Gifted children 'caused distress by TV news'

A leading Australian expert on gifted children has warned parents about the effects of watching television news.

University Professor Mirica Gross says highly-gifted children are often more sensitive and deeply feel the sadness of others at a very young age.

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Illinois: Programs for gifted get poor report cards

Administrators are calling for a revitalization of programs for gifted students as personnel turnover and a lack of oversight have weakened middle and high school academies in the Rockford School District.

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Channel 4 documentary: child genius

Article about Channel 4 programme that will go out tomorrow at 8pm.

Michael is one of the high-achieving children in a new Channel 4 series which documents the lives of 10 gifted children growing up in the UK and regularly updates us on their progress, Seven-Up style.

rest of article is here

Enrichment works!

I realize it's early days, but my child emerged from his first enrichment class at school last week declaring he loved it. Now the curious thing is he may not have been identified as a candidate for that class without the psycho-educational assessment that was done on him that identified his strengths and the things that are tripping him up.

To see the benefit of even that single experience has given him is enlightening. As far as I can tell it's about feeling capable more than anything else. It makes me fearful to think that many of the children who need these opportunities may be unlikely to be chosen based on their performance in the classroom, which as I've seen first hand is not always a good indicator of potential.

I suppose one can only place hope in the wisdom and insight of individual teachers who foster a classroom atmosphere where every child has the chance to succeed, which fortunately for us our present teachers this year do. What a difference this makes. The child goes from loathing school to feeling like they can actually participate and enjoy some success. There are still challenges naturally.

Another important change for the new year has been the implementation (finally) of a writing program through the learning assistance centre. Previously the focus appeared to be entirely on remedial reading assistance. Children with written output challenges are not necessarily weak readers, yet they often end up in learning assistance for reading programs. Whilst these programs do not obviously do any damage and may have some benefits they do absolutely nothing to address or aide the fine motor problems. I will be posting about the progress and difference, if any, this writing program makes.

UK news story: Bright pupils to receive vouchers for extra lessons

On today's Guardian newspaper:

A voucher system to provide extra lessons for the brightest 10% of children in England is being introduced in schools, the Department for Education and Skills said today.
The initiative will help an estimated 800,000 pupils who will be able to spend their vouchers on additional courses, "master classes" at university-run summer schools or online evening classes.

The scheme, an extension of the government's National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth, which has run into passive resistance from a sizeable minority of schools, is being promoted by Lord Adonis, the schools minister and former No 10 adviser

.

To read article click here

This is an interesting proposal, except how would it be administered and are national curriculum tests any real indicator of the gifted population? I find that an unlikely prospect, as we all know standardised testing is intensely flawed and designed to fill up numbers in tables on charts, rather than accurately identify any individual strengths.

Here's another link to another interesting paper called: Investigating the notion of children with multiple exceptionalities which mentions learning disabilities and ADHD and high ability.

Recommended Reading: Gifted Children

I recently read this very well-written book by Ellen Winner and found it gave an excellent overview of the challenges and nuances of gifted children. It's useful for parents to be widely educated on all sorts of areas that relate to children and education and this book will give you food for thought and consideration, even if it doesn't relate specifically to your situation. One point that particularly struck me was the reflection on how some parents never find a system they are happy with and continually move the children or choose to homeschool. Click on this link for more details:


Ellen Winner has also written other books on arts and education.