Jolanda, I've looked at the pre school work of your children and can personally relate to your story. One of my children did very similar work.

When she went into grade 1 we had her in a tiny school which combined grades 1,2 and 3. She topped grade 3 and read and spelled at age 12.5 level! She had a wonderful teacher who could cater for her ability. So she was spared learning to read.

Unfortunately when she went to grade 3 she went to a more conventional school and basically repeated. There was greater concern for her to be with peers (age wise, not intellect wise). We were not happy about this, but accepted this. Instead I took her for Chinese lessons on Saturdays (at a buddhist temple opening her eyes to a whole different world) and music.

Now in High school she is doing the curriculum in French. Makes everything just that bit more challenging!

Antiseptic relates his own experiences being pushed into higher grades, which were negative, so I'm glad we didn't.

Similarly, we have a child who was made to continue into the next year throughout primary school even though accademically he was struggling. This was due to a variety of reasons. I've pleaded, changed schools for him to please repeat a year to 'catch up'. Again, there was a greater obsession with age then ability.

By year 10 it all became too much, year 11 massive depression and not able to finish school and feel good about himself. It was a scary year for us.

If you were to devote your drive and energy to changing the convention that children, especially during primary school years, are to be educated at a level based on their age, I would support you whole heartedly. I'm quite leery of classifying children as gifted, slow or any other label.

Children's brains develop at a great variety of levels. Especially during primary school and all children deserve to learn at their optimum level.

Anansi. There is this idea that acceleration does damage to children when in reality it only damges children who should not have been accelerated. Maybe they were not gifted enough, or maybe they were not mature enough, or maybe the environment that they were being put into wasn't accepting and understanding enough.

All the research on acceleration shows that acceleration not only works it benefits the gifted child. Of course the student has to be motivated and want to accelerate.

Two of my daughters accelerated one year after many years of suffering and truth be told it made no difference to their educational situation but what it did do is make high school one year closer.

What some people do not realise is that I have never pushed my children and we have never asked for the curriculum to be over their heads. All we ever asked for was the curriculum to be appropriate to their obvious level and need. It was my children telling me that they were in the wrong grade and year. It was my children telling me that they did nothing all day and that they hated school. It was my children who were telling me that the teachers were marking them down, putting them down and humiliating them. It was my children who said their OC and Selective Schools marks had to be wrong as they didn't find the tests that difficult and to get 25% in subjects where they were highly gifted and had absolute strengths and when they were at a minium 5 years advanced for their age told them that something was wrong.

It isn't our fault that documents produced under FOI confirmed our suspicions. Do you think that it is the duty of a parent to persue Justice and protection for her children if there is evidence of bias, bullying and manipulation being inflicted on children so as to oppress them and deny them opportunities - year after year?

Anansi one of my concerns in education is the fact that they make our children compete in academic competition for access to higher level education and information. Why do students need to win a competition to get access to information? Surely the education system can provide appropriate education for all students without having to make them compete in academic competition. It isn't fair to make students compete for their education at primary and high school level as they all come from different backgrounds and schools and they have different social standing and cultures. Without being sure that they have all been exposed to the same information and have had the same support then how can the system be allowed to give better learning opportunities only to those who get the highest test marks on certain tests on certain days.

It is also a fact that the public system is under funded and under-resourced and many schools are labeled disadvantaged. Then they make public school students compete with private school students in academic competition for access to selective Schools and no allowance is made for the disadvantage that the public system provides students.

I would like to see a system where students 'choose' what grade and level they want their education presented to them in the different subject areas and the school sets up the classes to cater for the students needs. Of course the students would need to be informed of what will be presented, at what speed and level and what they will be required to do to maintain their position.

I sincerely believe that it would be much better for our children if their focus was discussing what level and speed they would be trying to work at the next year rather than what boy/girl they like and when they are going to have their next drink.

Jolanda A mental capacity often spectacular occurs in children, whether it be music [ear ] Math, or watever else is in their learning.
There is no such thing as a child nowing without learning. If a child is interested by a particular subject they will pick it up quicker. This notion of a gifted child is very real. Thats why we all have different employments. But to say your child is being held back by the system, is incorrect. If you think your child can handle more then it is up to you to provide that. We cannot provide a system on the public purse that says gifted children this way. Gifted in what.

Olly. A child goes to school to learn. If a child is gifted and by that I mean intellectually gifted they have the capacity to process information at a much higher level and speed. These children generally have a big interest in books, they read alot. They tend to like to learn and they learn quickly.

This means that they are by nature ahead of the curriculum for their age and year. Why do you think it is okay for a student to spend year after year at school learning nothing. Surely academically advanced gifted children have the same rights as non academically advanced gifted children to learn whilst at school? Children spend many hours at school. The Law says that children have to attend school and that the education system will provide appropriate education. How can you honestly believe that a Gifted child has no right to be educated appropriately from the public purse.

Jolanda, the public school system is designed to provide a reasonable education to the average person. I dont think anyone has pretended that it should be all things to all people. Look, I am not unsympathetic - I was kept back 2 years in primary school (I had been home-schooled and in doing so had accelerated 2 years ahead of my age general curriculum), because it was judged that I would be disadvantaged by only making friends with people that were 2 years older than me. And its possibly true. That's one of the big problems with either repeating or acceleration. Much of the school experience is one of socialisation and whlst as adults we can have friends of several years of age difference, even 1 year of development can be the world of difference. Personally, I dont think I learned very much at primary school at all - I was assessed with a reading age of 17 when I was 7. Actually, I did learn something - I was only bright at maths, not accelerated (to this day I have never learned my times tables properly). I was lucky in that I was never mistreated by any of the teachers (though was ignored by 1), and looking back I am sure I was a handful to teach - eg to make life more interesting I would do something like learn morse-code, then write my homework in that (during classtime since I finished all the activities early). The point is that you as a parent can do much to make your kids school lives more challenging for them, whether it be to have them learn another language (or three) to write their school notes in, enrol them in Mensa (which they will no doubt qualify for if they are gifted), encourage them in areas where they struggle (be it maths or sport or music).