Brilliant children who are destined for grammar... (TFIC)...

[Amber]

Dd is a pedant too but so am I so can't really complain. I do understand why dh and ds roll their eyes now though.
This thread reminds me of a tv programme about 10 (?) years ago now where the head of a private school in the South East swapped with the head of a deprived school somewhere in the North East. State school head was talking to one of the pupils and asked if he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up. She was very pleasant but had a very patronising type of voice. He said he wanted to find and research dinosaur bones. She said "oh lovely. Do you know that's called being an ar- chae-ol-ogist?" ( sounding it out very slowly for him). He just looked at her and said "Actually it's a palaeontologist". It still makes me laugh to remember it.

And that reminds me of a job I turned down once. When I first qualified as a teacher, for reasons I am now unsure of, I thought it would be a good idea to go and work in the South East. In those days as a newly qualified teacher you could apply to a 'pool' which meant that you were interviewed once by a central local council who then allocated you to a school. I won't name the borough but it was a wealthy one and I was deemed to be (I know this as they gave me the piece of paper in error) an 'exceptionally able candidate' and I was therefore allocated their prize primary school.

I duly fetched up there for a familiarisation visit and instantly loathed the place - having trained in the North East (a great privilege - the best part of England imho) I wasn't used to the idea of such a well-ordered, some might say spiritless, sterile and snooty bunch of children who thought they knew everything already and were quite confident about telling me they did. The head asked me, among other things, what strategies I would use to teach Reception children to read, so I went through all the things I had been taught, at some length - big books, feely bags, 1-1 matching games, bit of phonics, that kind of thing. I noticed that she was smiling ever more smugly as I did this and finally she burst into laughter and said 'actually it was a bit of a trick question because all of our children can already read by the time they get here'. This confirmed to me that I would sooner be unemployed than work there, but because of the way the system worked I had a very hard time getting out of it. The Council's head of education actually telephoned me at home to check that I was in my right mind as it was 'such a prestigious school for a first time teacher'.

Unlike you, Loobylou, it doesn't make me laugh to remember it, but shudder. I went on to work in a borough at the opposite end of London with an ethnically and culturally diverse group of kids who helped to make me the person I am and whom I still fondly recall to this day though.

[loobylou]

I probably would have had a similar reaction to you in your scenario. In the TV programme actually she was so patronising and then so shocked that this 8 year old knew a long word it was quite amusing. He was probably a bit of a brat - but she just assumed ignorance which is nota good thing either.
Longing to know which borough your interview was in now!

[salsa]

I probably would have had a similar reaction to you in your scenario. In the TV programme actually she was so patronising and then so shocked that this 8 year old knew a long word it was quite amusing. He was probably a bit of a brat - but she just assumed ignorance which is nota good thing either.
Longing to know which borough your interview was in now!

He may not have been a brat, but just into dinosaurs. My eldest was really into them and by age 3 he knew the names of most of them. He certainly knew what a palaeontologist was as he wanted to be one. My youngest is into geography big time and as a younger child would sit there with the atlas! He knows of countries I've never heard of and puts me to shame every time!

Salsa

[Amber]

Longing to know which borough your interview was in now!

I have PMed you.

The school had a Young Scientists club for their infants - I expect they all knew about palaeontology too. They certainly knew about 'investigating phenomena' because lots of them were telling me that they had been doing it that day. I never discovered which particular phenomena were the targets of their research.

[Aethel]

I never discovered which particular phenomena were the targets of their research.

I hope it was these phenomena.....

https://youtu.be/lxmP01HERnQ

[salsa]

I never discovered which particular phenomena were the targets of their research.

I hope it was these phenomena.....

https://youtu.be/lxmP01HERnQ

Well, that would have been definitely worth it and appropriate at that age!

[Surferfish]

I still struggle to SAY the word fermonemona, never mind investigating the darn things...

[nyr]

This will take some beating.

I remember a very experienced nanny (in her sixties) holding our 8 week old son in her arms and saying that he was an incredibly intelligent baby because he seemed to be babbling back in response to her speech and that we should take this into account in his upbringing. OH and I smiled politely.

As it happens DS did end up at grammar though, I think, it was 11+ prep rather than the nanny's assessment that did the trick.

Interestingly, one impact of the nanny's assessment was that we made a conscious decision to never hot house our children.

nyr

[Tinkers]

I never discovered which particular phenomena were the targets of their research.

I hope it was these phenomena.....

https://youtu.be/lxmP01HERnQ

Whenever we hear the word 'phenomena' in the Tinkers household, we all break out into this song. Sadly.

[Tinkers]

This will take some beating.

I remember a very experienced nanny (in her sixties) holding our 8 week old son in her arms and saying that he was an incredibly intelligent baby because he seemed to be babbling back in response to her speech and that we should take this into account in his upbringing. OH and I smiled politely.

As it happens DS did end up at grammar though, I think, it was 11+ prep rather than the nanny's assessment that did the trick.

Interestingly, one impact of the nanny's assessment was that we made a conscious decision to never hot house our children.

nyr

On a more serious note, I went to a lecture at Reading uni psychology dept a while ago and one of the things mentioned was parents reading to their children as babies and the impact that made, in all sorts of ways to them as they grew older. Emotional, social, language development, focus etc were all impacted, far more than the researchers thought they would be.
Of course it doesn't have to be just reading either. By babbling, your DS was actually trying to talk back. I don't think it's necessarily a measure of intelligence as such, but obviously language development helps everything else develop too.