Child Genius

I watched a really scary programme on my Sky Plus box last night - Child Genius.

Child Genius is a landmark Channel 4 returning series that will document the lives of ten of the UK's most gifted children as they grow up. Beginning with this 90-minute curtain raiser and first returning in a year's time, Child Genius will follow the ten children as they develop over the coming years. Each will follow a very different path and there will be no predicting the outcomes as they come to terms with their gift and figure out their place in the world.

I really enjoyed watching this documentary, but at the same time I found it very disturbing. There was an almost robotic-looking mother and father who push their four children so hard they have an 11+ celebration day (you've never seen so many presents!) Next, there was a boy called Dante who was a superb philosopher but I sensed had real issues. I was really put off by Michael the 'literary genius' who didn't seem to be able to stop talking, but in the end I thought had a good sense of humour. Peter was a hilarious boy who was a chess genius but was only ever in the company of adults. Aimee was a lovely girl who was incredibly bright and inbelievable talented in music. At three-years-old, Mikhail is the youngest ever member of Mensa. He can multiply five figure numbers before most kids can count to 10. His parents were told that he was spending too long on learning maths and not a lot else, and as a result his IQ was going down! Fair play, he is only 3, but they were very shocked by this. My favourite genius was the six-year-old boy who was taking GCSE maths!

The disturbing aspect of the programme revealled something quite concerning - that it seems that the vast majority of schools are unable to cater for children with needs like their's. Some of the parents had spend thousands trying to find the right private school to challenge them. Our government has spent so many years trying encourage schools to be inclusive so that children with physical and learning difficulties can be educated with everyone else. What about children who are extraordinarily bright? I think the government are only just waking up to this fact. Ofsted are apparently looking at this too. One of our local schools was given challenging gifted and talented pupils in the foundation subjects as an area for development!

The most appalling thing about the programme was that the parents didn't seem to mind that their children didn't have any friends. They were all too happy to remove them from school, teach them at home and deny them any social interaction with their peers. Being a genius is one thing, but learning to look after themselves in the real world is far too important a skill to be ignored. I am already looking forward to the next part of the series, in a year or two's time.