for maths,then when he got in yr 5 they put him with yr 6s aaaaagain and now he is in yr 6 - guess what he is doing yr 6 maths again ! So I guess what I am saying is that school advancing him hasn't really helped in the long run because it has reached the end of primary school maths and has had to repeat the same stuff 3 times over.
His elder brother is in the 3rd yr at Grammar school ,the younger one grabs his maths homework and whizzes through it much to his elder brother's annoyance .So yes I definitely think his own interest pushes him forward

[Bink]

Just to agree again with recent posters about the self-motivation of a naturally mathematical child, and the way in which their minds just seem to fizz with numbers and ideas about numbers. (Similar to the way in which a very verbal child will latch onto a lovely exciting new word, even if someone just uses it in passing.)

As he gets older, ds has moved on from fizzing about numbers to fizzing about science. This morning (having decided that babies are born 'capable of' sentience, though not yet sentient, but that cells are not sentient), he thought he would like to know at what point in pregnancy the cells, busy individually multiplying to become the baby, develop that capacity for sentience.