Whether the child wants to go is definitely something to think about. There was a girl in my son’s class who was identified, but did not want to go to the full time class for similar reasons. She does get time with the resource teacher at our home school, though. I would suspect that is like your pull-out program.
This is my experience and advice. My parents were advised to skip me a grade ahead of my older sister but chose not to because she hated me already and probably would kill me. I wish they had done it anyway, because things couldn’t have gotten much worse and I would have been in a different school quicker. They also were advised (in writing – I still have it) to not make me finish anything I didn’t feel like finishing. Way to help me learn good work habits, School Psychologist. :smack:
Shagnasty’s great way of explaining it, but your kids probably already have figured it out.
I also agree that you should go there first and check it out. And see what the policy is for changing back after a semester if you’re not liking where it’s going.
Thanks for everybody’s input. It seems like this is an issue a lot of you have gone through.
I’ll definitely put my daughter in pull-out GATE. But as for the full time school, I’ll go have a look at it and talk to my son about what he wants. It would be for starting next year in 5th grade, which would be his last year of elementary, so I’m not sure if he would want to go to a new school for just one year, then start another new one for Middle School.
I’d put my kids in whatever program is available. There was no gifted program for me, and I suffered all of the problems with bullying and studying and the rest stated above. My daughter was in the “Merit” program here, and I think it has helped tremendously with those problems.
I don’t know how much you want/need to consider your son’s opinion. Make sure he knows you’re listening to his concerns, and make it seem like a group decision, but you probably only want to make his concerns about 10% of the equation. He’s smart and great and everything, I’m sure, but he’s in 5th grade.
One of the advantages of going to the GATE full time in 5th grade is that he will be able to form a bond with the other GATE kids now, and then be able to enter the scary, shitty world of middle school and teenage years with the advantage of knowing who his peers actually are. That might help to mitigate the standard issues of fitting in, since he already has a batch of friends. Going into middle school with a standard class will make it much harder for him to identify the kids he’ll be accepted by and get along with.
I’ve got a lot of experience in this area. Both my kids were GATE, one in two school districts, and I was an officer of the GATE parents support group in our district for about 5 years. I was also in the equivalent of GATE in New York when I was a kid.
For me, the classes in elementary school were sorted by academic ability, so I was more or less in a full time GATE class since 3rd grade. (Our district here only tests in second grade and starts in 3rd, so that maturity differences don’t affect GATE classification.) Junior High and High had specific classes for “Special Progress” kids. I had an excellent experience in both, I was never bored and always challenged.
In New Jersey my older daughter was in a pull out class, and that worked pretty well. Here GATE treatment depends on the school. For schools with fewer GATE kids the teachers are supposed to differentiate and teach each student at his or her own level, but based on parent feedback at meetings this usually didn’t work very well. Our GATE officer, who was very good, worked really hard to make teachers understand that GATE did not mean you could give more homework or have GATE kids teach other kids.
New York had specialized high schools, like Bronx Science. I was not in the least interested traveling for an hour on the subway to get there. I don’t regret not going at all, by my high school was excellent and had so many kids at a high level that I don’t think I would have gotten better teachers. Whether an hour trip is worth it for your kid depends a lot on your son. I would think it would be hard to make friends so far away. if you pay attention to how he is doing, and offer some enrichment yourself, I’d think a pullout class would be fine, unless he really wants to leave (which it sounds like he doesn’t.)
As for the other kids, if you don’t make a fuss it will be fine.
Since the full-GATE kid is happy at his current school, I’d say sign both that one and the pull-out-GATE one for pull-out in the school they’re in. They get the benefits of GATE, with minimal social distortion and fuss.
+1 on the “all your kids get different activities, pull-out-GATE is just another one”.