[Oz-gifted] Saw the counsellor today...

[Ellen Hrebeniuk]

At 8:58 AM +0800 22/9/06, Matthew & Tracey Wood wrote:

>My DD was jumped two years after year one to year 4. Looking back, we should
>have done it a year earlier as year one was when she was the most
>unhappy....having said that Acceleration is not for everyone and S was a
>perfect candidate. She missed her old friends for about a week and moved on
>to new friends who she had so much more in common with. I believe if a
>multiple jump is necessary it's better to do it in one go rather than two
>(too much disruption) so if you need to wait a year for him to be ready for
>that, then it might be the ways to go. But, if it's not obvious he needs a
>two year skip now, one may be all he needs. It was really obvious S was
>ready for a two year skip even in Kindy.

Could you explain why it was obvious to you?  Any boredom is less 
obvious to us because DS1 is in a composite with Year 2, and so his 
interest is, in part, being sustained by the Year 2 curriculum, and 
in part by the newness of school and getting to know his classmates. 
He is also not *behind* socially, but not that sophisticated in his 
view of friendship yet, probably due to his self-sufficiency and 
self-confidence.  Incidents in his K friendships this year have 
included a "ten-week training course" to teach one friend to be a 
superhero, and a ten-day trial separation from his jealous female 
best friend (which lasted two days at most!) in order to play "AFL 
kicks" with two boys who are not particularly her friends.  Earlier 
on, the best friend insisted that he exclude another child from their 
game, which he happily acceded to, and I'm not sure he understood why 
this was a Bad Thing even after I'd explained it.  DS1 is also 
playing handball with a group of older boys (Year 5?) in the mornings.

It's only just occurred to me that perhaps we should see his 
placement in his chronological year as an experiment as well!  Duh!
-- 
Ellen Hrebeniuk
Sydney, Australia

Being a librarian is how you change the world.
Nancy Pearl