Five For...Common Sense

Or lack thereof...

Recently two of our children were assessed to be Gifted and Talented. This in itself is not really that remarkable...there are thousands out there. It's the process of finding this out that I am commenting on.

At this point in the UK, if you want your child to be assessed for giftedness, it is done in school. By teachers (regular ones, not specialist ones) and if there is a need and ONLY if there is a need (such as behaviour difficulties) an educational psychologist gets involved. HOWEVER...if your child is in the Early Years (0-5 yrs) ...so for instance, in nursery or reception...if you're lucky enough to be in a postcode with good services, then a Health Visitor will perform a developmental check which includes skills regarding giftedness. If you're unlucky (we were) then the Health Visitors only do assessments on children with 'issues' and don't deal with giftedness. So we were left searching the internet and calling various bodies like the LEA (Local Education Authority) to find out what one should do in this situation. A further complication is that they aren't actually IN SCHOOL yet....so....our options were (1.) pay several hundred £££ to a private educational psychologist or (2.) to find a learning/tutoring centre that assesses children for difficulties/ability. Because we didn't have £1000 to get two kids tested, we chose the learning centre option, and yes, they confirmed, that our two bright sparks can indeed be considered Gifted at this point.

Now...my main rant is this...When I spoke to the LEA, I asked them what you do if you want your child assessed BEFORE they get to school. I explained that we wanted the information so that we could make an informed choice about which schools to even consider. Their answer was to put your child into whatever school they are accepted into (the reasons for why it might not be your local school is a post for another time) and then get them assessed and if they need to change schools, do it later. Now, I may be 'just a parent' but in MY mind, that is backwards and lacks all common sense. Why would I put my child into a school knowing that they might have to be disrupted and moved the following year? Why is there seemingly nothing in place for assessment of young children? There are plenty of Gifted programmes for kids who are in secondary school, but by then, you've missed vital learning years. There seems to be little to nothing for primary school aged kids. Is it me or is this just basic common sense?

I guess I'll never know.