Sunday, June 22, 2014

how do I send a gift to the UK?




Kevin


ok i want to send something to a friend of mine that moved to the UK? how do i do that??


Answer
You make sure that the gift is something that is allowed into the UK. You package the gift so that it is secure during transportation. You address it with your return address as well ,and then you take it to the post office where they will weight it. You decide if you want it to go airmail or surface mail. You then fill in the customs form, pay the required amount and leave it with the post office to deal with it from then on...

Would my child be consider a gifted child? UK?




Me


Okay I asked a question earlier, and I guess I didn't give the right information.

We have a son, who just turned 2 a week ago.
For about 3-4 months now he has learned...
all his colors
his numbers
most of his ABC's
can read about 3 dozen words (and learning more each week)
can do simple math
knows his shapes

On a non educational level..
he knows how to dial the telephone and use it (house and cell phone)
play (with more skill than my teenagers lol) the Wii an play station (including how to put the disk in, turn it on an load the game, switch between users etc)
basic computer skills, such as opening a web browser an clicking on his saved pages and turning the pc on an off.
use a TV remote, to scroll through his programs saved on the DVR an select which one he wants to watch

This is not by any means an all inclusive list of his abilities. I am just curious if he would be considered gifted in England? I know in the states he is.

We are just concerned with his ability to learn at a frightening pace and memory retention ability (which is somewhat unreal) , that he is going to be bored in school. We already have to find numerous different ways to keep him stimulated and learning. He learns VERY quickly an gets bored.
For instance in one bus ride of less than 15 minutes, he learned all his shapes. Now if you try to sit with him to go over them, he will tell you what they are once, then refuses to do so again and we have to move on to something new. As soon as he has mastered something we have to find a new way to challenge him.

Is home schooling allowed in England? I am just trying to figure our options out. Or if he is just "normal" for English children, then I guess we don't need to be thinking ahead.



Answer
He certainly sounds like a bright little boy. Do you have more than one child? I'll swear I answered a question from you the other day but I thought it was about a child who was much closer to school age.

He won't be bored in school at least to start with because what he'll be learning is how to interact with a group, how to cope when he has to share the adult in charge with 15 or so other kids, how to take turns or play on a team in PE, and so on. Reception is pretty much about life skills rather than reading and writing. They do do that as well, but they'll be at a wide range of different levels. It's later on, when the whole class is learning the idea of "subtraction" and yours understood it at 3, that he'll be bored.

We don't really make a big fuss of "gifted" here. (Which I'm not at all saying is a good thing). If you are expecting professional educators to gush over how amazing your son is, it isn't going to happen.

However, bright young kids _do_ have an astonishing memory retention ability compared to adults. Don't be writing to the Guinness Book of Records yet :) He's very likely to have a more "normal" memory as he gets older and simply _has_ to remember a wide range of things about different subjects. Right now, all he has to remember is a few fun facts. You'd find it easy too...except that your memory is all filled up with when you have to make dinner and if the car needs petrol and hanging the washing out and filling in that form...

My opinion? Regardless of how academically gifted he is, you need to let him be "normal". He needs to go to playgroup and fingerpaint. He needs to dig in the sand. He needs to sing tunelessly and dress up as a pirate. He needs to be an ordinary toddler. He needs to play with friends (or at least acquaintances). Even if he'd rather be doing maths worksheets. (And I say that as mum to a child who would absolutely have rather spent his life doing maths worksheets and whose idea of a perfect early childhood day would have contained zero interaction with other kids).

Cross the bridge of whether he's bored at school when he actually gets there. We don't have the concept of passing or failing a year - if he goes to primary school for a term and it isn't right, you can pull him out, ring up your local academic private school and see if they'll look at him, start homeschooling, whatever. But please don't wrap him in cotton wool as this special little snowflake who can't possibly enjoy the things other kids do. You won't be doing him any favours at all.




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