What to do....

bibi2012

if you think your child is gifted academically....

I have always wondered is there any where in Ireland you can bring your child if you think they are above average intelligence for their age, some where they can be assessed etc.

My son is only 6 and in senior infants in school and he is flying through his work, so much so I think he could and would be able for more, but I don't want to put more learning on him if I am wrong and he is not able for it.

He is not a sporty child and does not excel in anything like that, but learning, reading, maths he would do that all day if you let him, so much so last summer I had to buy him spelling and maths activity books cause he missed school so much. I would like to get him assessed some how to see if he is above average for his age but I don't know where or how.

I suppose the way I am thinking is that if he was good at running I would put him into athletics, good at football, let him join a football club...you see where I am going with this. I know his strength is academics and I would like to help him pursue that not just in school.

Any and all advice welcome

BF1403

He is still a bit young but The Irish Centre for Talented Youth based in DCU does assessments and can find a suitable course for your child to attend based on his strengths. It's very good- but not cheap!!

byhookorbycrook

You can go two ways -a psycho-educational assessment with an educational psychologists-cost €600 or the an "entrance exam "type assessment for CTYI that will allow him to attend CTYI if you so choose.We suggest to parents to do the CTYI assessment as it is an objective assessment of whether the child is "just" very good or exceptionally able. At least then you can approach the school with an independent result, not just mam or dad's opinion.

In a class of 30 it is hard cater for all the learning needs, but the class teacher should be providing some form of differentiation for him in the classroom-not just more of the same work but tasks to enrich and deepen his learning.

In our school we take children who have been accepted for CTYI (but they don't have to be actually attending)from 2nd class up through the learning support system to do some extra /different/more challenging work with them. As the DES doesn't make resources available for exceptionally able children, not all schools can do this.

Have a look at giftedkids.ie.

bibi2012

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

You can go two ways -a psycho-educational assessment with an educational psychologists-cost €600 or the an "entrance exam "type assessment for CTYI that will allow him to attend CTYI if you so choose.We suggest to parents to do the CTYI assessment as it is an objective assessment of whether the child is "just" very good or exceptionally able. At least then you can approach the school with an independent result, not just mam or dad's opinion.

In a class of 30 it is hard cater for all the learning needs, but the class teacher should be providing some form of differentiation for him in the classroom-not just more of the same work but tasks to enrich and deepen his learning.

In our school we take children who have been accepted for CTYI (but they don't have to be actually attending)from 2nd class up through the learning support system to do some extra /different/more challenging work with them. As the DES doesn't make resources available for exceptionally able children, not all schools can do this.

Have a look at giftedkids.ie.

Hi thanks for your reply. Sorry to sound ignorant but what is CTYI?

I am lucky with my son as there is only 6 other senior infants in his class and this year his class was mixed with junior and first, in total there were only 18 in the class so he was able to listen in and do some of the first class work and also get revision done through listening to the junior class.

His teacher is great and has given me dvd's and games to help him at home and he has a range of educational websites he visits on his laptop which he learns from. He already knows all about the solar system and the composition of all the planets and the asteroid belt. This is only something he started two weeks ago. We buy him junior encyclopedias and other books of that nature because he finds fictional book kinda boring but he does read them every now and again.

Unfortunately we do not have much disposable income as neither of us is working right now, so it would be hard for us to pay €600 for an assessment. Is there anything that might be subsides or something. I really want to nurture his inquisitiveness and his ability for learning but it is hard when you don't have the money.

Also I am not sure what provisions the school can put in place for him as he it is a very small country school but I am sure they would be willing to help in some way!

byhookorbycrook

CTYI is the centre for talented youth, run out of DCU. Their assessment/entrance test costs €45 approx, it's not comprehensive like a psycho-educational assessment,but it will give you a better idea where he lies abilty wise.

bibi2012

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

CTYI is the centre for talented youth, run out of DCU. Their assessment/entrance test costs €45 approx, it's not comprehensive like a psycho-educational assessment,but it will give you a better idea where he lies abilty wise.

Great thanks for your help.:)

Knit wit

I always knew my son was bright but when he started in primary school his teachers right from junior infants told me that he was exceptional particularly I maths... When the standardized testing started in 2nd class the results he achieved reflected his ability ... >130 maths. We were encouraged to consider sending him to ctyi but weighing up everything it would have been extremely difficult ... We don't live in Dublin and as such we'd have to travel on a Saturday which would mean and end to football! We decided against it, preferring to keep challenging him at home ourselves and to keep him grounded and involved in sports, cub scouts and just hanging out with other kids. Thankfully to date this is working, however he's now 10 and perhaps from next year we'll look at ctyi again.
If it's any reassurance, teachers are very good at spotting exceptional children ... Just as they can spot the ones who need more help. From a parents point of view I would say do ur best to keep stretching ur child, exposing them to a wide variety of experiences and ideas and then the academics will follow.

E.T.

Sometimes with gifted children in infant classes, they may be outstanding academically, but they are still very young and need to learn the same social skills as others their own age.

I've taught gifted children this age, and provided extra work, books, etc, but they were still 4 or 5 years old and just wanted to do their own thing. I didn't push them into doing the extra work, I feel there's plenty of time for that in their future. Focussing on settling them into a normal social routine, and making sure they're happy can be more of a priority at this age.

silverharp

my son aged 7 passed the DCU CTYE test (not that expensive) and he might do one of the courses over the summer which are not cheap. Weve gone with the approach of encouraging him in other areas like second language, music and sports, if field sports arent his thing try sports like martial arts (judo) , gymnastics is very good, swimming etc.
The school he goes to have been very helpful and the teacher allows me to put maths folders together for him, bring in his own books for reading and their resource teacher takes him and another couple of kids from other classes for extra maths classes.
While I'm not a fan of hot housing I am working with him with maths (no more than about 15min 4/5 days a week) and some general science.

Orion

Information about CTYI is at http://www4.dcu.ie/ctyi/index.shtml

Also check out http://giftedkids.ie/ which has some excellent info and resources for parents and teachers alike.

You should arrange to meet your class teacher in September and/or the principal to see if there are any additional resources available or if the teacher is able to do extension work in the classroom if he is exceptional.

We met our teacher and principal last September and moved our two up from 2nd to 3rd which has been a great success. They are still catching up a little in Irish due to the missed year but in every other subject they are more than holding their own. The main reason we did this is because they were finding school so easy that when they actually faced a challenge they had started backing away from it so we decided to make things more challenging for them. 6 is probably a little young to do this but may be an option in a year or two.