Once or twice?

[Aimless]

Hello,

I would like schools to have two admission periods every year in order to ensure children in a given class are closer to each other in age when they begin school than they tend to be today.

Are there schools in your country that do this? Do you know how it's worked?

[Ominous Gamer]

I wish Florida/America did this.

Ocean misses the deadline by less than a week. She is also in the top 95% for her height.
So not only will she be the oldest, she'll be the biggest kid in her class.

Retarded.

[Aimless]

it's great for her but probably awful for the tiny shrimps she will inevitably marginalise

[littlelolligagged]

I think it's not a particularly good idea, really. Maturity and learning ability are not based on age.

[Aimless]

i think it's a great idea because i hate the relative age effect.

[Ominous Gamer]

Her size alone will no doubt bring the rumors of "she must have failed!", throw in her age and its a done deal. That will no doubt not help her socialize.
And she is an incredibly smart little girl. The daycare we had her in put her in the VPK program at no charge cause she was more content with them than the younger kids.

[Knux897]

Her size alone will no doubt bring the rumors of "she must have failed!", throw in her age and its a done deal. That will no doubt not help her socialize.
And she is an incredibly smart little girl. The daycare we had her in put her in the VPK program at no charge cause she was more content with them than the younger kids.

I was larger and more grown up than most kids in elementary and middle school. I was asked once in a while by friends on mine if I had ever repeated a grade and the answer "no" was always sufficient. Rumors about me never came around so I think she's ok

[Discord]

I wish Florida/America did this.

Ocean misses the deadline by less than a week. She is also in the top 95% for her height.
So not only will she be the oldest, she'll be the biggest kid in her class.

Retarded.

Is there nothing you can do about this?
I don't know what the system's like in the US, but it's not that rare here to join the year above you (if the child seems capable).

[']['ear]

A very interesting idea.

I think it's not a particularly good idea, really. Maturity and learning ability are not based on age.

Not true. Gladwell cites some studies in Outliers, and makes very good points.

[Catgrrl]

I was the opposite; I made it into school before I turned 5 because I barely met the limit. So, I've been one of the younger people in my grade all the way through. I didn't look it though due to my height! I can't imagine how weird it would have been to have to wait another year to enroll in grade school.

[Aimless]

i was thinking more about how they interact with classmates and teachers than about how they'll do on tests of learning, or how "mature" they are.

this is one if the more thought-provoking things gladwell brought up in his book! i think loki should read it!

and ogre too

if he reads

[Flixy]

Is there nothing you can do about this?
I don't know what the system's like in the US, but it's not that rare here to join the year above you (if the child seems capable).

Same here, I think.

And allowing admission twice a year also increases the amount of teachers you need, which is already strained.

[Ominous Gamer]

Is there nothing you can do about this?
I don't know what the system's like in the US, but it's not that rare here to join the year above you (if the child seems capable).

Gifted testing doesn't really exist anymore, and with that all avenues to push for skipping ahead.

[littlelolligagged]

Gifted testing doesn't really exist anymore, and with that all avenues to push for skipping ahead.

Funny, it does here. Guess Georgia schools are better than something, after all.

[Ominous Gamer]

Funny, it does here. Guess Georgia schools are better than something, after all.

Pretty sure I've mentioned that before
Its got a lot to do with how the lottery supplements your system, while in Florida the lottery is used as a replacement, freeing up funds to be spent elsewhere. Georgia has one of the better funded educational systems in the country.

Florida still has "advanced" groupings, but thats at the teacher's call. No more 3rd party testing like I had to do.

[littlelolligagged]

Pretty sure I've mentioned that before
Its got a lot to do with how the lottery supplements your system, while in Florida the lottery is used as a replacement, freeing up funds to be spent elsewhere. Georgia has one of the better educational systems in the country.

Florida still has "advanced" groupings, but thats at the teacher's call. No more 3rd party testing like I had to do.

Are you out of your mind? Georgia has one of the worst educational systems in the country - although since we do it by county some are actually better than others.

Lottery pays for pre-k and Hope scholarships, so the benefit in that is that anyone who can make a B average in high school has the opportunity to go to college.

kind of interesting:
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/states/

[Ominous Gamer]

I forgot a rather important word in there. Its funded nicely, but how thats used and distributed, especially among urban schools has a lot to do with Georgia's social atmosphere.

[Aimless]

Same here, I think.

And allowing admission twice a year also increases the amount of teachers you need, which is already strained.

so make more teachers! DUH

[Aimless]

what's so great about having a "gifted" system??

[Flixy]

so make more teachers! DUH

How old are you?

[Loki]

what's so great about having a "gifted" system??

So people get taught to their skill level, instead of forcing teachers to teach to the lowest common denominator?

[littlelolligagged]

So people get taught to their skill level, instead of forcing teachers to teach to the lowest common denominator?

Entertaingly enough, the gifted program in Georgia schools also qualifies as "special ed."

[Aimless]

So people get taught to their skill level, instead of forcing teachers to teach to the lowest common denominator?

pff why's that such a great thing? such a damn' rush just to get to uni a couple of years ahead of your mates from kindergarten, sheesh

[Aimless]

How old are you?

i'm 24

make more teachers

by making more spots for teaching students at uni

and raising teacher salaries

using lots of more money

which you can get by convincing the taxpayers that teaching kids is important

[littlelolligagged]

pff why's that such a great thing? such a damn' rush just to get to uni a couple of years ahead of your mates from kindergarten, sheesh

It doesn't actually generally involve skipping grades - just providing gifted kids with work that actually holds their interest. To, you know, keep them from being completely bored all day in school.

[Loki]

Math isn't your guys' specialty, is it? If you have 2 admissions cycles per year, then each cycle would have half the students, meaning that it would require half the teachers. Overall, the amount of teachers needed would remain the same.

pff why's that such a great thing? such a damn' rush just to get to uni a couple of years ahead of your mates from kindergarten, sheesh

Yeah, we should strive to breed mediocrity, and bore talented students to death by giving them unchallenging work. That's a great recipe for creating great minds and getting the smartest kids to take school seriously.

[Flixy]

Math isn't your guys' specialty, is it? If you have 2 admissions cycles per year, then each cycle would have half the students, meaning that it would require half the teachers. Overall, the amount of teachers needed would remain the same.

Depends on your schools, really. My high school, and elementary school, I usually had only one class of my 'level' in my year (sortof like an advanced program). So there you would need to double the amount of teachers. Bigger schools would have less trouble with this.

On the other hand, it would spread out the use of resources, which is an advantage. And if you for some reason (illness, for example) miss a significant part of a year, you could be set back half a year instead of an entire year.

College would also have to have two admission dates then. Do they offer that already? Ours does for master's programs, but generally not for bachelor's.

[Loki]

Colleges here have a semester system, which pretty much already works like that.

[Aimless]

It doesn't actually generally involve skipping grades - just providing gifted kids with work that actually holds their interest. To, you know, keep them from being completely bored all day in school.

ahh here i thought it was about giving those kids a competitive edge, you know merit padding, looking good when it's time for uni applications, etc. never in my life did i imagine it was about keeping kids from being bored. i thought that if people cared about keeping kids from being bored they would simply make school more interesting, maybe have more singing and dancing and trips and stimulating even the "mediocre" kids instead of focusing on getting them to serve their time and hopefully pass standardised tests.

i'm all for stimulating kids of course, gifted and otherwise!!

[Loki]

Good to see that your dedication to socialism isn't limited to economic equality but intellectual equality as well. God forbid some people are more interested in school than others or smarter than others and don't want to spend a year learning material they already know.