Grouping Gifted Students

D evon Harris When I was a child, my need for accuracy was often held against me. I was called pedantic. Difficult. Annoying. I learned, the way children do, that this part of me was a problem. So later in life, I worked on it. I let go of precision and changed who I was to be more palatable to the people around me. What I now refer to as “fit for human consumption.” As if I wasn’t before. After a degree in Youth Studies and a decade of working directly with young people, my son was born. Early on, I could see in him that same need to be precise, to have things properly named, and for correcting small errors. But this time I had a different philosophy, a new language, and the lived experience to know what was at stake. So I chose to honour this “perfectionism” rather than fix it. What followed was all sorts of wonderful. His perfectionism became a thermostat. When he was settled, safe and secure, his desire to perfect his drawings, his sentences, my sentences, was delightful and functional. A native, intelligent love of accuracy that produced careful, beautiful work. But when something was off, if he was overwhelmed from a huge day, or there was a need that was not being adequately met, or when feelings had piled up without time and space to express them properly, that trait would shift in texture. An urgency would appear, and repetitiveness or rigidity would emerge. The drawing had to be redone from the start, then redone again, or he’d refuse to put pen to paper at all saying “I can’t.” The trait had not changed. The conditions had. This is the distinction I now spend my professional life helping parents see. Perfectionism in a gifted child is not one thing. It is two. There is the trait. The genuine, native gifted love of precision, accuracy, and completion. This is to be welcomed, celebrated and stewarded, the way you would welcome other traits your child arrives with. And there is the strategy. The way the trait gets recruited by the child to meet their own safety and attachment needs when those needs are not being met for them. The urgency. The rigidity. The mountains of screwed up paper on the floor. This is a signal. It's our child madly waving a flag asking for our help. Children do not develop this strategy if they do not need it. They are not being difficult, or anxious, or fragile. They are reaching for safety with the only tool they have. What this means for parents (and for the practitioners who guide them) is that perfectionism is not always the thing to address. What we need to look at is the conditions that made the strategy necessary. When safety is restored and attachment needs are adequately met, the strategy retires itself. The trait remains in its delightful and functional form, and our child does not have to lose a part of themselves to be okay. This is also why I moved my work, years ago, away from working directly with children and to working exclusively with parents. Children recover inside relationships (a truth Gordon Neufeld has spent decades articulating) and attachment wiring means the relationship that matters most is the one the child already has. A profession cannot build in an hour a week what the parent already has, so my work is to equip parents with the understanding and the tools to read the thermostat accurately, and meet the needs underneath. This is what makes our parenting land in the ways that truly count. Getting an accurate read. The willingness to ask, what is my child telling me right now? The courage to meet what we find. For my son, I didn’t fix him, I learnt to read him. The thermostat told me what I needed to know. When I think of the child I was, and of the well-meaning adults who tried to correct the parts of me that they did not understand, I can see that they were not unkind. They were doing what the culture had taught them to do. But the cost of that correction was real (what Gabor Maté would call the trade of authenticity for attachment), and it took a hot minute to find my way back. My son will not have to find his way back. For the most part, he has been welcomed, exactly as he is, from the start. And his perfectionism, that beautiful, intelligent, sometimes inconvenient love of getting it right, has become one of his most reliable guides. It is mine, too. This piece is informed by the work of Aletha Solter (Aware Parenting Institute), Gordon Neufeld, Gabor Maté, and the broader gifted education field. I am indebted to these thinkers and to the parents I work alongside daily. Devon Harris is a parenting coach, writer, and the founder of Gifted Parenting. She works exclusively with parents of gifted children, drawing on Aware Parenting, attachment theory, and her own ongoing experience of raising a gifted child. She lives and works on Dja Dja Wurrung country in regional Victoria.

Sally Meggitt I sit on the couch with my 15 year old son and we talk moral philosophy. The conversation deviates at many turns and is interspersed with snippets from the latest science news or interesting words he’s come across, what might be their origin and then imaginings on other words that should be included in the English language….. or scrap that, we should invent a better language anyway. It ends in cannibalism as it often does, and the nature of ethics, morality and societal norms. My son is highly gifted, he is also adhd and autistic with a PDA profile which meant school in mainstream ended for him in year four after repeated bouts of throwing desks in meltdowns so severe he has no memory of them. He was placed in high needs support units where he spent the next 4 years trying to participate at an ‘age appropriate’ level while trying to understand how to learn, stay regulated and perform tasks they set. By the end of year 8 he had accomplished the goals of being able to exist inside the school environment but was becoming depressed. “Mum” he said “I know the school is doing all they can, but quite frankly, I feel like this is a waste of my life and childhood.” I pulled him out. He was right, the schools he had attended had done everything possible for him within what they could provide and with what he would participate in. They had worked with me, worked with him, and achieved quite a lot in terms of his regulation and self understanding, but he was collapsing trying to compress himself into the box they needed him to be in, in order to teach him. I didn’t want to homeschool, couldn’t imagine trying to get him to learn what he was supposed to, despite being a teacher myself. I didn’t think our relationship or my sanity could survive it, and he needed me as his mother and struggled to see me as having more than one role. We enrolled him in an amazing program run my aspect delivered as distance education, but it soon became obvious that this was not going to work either. My son could not manage the transitions between subject matter, could not do one class on a chapter of a book that covered a topic such as prejudice one week and then move to another topic the following. His mind just didn’t work like that. He needed to understand the topic fully, investigate all the avenues it led down: go off on tangents and play with the ideas, tease them apart, attack them, sift them, stomp on them and then glue them back together again and perhaps make an imaginary abstract sculpture or two as a side experience. He was distressed by it, bored by tasks that he found hard because he lacked the skills in and they required repetition, and mortified by his self described “failure” to be able to be a student in the expected way, even with all the accomodations he had in place. I conceded “defeat” and registered for homeschool, hoping I wouldn’t end up sued for being unable to “educate” him in the way that was prescribed by the syllabus content he had selected to study. I am under no illusion that I am “educating” my child. Do any of us really educate anyone? Education is something deeply personal, some coming towards, engaging with and incorporating into oneself understandings that allow us to build a model of the world and ourselves via which we can navigate life. He is doing this now with gusto, and I only do the leg work of trying to follow the journey and document it in a way that makes it look like the appropriate outcomes. I stand on the side lines trying to find leads in the forms of books and interests and experiences and documentaries that I place as a smorgasboard around him. He consumes, and then we talk. Secretly I worry. Secretly I wonder how I will find him someone else to talk to once he has out talked and out thought me. Secretly I wonder what becomes of a mind like his in academic and personal isolation like this. He does not. He is happy. He is bright and alive in a way I have not seen since he derailed in school in year 2. No longer having to fold himself into a box he could never fit or thrive in, he is unfolding in ways I could never have imagined. If he was judged by his performance at school, or where he would ever have got to inside the education system as it is today, he would have been deemed a “failure”……now he’s just delightfully, somewhat challengingly, himself.

Nassain Jones  As a gifted education specialist, one of the most important lessons I have learned throughout my career is that there is no single profile that accurately captures the idiosyncrasies, asynchronies, complexities, and vulnerabilities of gifted students. Like a garden, a school is full of diversity and beauty. Within this garden, our gifted students are the rare plants which, while a beautiful and necessary part of the ecosystem, often grow according to a different timetable and with different needs. Some bloom early but have fragile roots. Some appear dormant while developing rapidly underground. Some wilt in conditions where most plants thrive, while others flourish in environments that would overwhelm their peers. As teachers, we are the gardeners responsible for helping these students flourish. If we expect gifted students to thrive in learning environments that do not cater to their unique needs, we risk inhibiting their growth. At Secret Harbour, our motto is Leads the Way, and we strive to embody this in the way we support our high-potential students. Like cultivating a garden, building a program for gifted learners began with vision and hope, but quickly taught us humility. No gardener can scatter seeds and expect every plant to flourish in the same way, at the same pace, or under the same conditions. We first planted the seeds for change in 2019. After years of pull-out enrichment and extension programs, we realised we were not seeing the growth we had hoped for. A new plan was needed. This began with staff professional development, consultation with experts in the field, and visits to other schools to gain insight into their gifted programs. Combined with a leap of faith from an administration team willing to put plans into action, we began our journey full of optimism and excitement for the future. We understood the research: gifted students benefit academically and socially from regular access to similarly able peers, and the strongest gains are achieved when instruction is meaningfully differentiated. In the primary setting, however, 50% of instruction time is spent in literacy and numeracy, making it unrealistic to withdraw students from classrooms for half the school day. Recognising the importance of peer connection and appropriately challenging learning environments, the seeds for our Challenge Classes were planted. The Challenge Class initiative began with two clear intentions: to provide gifted learners at all stages of primary schooling with like-ability peers and thereby a sense of belonging, while also providing access to curriculum delivered at an increased pace and level of complexity. The classes allowed for curriculum compacting, movement beyond prescribed curriculum, and opportunities for students to explore ideas more deeply. The initiative launched with three multi-age classes across years 1-2, 3-4, and 5-6. Students were identified and invited to be a part of the classes using a range of measures, including standardised testing (NAPLAN, PAT), ability testing (CogAT, AGAT), and teacher observation. Purposeful identification processes ensured that all students were considered. As a result, Challenge Classes included, and continue to include, students from a wide range of backgrounds — twice-exceptional learners, students from Indigenous backgrounds - and an intentional balance of gender. Feedback from students and parents was overwhelmingly positive, but as a Challenge Class teacher, I noticed differences in students that I had not anticipated. I expected the learning to be different, but I was awestruck by the sense of community and belonging that developed. Students spoke openly about the freedom they felt in being able to truly be themselves. They unleashed their voracious appetites for learning and discovery without inhibition. However, as with all initiatives, there were stumbling blocks along the way. Some came to regard the classes as “tall poppies” and, in response, we sought to provide additional professional learning around gifted education. Some staff expressed concerns about perceived equity, the impact on mainstream classrooms, and student social development: What happens if students only socialise with like-ability peers? Won’t struggling students lose peer tutors? Education became the key — watering and nurturing both the program and our staff with a constant stream of research, resources, and professional dialogue to slowly shift hearts and minds. Seven years on, more than 200 children have moved through the Challenge Class program. While it remains very much a work in progress, we have learnt and grown considerably. The key lessons we have taken from the journey revolve around transparency, communication, flexibility, and ongoing development. A clear and transparent process for selection and ongoing monitoring is essential to ensure that staff at all levels understand the purpose, goals, and processes driving the initiative. Understanding not only what decisions have been made, but why they have been made, is critical. This requires a dedicated team to guide the process and communicate decisions clearly to staff. A common misconception is that the classes are formed solely on academic ability, when in reality they are based on “fit,” not “status.” To succeed, the classes also need to remain flexible: flexible in the way students move in and out of the program, flexible in curriculum delivery, and flexible in assessment practices to genuinely meet student needs. They must also communicate their purpose with empathy. The name Challenge Classes was originally chosen to emphasise challenge in pace and complexity rather than ability, and to encourage the development of grit and perseverance, often missing in some of our most gifted students when left unchallenged. However, this has not always been interpreted as intended, and it remains something we continue to reflect on — do the classes need a label at all, or can they achieve their purpose without one? Finally, ongoing development for staff — and, where necessary, parents — ensures that misconceptions and misinformation can be addressed professionally. As we know, gifted education is surrounded by substantial and often damaging myths. By addressing these openly, we create opportunities to build understanding first, and solutions second. To make this work, we have learned to listen carefully to the voices of our gifted students, as well as to the voices of staff, ensuring that everyone’s needs are acknowledged and individual differences are valued. After planting these seeds for change and growth, we have come far in our learning journey, though there is still more to learn. We are proud of what we have achieved and of the difference we have made in the lives of the many gifted learners we have had the privilege to support. Like successful gardeners, we have learned that observation, patience, experimentation, and a willingness to keep learning from the garden itself are the true keys to growth and success.

We are very grateful to Logan for sharing the below poem and artwork as part of Gifted Awareness Week. Logan reflects on what it can feel like to be a gifted young person. Reader note: Logan reflects on big themes including existential thoughts and death. We share it with care and thanks to his family.

Hasan A. Talukder Data & Enrichment Leader, Salesian College Chadstone, Melbourne. There is a quiet assumption in many schools that gifted students will just be fine. They do well in school, ask thoughtful questions, and often seem self-sufficient. But from my experience as a teacher and leader of a select-entry enrichment program, I know this assumption is one of the most damaging misconceptions in education. Gifted learners are not just a group of high achievers. They are complex, diverse, and often misunderstood. This is why the theme “ Varied Voices, Shared Future ” resonates deeply with me. Because the more I work with gifted students, the more I realise that their voices are not always loud, visible, or easy to interpret. One student I taught showed outstanding mathematical reasoning, far beyond his year level. But he had a hard time with reading and writing because of dyslexia. His results on paper did not always show his true ability. In a traditional classroom, it would have been easy to overlook his strengths. But when he had the chance to explain his thinking out loud and work on complex problems, his ability was clear. This made me question my own ideas about what giftedness looks like and reminded me that ability does not always show up in typical schoolwork. Another student, equally capable, presented very differently. He was clearly capable, but his engagement changed a lot. Sometimes he seemed withdrawn, inconsistent, or unmotivated. It would have been easy to think he was not trying. But behind this was a complicated family life and emotional stress that affected how he came to school each day. Helping him took more than just giving extra work. It took trust, patience, and a real effort to understand him beyond the classroom. As trust grew, so did his confidence and his willingness to join in and take risks in his learning. These experiences have taught me a simple but important lesson: Gifted education cannot be separated from the context of the learner. Gifted students may present through perfectionism, anxiety, avoidance, or inconsistency. If we focus only on achievement, we risk misreading these signals entirely. One of the most transformative aspects of my work has been seeing students outside the classroom, particularly through our Capstone Program , where students complete a two-week immersion experience in China. In the classroom, we often see students through structured tasks and academic expectations. But in China, those structures fall away. Students move through new places, meet different cultures, and experience History, Geography, and Politics as real life, not just school subjects. Visiting historical sites, seeing city and country life, and thinking about the world helps them connect what they learn to real life in meaningful ways. What struck me most, however, was not just the academic growth, but the sense of belonging that emerged. Students who were quiet in class found their voice. Others grew in empathy, leadership, and independence in ways I had not seen before. Friendships grew stronger, and a sense of community started to form. For many, this was the first time they truly felt connected, not just to their classmates, but to themselves as learners. As a teacher, this experience reshaped my understanding of my students. I started to see them not just as high achievers or underachievers, but as people dealing with complex challenges in their emotions, social lives, and learning. This changed how I worked with them in the classroom, making me more empathetic, flexible, and thoughtful. In our select-entry Biretta Program , we often say we should be data-informed, not data-driven. This is because data helps us see patterns, but it is students’ real experiences that give those patterns meaning. No single test, grade, or score can capture the full picture of any learner let alone a gifted one. The theme “ Varied Voices, Shared Future ” is not just about noticing diversity. It is about responding to it. It challenges us as educators to move beyond narrow ideas of giftedness and to create learning spaces that are responsive, inclusive, and human. When we truly listen to the different voices of gifted learners, including those who are twice-exceptional, those facing complex lives outside of school, and those who do not fit the mold, we do more than just support them. We help create a future where they are not only seen, but truly understood.

By Mary Grace Maquiniana Santos She walks through the world with wonder in her eyes, A mind that dances where imagination flies, At four, yet deeper than the years she’s lived, A soul so bright, with so much to give. Her questions bloom like stars in endless skies, Each thought a spark of sweet surprise, She reads with ease, as if she’s always known, In every word, her brilliance is shown. She moves to music with a graceful art, Each step and rhythm from her heart, She plays her songs so pure and true, A melody only she can do. With brush and colour, she creates her view, A world of beauty in every hue, Her art speaks softly, bold yet free, A glimpse of who she’s meant to be. Though time says four, my heart feels something more, Like I have known her long before, A bond that stretches past what we can see, A thread of love through eternity.

Amanda Larkin My mum was told in the 1980s that girls do not get ADHD. She did not believe them. Instead, she kept every medical report and school report. Thirty years later, those documents became the evidence I needed for a diagnosis that should have been recognised decades earlier. Reading those reports now, they practically scream twice-exceptional. Does not answer the question. Distracted. Could achieve so much more if she just paid attention. Wasting her potential. Wasting her parents' money on tutors and still only scraping through. Attendance dropping. There was no "school can't" back then. It was just called wagging. I spent most of my life believing I simply was not very smart. My ATAR equivalent was not high enough for university. I entered teaching through a side door, a non-direct pathway after a gap year, already convinced I was less capable than everyone around me. My brain did not work the way school expected. I could research for hours. Fall down rabbit holes of curiosity. Read endlessly. Learn constantly. But essays stayed unfinished. Deadlines slipped past. The Masters that began in 2003 never quite made it to the end. Crafts and projects piled in a shed with the moniker, “The Mausoleum of Lost Crafts.” Jobs lasted a few years before frustration and itchy feet set in and I moved on. For fifteen years of teaching, I masked. Every day felt like I was an imposter who was getting away with something. Like someone would eventually realise I did not really belong there. Then my children were identified as twice-exceptional. I did what I did best when I needed answers. I hyper-focused. I read everything. I researched late into the night. I learned how to advocate for them in systems that were not built to see them clearly. After fifteen years working with teenagers, I had already seen the pattern. I knew intelligence and school results were not the same thing. The research simply gave a name to what I had been seeing all along, along with the language and evidence to advocate for it. As I learned, I quickly started seeing my students differently too. The quiet ones. The frustrated ones. The ones who were bright but somehow never quite fit the expectation of reaching their potential. Then the advocacy part came quickly. It was not a lightbulb moment. It was a fierce need for justice. Justice for my children, justice for the students I had missed, and justice for future students so that they would never fall through the gaps on my watch. When someone mentioned that giftedness could be genetic, I laughed. Not a shy knowing giggle, but a deep-seated ironic chortle. The ADHD maybe. But giftedness? Not a chance. After the tireless nagging from supportive friends with kids like mine, I eventually agreed to an IQ assessment. When the results came back, I stared at the numbers in disbelief. How could that possibly be true? How could someone with those results have spent decades struggling to pass almost every formal learning experience she had ever had? Accepting that intelligence and school results are not the same thing was easy when I was advocating for children. Accepting that the same truth applied to me has taken far longer. It is still ongoing. Now I am learning something new. How to unmask. How to speak to myself with compassion. How to be authentically myself. My friends jokingly call me The Velvet Sledgehammer. An advocate who pushes back against systems that overlook the very learners they are meant to serve. My voice is varied, but it is far from rare. A girl who was unseen as a learner. A perfectionist. A people pleaser. A self gas lighter who believed she was below average on the smarts scale. This is why the theme of Gifted Awareness Week, Varied Voices, Shared Future, matters. Because giftedness does not always look the way we expect. Sometimes it looks like unfinished assignments. Falling attendance. Bright ideas that never make it onto the page. Sometimes it looks like a girl whose potential is written about in every report but never quite understood, supported and allowed to grow wings and fly. My future now is dedicated to amplifying those varied voices. The voices of our asynchronous, neurodivergent, gifted children so that they do not need to use their voices in order to be seen. That being seen is a given, not a privilege of luck or context. So that their varied voices are part of a shared future that is supported and understood long before they reach their forties and realise they were never the problem. A future where the narrow expectation of what giftedness is supposed to look like is a distant memory, replaced by recognition of the beautiful variety of gifted expression.

Some ideas for teachers and parents on how to support the back-to-school transition for young gifted children.

The constant search for wellbeing and happiness is one that might be familiar to many gifted families. Here is the story of one gifted child, and all that it took to find happiness. "We knew really early that they were gifted,” said their mother Deb. They actually taught themself to read at two and a half. But back then, I still didn’t actually know anything about giftedness.” "We had them tested before starting school and it came back that they were profoundly gifted," said Deb. "And that’s when the struggle started." Adding, “I think I called every school in our area. A few even admitted that they would not be able to cater for them”. The family decided on a school that said they could support gifted children. "We chose one that said, 'Yes, we can do this, we can do that.’ “We did have a lot of separation issues at preschool, and that was just an indication of what was to come. We didn’t realise at the time it was because they were so bored," said Deb. "They just didn’t want to go." To help with the separation anxiety, in term 4 of the year before they were due to start school, Deb's child went to school just a few mornings a week to help with the transition. After two weeks however, the inclusion teacher told Deb that they would need to go to grade 1 instead of prep as they were just so far ahead. So they commenced getting them enrolled in Prep full time for the remainder of term 4. Deb said, “The big problems began once they’d started grade 1. The teacher didn’t understand about their level of giftedness at all.” “We had kicking and screaming trying to get them to school because they were so disappointed that it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be,” she said “Even when they were doing the transition days in Prep, I remember they came home one day saying “I’m so stupid. I’m so dumb. I’m trying to talk to the kids about the periodic table, and they don’t want to have anything to do with it anymore because they’re past that now.” I had to explain that the other kids probably didn’t know what the periodic table even was’, Deb recalled. Throughout grade 1 Deb tried advocating for another grade skip. Further testing revealed they were working at a grade 3 level, so it was no wonder they didn’t want to go to grade 1, but the school didn’t want to do another skip, said Deb. “I was trying to work with them, offering to help any way I could, but it was like every meeting I went into they were straight on the defensive,” she said. “By the end of grade 1 we knew we weren’t getting anywhere, so we moved schools to an independent school with a philosophy that children’s class levels shouldn’t be dictated by their age,” said Deb. Deb explained that year two started out great at the new school. The teacher understood and she was a high school trained teacher so was able to extend them. At lunch times they were hanging out with year 10, 11 and 12 students (supervised in the library) so they were able to have conversations with older kids about their favourite subject - chemistry. However, half-way through year three the problems started again. “They got a new classroom teacher, who just did not get them, so it was back to refusing to go to school.” “I was standing outside the classroom for two hours trying to get them to go into the classroom,” Deb said. “At this point we had a discussion with Michele Juratowich, a gifted education consultant, who basically told me that I’m not going to find a perfect school for them because they don’t exist.” “The biggest thing Michele told me that I really took on board was that we needed a school with flexibility,” said Deb. “Michelle said that when you get to the kids that have IQs over the 140s they really need a school that’s flexible and willing to work with the family.” “So the school search started again!” “That’s when I had discussions with Capalaba State College. They allowed us to have a flexible arrangement where our child would attend school four days per week and then attend an external one-day program for gifted children.” Deb told us. It was then that Deb introduced their school principal to the lead educator of the one-day program. “The program eventually relocated to our school, and seeing the need and increasing numbers it eventually morphed into the current High Capacity program”. Once our child was in this gifted program they really started to take off. They were radically accelerated several years ahead in maths and science and were even able to do subjects with the high school classes. The timetabling was complicated, but the school always did what they could to make it work, and didn’t shy away from allowing them to accelerate through the subjects they needed much more challenge in. Then at the end of year 8, at 13 years old, they decided they wanted to sit the American College Board SATs for fun, where they essentially scored the equivalent to about an ATAR 89. This allowed them to actually enter some university courses. So at this point they applied to study a Bachelor of Science in Physics at the University of Southern Queensland and was accepted. They did a couple of subjects and did well, but unfortunately they didn’t like the online study, so at the age of 14 they transferred across to Griffith University, where they could study on campus. This they love! They still go to high school for the social development and having the opportunity to do elective subjects, and they go to university for their love of learning in their passion area, and they are enjoying the social interactions as well. For anyone reading this, thinking this all sounds so complicated! We asked Deb, why? What are the benefits? Her answer? – mental health. “The benefit is mental health – and that’s all we’ve always strived for,” said Deb. “They aren't bored by what they're doing now, whereas if they were still back in their year level we’d have that boredom, the behaviour and the school refusal. They would be miserable,” she said. “Our biggest goal is always happiness – are they happy?,” Deb said. Adding, “schools do have their own duty of care as well, to create well rounded students, and for gifted kids this isn’t going to be possible if their intellectual health isn’t being developed alongside their emotional health.” “These kids have this advanced cognitive ability, and most of the time their social / emotional ability is either age appropriate or years above as well,” said Deb. “We might not think it sometimes because they can come across as younger, but I realised they understand and take on so much more than we might realise and generally appear younger or more immature when they are trying to self-normalise or fit in with their age peers’, Deb explained. “That’s why allowing them to connect with both intellectual peers and social / emotional peers is so important,” Deb concluded.