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Why British schools are failing our most gifted children

Why British schools are failing our most gifted children
Why British schools are failing our most gifted children

Every parent wants their child to do well at school. So the story of child prodigy Theo Hobbs is bound, in family homes up and down the land, to be causing a mixture of parental envy at his head-start in learning – reading before he was three, joining Mensa by four - and mild exasperation in their own offspring when asked by mum or dad, who have not taken such great strides.

But would we really want a Theo, or to be one? Known to his family at Portishead in Somerset as Teddy, the whole saga of being tested and joining Mensa came about because his parents, Beth and Will, were worried about finding a primary school willing and able to work with a child so bright he could count to 100 in seven languages. Circle Time and endless singing of “The Wheels on The Bus”, they reasoned, might not be what Theo needed to continue his prodigious rate of development.

Hardly surprising. Britain does not have a great record on encouraging those of “high learning ability” - to use the term favoured by educational professionals. Especially when they come from ordinary homes. Instead it has treated them as oddballs, leaving the likes of Ruth Lawrence, who in the early 1980s made national headlines by gaining an A in pure maths A-level aged just nine, and landing a place at Oxford at 10, to be home-schooled by their dedicated parents.

There was - to be fair - a change of heart in the 1990s and 2000s, when governments put resources into Gifted and Talented (G&T) provision to give extra support for the most able children in schools. But that was attacked as elitist and the preserve of pushy parents – even when it was in many cases helping those from underprivileged homes to glimpse horizons that might otherwise have been beyond reach.

Over the past decade, G&T programmes have been ditched in favour of helping those who are underachieving at school. The result? Too many of today’s Ruth Lawrences and Theo Hobbs are being left bored in the classroom, disruptive in their behaviour as a result, with that early promise squandered as they drop out of education. Indeed, ironically, some of them do so badly that they end up on programmes for underachievers.

Teddy Hobbes was reading before he was three and was accepted in MENSA by four - Beth Hobbs / SWNS
Teddy Hobbes was reading before he was three and was accepted in MENSA by four - Beth Hobbs / SWNS

The comparison with other countries is embarrassing. In the United States, for example, research into identifying such exceptional youngsters and bringing out the best in them is much better funded and hence more precise. Though Dr Joanne Ruthsatz, a psychologist at Ohio State University who specialises in the subject, suggests the incidence may be as low as one in five million, there is a growing range of initiatives to engage them, including an internationally renowned specialist lab at Harvard University, promoting better understanding of their needs.

So, for starters, what equivalent help is there here in identifying gifted children? The answer is: very little. Mensa (which has 1,600 members under 18) helpfully provides a list of 17 pointers for those parents wondering if they have the next Theo at their breakfast table

Some are common sense, like “passing intellectual milestones early”. Others, though, complicate rather than clarify the picture: intolerance of other children; preferring the company of adults; a need to be in control; or making extra rules up for games when playing them. “There is,” explains Julie Taplin, chief executive of Potential Plus UK, a charity that works directly with around 800 families of gifted children, “an overlap of traits between high learning potential and other additional needs such as ADHD and autism”.

Even the definition of what we mean by gifted is disputed. Sarah, the mother of 14-year-old Phoebe, and one of the families supported by Potential Plus UK, puts it this way. “We are not talking here about the kids who are seen as bright, those who pass exams easily and get into grammar schools and are in a sweet-spot when it comes to IQ. Theirs is high but not so high that it can come with neuro-diversity.”

Teddy's parents were worried about finding a primary school willing and able to work with such a bright child - Beth Hobbs / SWNS
Teddy's parents were worried about finding a primary school willing and able to work with such a bright child - Beth Hobbs / SWNS

In that second category, she places those like her daughter who has “silly IQ levels”, but struggles with “other challenges”.

Sarah – who doesn’t want to use real names – spotted that Phoebe was different when she began reading aged two and speaking in full, adult-like sentences at three. Accompanying these accomplishments, though, she recalls, was also an extreme sensitivity about what she would touch. “When she was learning to walk, she wouldn’t touch anything to help her stay upright except for our hands. So it took her a long time to walk independently.”

Sarah didn’t connect the two at the time because there was nothing out there to guide her and the GP just looked puzzled when she sought advice. “But now I have learnt by experience that there is a link between high learning potential and intensity, anxiety and sensory difference, not just in physical difference but in emotional reactions, too.”

She is keen not to make such traits sound negative. It is sensory difference, she suggests, that fuels the passion that drives her daughter on to such achievement. “It has made her excel as a musician and in her creative writing.”

 Nigel Short 14-year-old Chess Champion Playing At The Kings Chess Tournament In 1980 - Jimmy James/ANL/Shutterstock
Nigel Short 14-year-old Chess Champion Playing At The Kings Chess Tournament In 1980 - Jimmy James/ANL/Shutterstock

For chess grandmaster Nigel Short, growing up as a prodigy was complicated. Now 57, Short says: “When I was young it was very different; in a certain way I was a pioneer.”

He demonstrates too what can happen if there is no support at school. “At junior school, I was a good pupil – a record student.” But as time passed, he found it harder to fit it and left at age 17, having completed four O-levels, to focus on chess full-time.

“I didn’t have many friends,” Short says. “I felt that not too many people were in a similar position; I felt this was a path I was on on my own. I was kicked out of two schools; so that was an issue for me. It wasn’t a great time in my life.”

Finding like-minded support in the education system for Phoebe, has also been tough. “At her primary school she had a “hideous” time because she was bored by the level the class was operating at and lay awake every night worrying that she was weird.”

A period of home-schooling followed – 10 per cent of the 800 working with Potential Plus UK home-school. Sarah, though, counts herself among the lucky ones because she managed eventually to find a small independent school that was flexible enough in its curriculum to be willing to work at the level that suited Phoebe. “She has blossomed and is now doing her IB [International Baccalaureate].”

However, such schools are, Julie Taplin warns, rare for the families they are supporting – and expensive. Education provision too often proves a huge obstacle for both children with high learning potential and their parents.

“Starting school is often the trigger point when the child stands out from others and struggles to fit in with peers, or engage with the curriculum on offer. School refusal is something we come across quite often.”

A study done in 2019 by Potential Plus based on Ofsted reports found that 40 per cent of schools were judged by inspectors as not doing enough to cater for pupils who had been identified by the school’s own internal testing as “most able”.

And the situation is not necessarily any better, the charity says, in the private sector. “On our parents’ advice line,” Taplin reports, “we have callers with children in independent schools who have gone there for smaller class size and more one-to-one attention, but have been disappointed.”

It is a question of resources. In Scotland, “high ability” is included in the list of “additional needs” in school-age children that are required by statute to be identified, thereby releasing extra funding for appropriate support. In England, there is no similar legal requirement.

Sarah believes that other children like her daughter Phoebe could be helped if their high learning potential was more readily recognised as a Special Educational Need (SEN), and resources for extra tuition made available. “But too often it isn’t and their potential remains something that isn’t realised”.

It is a problem familiar to Dame Sally Coates, a “superhead” with a reputation for turning around failing schools, who now advises the government and is Director of Secondary Schools at United Learning, one of the UK's largest academy chains. “Home-schooling is not the right option because they also need to be in a school environment for their personal and social development, so that they stay connected with their peer group.”

Dame Sally Coates now advises the government and is Director of Academies at the 96 schools run by United Learning - Gary Eason / Alamy Stock Photo
Dame Sally Coates now advises the government and is Director of Academies at the 96 schools run by United Learning - Gary Eason / Alamy Stock Photo

Coates is keen that, however academically able, the solution is not to allow them to “accelerate” out of their peer group. “I don’t think, for example, that it is a good idea for 14-year olds to be doing A levels or going to university early. They simply won’t have the social skills or maturity to benefit from the experience, and what’s the point of having a degree at 16?”

Though educational orthodoxy has, over the past decade or more, moved sharply away from the specific G&T programmes, she questions whether something important has been lost. “It may be an idea to look at again, at why our most gifted children are being failed.”

And perhaps the tide is beginning to turn. Tomorrow’s Achievers, a programme of workshops run by the children’s charity Coram, shuns the G&T terminology for all the reasons that once made it so unpopular, instead describing itself as geared for “children who have curiosity and love of learning”. But its aim, as Harriet Gill, as managing director for education and wellbeing Coram explains, is similar.

“We are trying to recognise that there are high-achieving children who can feel socially isolated at school. Our workshops, at weekends, for 10 children at a time, encourage participants to work together to solve problems together. So they cater for both learning and social connection.”

The take-up, she says, is large and the results achieved encouraging. It may just be an idea whose time has come – or, more accurately, come again.

Aditional reporting by Abigail Buchanan

Read more: Eight signs your child is a genius