Guiding the Rocket Ship: Why Gifted Learners Should Not Have to Learn Alone

Abstract


While gifted learners are often driven by their interests and can appear to be highly independent, this does not mean that they ought to be left to pursue their learning independently. The importance of significant persons and intrapersonal traits and attributes as catalysts of talent development in Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent show gifted learners must be thoughtfully guided by teachers who have been trained in the field of gifted education.

 

Keywords:


Gifted students; Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent; DMGT; classroom teacher; teacher attitudes; perfectionism; goal-valuation; motivation; talent development

 

Introduction


I remember the moment clearly. I had rushed through the set exercises in my grammar textbook, fumbling my work on clauses and punctuation, keen to have it done so I could move on to more interesting things. I finished the chapter and looked around. The rest of my class were taking their time. The person next to me was only halfway through the task. I pulled out my second exercise book, the one that contained my novel manuscript, and picked up the pen. Then the teacher called my name and asked me what I was doing.

“Oh, I’ve finished the work, Sir,” I said, in that presumptuous, assuring tone of voice which talented students learn early. Don’t worry about me. Worry about the other kids who are falling behind.

“I can see that,” he said. “But who said that means you get to decide what you go onto next?”

I was a rocket ship, but there needed to be a bit more work done on the ship and the navigation system before it went hurtling off into the far reaches of the universe.


In the Kierkegaardian sense that life makes sense when looking backwards but must be lived looking forwards, this was my first encounter with the myth that is the subject of this paper. The myth is that gifted learners can, or should, be left to learn alone. Such a statement assumes that learning is binary dichotomy – either someone learned, or they did not, and there is no interim degree – and it also groups gifted learners into a single homogenous group. It assumes that all gifted learners have this capability to work independently and self-regulate effectively, and that it is an appropriate intervention to allow every gifted learner to proceed through typical classwork at a rapid speed and then be master of their own (cognitive) domain.

 

This leads me to my present mission: to evaluate the myth that gifted learners can and should learn alone or by themselves. In order to do that I will refer to Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (hence DMGT), focusing on the influence of environmental and intrapersonal factors on the development of talent, and the known problem of underachievement among gifted learners. I’ll recommend some strategies for working effectively to support rocket ships (read: gifted learners) based around improving environmental factors, building intrapersonal skills and attributes, and reversing or reducing underachievement.


The Myth and Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent


Overview


Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent provides a diagrammatic overview of the procedure of talent development – that is, the process of translating gifts as natural abilities in physical and mental domains (Gagné, 2009, p. 64) through catalysts into competencies or talents (ibid). Gagné divides the catalysts into environmental factors (milieu, individuals and provisions), and intrapersonal factors (physical and mental traits, and awareness, motivation and volition as aspects of goal-motivation). In this section, I’ll focus on the environmental factors of individuals (namely the classroom teacher) and provisions (the educational opportunities afforded to the student, especially ones offered as unique differentiated adjustments) in debunking the idea that gifted learners should learn by themselves.

 

Classroom Teacher as Environmental Factor


A range of research established the profound influence of a classroom teacher on their students, including their gifted learners (Baudson & Preckel, 2016). Research into so-called ‘self-fulfilling prophecies’ has shown the significant impact which teachers’ expectations will have on outcomes for their students (Jussim & Harber, 2005), and Lassig summarises Clark’s finding that the classroom teacher “significantly affects the development of gifted students” (Lassig, 2009, p.40). If the gifted learner was able to learn by themselves, then the classroom teacher would have to have little to no measurable influence on a student’s acquisition of learning. Instead, the opposite is true. The influence of a teacher’s attitudes and beliefs on their practice (Lassig, 2009; Jung, 2014) heavily impacts student achievement.

 

Provisions (or lack thereof) as Environmental Factor 


The typical classroom is not perfectly effective as a space of adjustment (that is, provision) for the needs of gifted learners, including their need to be intellectually stimulated (Siegle & McCoach, 2018, p. 565). Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubulius & Worrell note that “opportunities provided by society are crucial at every point in the talent development process” and also note “the need for all students to be challenged in their schoolwork…. Appropriate educational programming, training and support are required” (Subotnik, Olszewski-Kubilius & Worrell, 2011, p.3-4). The fact that there is a clear need for external opportunities, appropriate programming, training and support further discredits the notion that gifted learners can be left to their own self-determined devices.

 

Evaluation


Overall, important persons and provisions are both catalysts which play a significant role in translating gifts into talents in Gagne’s DMGT (Gagné, 2009). A teacher’s attitudes and beliefs will greatly impact their students, and a lack of appropriate provisions or adjustments will prevent a gifted learner from being given appropriately challenging work, or appropriate support. As such, the myth that gifted learners can or should learn by themselves is disproven.


The Myth and the Fact of Underachievement


Overview


McCoach and Siegle have defined underachievement as “the discrepancy between expected achievement based on one’s intellectual potential/ability and observed academic performance” (McCoach & Siegle, 2014; Steenbergen-Hu et al, 2020). Underachievement is rampant among the gifted population, particularly among male students (Hatley and Townend, 2020). As such, it will be demonstrated that students’ attitudes (including their conceptions of intelligence) and both their goal-valuation and motivation significantly influence their learning. In this context, while some gifted learners may be capable of extended independent work, the heterogeneity of learners’ motivation, self-regulation skills, and adaptive/maladaptive perfectionism means not all students can do this.

 

Fixed Mindsets and Perfectionism


Perfectionism is not unique to gifted learners, and both gifted and non-gifted learners can exhibit adaptive or maladaptive perfectionism; it is still true that “many gifted students do display concerning qualities of unhealthy perfectionism” (Mofield et al, 2019, p. 1). Maladaptive perfectionism can lead to behaviours such as delaying classwork, compulsive action, a fear of failure, and task/challenge-avoidance (ibid). Researchers have drawn a division between Evaluative Concerns, or maladaptive attributes, and Positive Strivings (Speirs Neumeister, 2016). In this framework, the former includes factors such as Concern Over Mistakes, Parent Criticism, and Parental Expectations (Mofield et al, 2019). If learners have a fixed conception of intelligence then they may feel that their sense of self or their identity as ‘bright’ or possibly ‘gifted’ learners is at risk when a difficult task is presented to them, and they may then avoid the task completely in order to avoid the failure in the one task compromising their whole identify and self-efficacy (Mofield et al, 2019). As summarised by Siegle and McCoach, “for [these learners], not performing is less risky than performing and failing” (Siegle & McCoach, 2018, p.566).

As such, if a gifted learner is motivated by Positive Strivings, then there may be a degree to which they can learn by themselves, insofar as they possess the initiative and determination to commence and continue learning activities alone. However, students who exhibit maladaptive perfectionism need appropriate intervention and coaching from teachers and mentors in order to develop the intrapersonal traits required to come autonomous learners.

 

Goal-Valuation and Motivation


Mofield and Peters have argued that “all three attitude components (self-efficacy, goal-valuation, and environmental supports) must be present to catalyse the motivation and self-regulation necessary to produce ultimate achievement” (Mofield & Peters, 2019). On a similar note, in a study by McCoach and Siegle cited by McCoach and Flake, the best predictors of student achievement were found to be motivation or self-regulation as well as goal valuation, and a clear correlation was found between a student’s goal-valuation and their ability to motivate or regulate themselves to achieve said goals (McCoach & Flake, 2018, p. 209; McCoach & Siegle, 2003). Because gifted learners often have particular interests (as do all learners), it cannot be assumed that they will see the arbitrary value of mandated classwork; further, if they have been in regular classrooms for some time, they may be conditioned to see classwork that has been set for all students as boring and irrelevant to their unique interests. McCoach and Flake use Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory to argue that educators of the gifted must set learning tasks which are complex enough to prevent boredom and not so difficult to induce anxiety; further they advise that educators must help gifted learners to value their learning goals more highly (McCoach & Flake, 2018, p. 203-204; Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).


As such, because goal-valuation and motivation play a large role in successful learning, the myth that gifted learners can learn by themselves assumes that these learners always value their learning goals highly and are always motivated to achieve them. In fact, “regular classes, as compared with gifted education and advanced classes, tend to undermine, rather than support, a passion for learning” (Siegle and McCoach, 2018, p. 565; Fredricks, Alfeld, and Eccles, 2010). As such, not only can gifted learners not learn by themselves if they lack goal-valuation or motivation, but the general educational system has actively reduced these important factors in talent development.

 

The Influence of the Myth on Practice and Policy and Recommendations


The myth of the totally independent gifted learner has impacted teaching practice and policy in two key ways. Firstly, it has meant that the education of the gifted is not a requirement for preservice teaching programs or an explicit part of the AITSL Teaching Standards. Secondly, it has meant that vital intrapersonal traits are not always coached or explicitly developed in students. I will give an overview of each implication and then advise recommendations.

 

1.  Teacher Training, and the Lack Thereof


A cursory search of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers for the terms ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ produces no results (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2011). While differentiation for “the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities” is specified (ibid), the fact that giftedness and talent are not explicitly present in the standards must mean that many working teachers are not aware of the potential need to seek professional development in this area. Additionally, I did not complete any training in the area of Gifted and Talent in my preservice instruction and I do not believe it is a required component in a teaching qualification in Australia. This pattern is contradicted by the Department of Education’s High Potential and Gifted Policy, which refers explicitly to ‘gifted students’ and specifies that schools must offer interventions such as grouping strategies, advanced learning pathways, acceleration and enrichment programs (NSW Government, 2022). Jung has found that most practitioners have “generally neutral attitudes towards special education interventions for gifted students by teachers” (Jung, 2014, p.237), and it is clear that the assumption that gifted learners will learn by themselves has prevented practitioners from seeking appropriate instruction and development. There seems to be a discrepancy between the requirements of schools and the proficiency of teachers, but schools are comprised of teachers, and this discrepancy must be reconciled.

 

Recommendations


a.  Raise (or Change) the Standards


The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers must explicitly refer to the instruction of gifted and talented students (and skills in talent development) as part of Standard 1: Know students and how they learn (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership), and education in this area must form a required component of preservice instruction programs.  There needs to be a specific, particular requirement for teachers to learn how to effectively teach the gifted.

This ought to also impact ongoing professional development. The Department of Education’s High Potential and Gifted Education policy could be used as a reference point for development; for example, teachers should be cognisant of the need to learn about, practise and implement “tailored resourcing and support” (1.3.1), “significant adjustments and interventions for students in the highly gifted range” (1.3.3), and the construction of “learning environments that support high potential and gifted students to experience efficacy, agency and achieve their educational potential” (1.5.1) (NSW Government, 2022). Some of these things are assumed in the generalised language of the standards, but these generalisations are excluding the particular needs of high potential and gifted learners.

 

2.  Non-Identification and Non-Development


The assumption that all gifted learners can always work independently and learn by themselves has two problematic corollaries:

  1. Students who lack the self-regulation, goal-valuation and motivation to work independently may not be identified as potentially gifted learners in the first instance, and
  2. Gifted learners who cannot work independently will never receive the support they require in order to catalyse their gifts and will not develop their talent.

 

If a teacher’s beliefs impact their practice as discussed earlier and a teacher holds the conception that all gifted learners can work independently, then a teacher may interpret any negative behaviour as evidence of a student’s lack of giftedness. A twice-exceptional student, student with a significant learning disability, or an impulsive student with generally low self-regulation may be judged as low-ability on the basis that they are not able to work by themselves. This is a result of the teacher’s faulty assumption and a false assessment of the natural aptitude or general ability (Gagné, 2009) of such students; I can imagine that many potentially gifted students have remained invisible and unidentified because of the stigma surrounding such behaviours.

 

I here offer a number of recommendations, particularly focused on helping students with goal-valuation, motivation and maladaptive perfectionism, but also focused on generally effective strategies for developing talent.

 

Recommendations


1. Consciously develop students’ intrapersonal skills and traits

  • Coach a Fluid Conception of Intelligence
    A fixed or ‘entity’ view of intelligence (Mofield et al, 2019) has been shown to lead to maladaptive perfectionism and avoidance of tasks for fear of failure. If students instead view intelligence as fluid and malleable, they are more likely to interpret difficult tasks as areas of potential growth, rather than a reason for avoidance (ibid). Teachers should model positive self-talk and cognitive reframing, reward effort rather than outcome, and seize upon opportunities to praise student mistakes which lead to growth.
  • Normalise Risk-Taking and Redefine ‘Perfect’
    Following on from 1.1, students who fear failure are less likely to take risks, but risk-taking is a fundamental aspect of being creative: ergo, students who do not take risks are limited in their potential to learn (Mofield et al, 2019). Students should be encouraged to take risks. Teachers should work with maladaptive-perfectionist students (ones who exhibit Evaluative Concerns) to set realistic goals for their work, such as the use of mastery/learning goals rather than aiming for the complete absence of mistakes (ibid).
  • Mental Contrasting
    Interventions which increase motivation and the value of learning have been shown to be the most effective interventions for underachievement in gifted learners (Siegle & McCoach, 2018). Mofield and Peters argue that mental contrasting can be an effective part of an intervention strategy for students who lack self-regulation in order to raise goal-valuation and motivation (Mofield & Peters, 2019). In this strategy, a student begins by outlining their goal and their reasons for wanting to achieve the outcome (that is, their motivation). By contrasting this ideal future against the fact of the present, learners can predict problems and solve them proactively, raising motivation and self-efficacy and increasing the likelihood of the goal being achieved.

2. Set Appropriately Challenging Work
When discussing effective teaching strategies for gifted learners, Little (2018) makes the following recommendations:

  •  Accelerate content
    Gifted learners can often acquire knowledge more quickly and more easily than their peers (Little, 2018). The work should be adjusted for them by introducing complex material earlier or eliminating unnecessary instructional content. Gagné advises customised pacing as one of seven best practices for talent development (Gagné, 2015), although it is outside the scope of this paper to discuss the benefits of acceleration fully here.
  • Metacognition and independent study
    With the vision of developing independence, gifted learners should engage in self-evaluation and metacognitive reflective tasks which can foster these independent learning skills. Gagné recommends “personal excellence goals” (Gagné, 2015, p. 289). Following on from the recommendations in (1), a classroom teacher could work with a student to develop these personal aspirations.

In general, differentiation of learning activities for gifted learners must be done proactively and intentionally, not in reaction to a student happening to complete a class task quickly.


Guiding the Rocket Ship: Conclusion


In conclusion, then, the myth is patently false. While some gifted learners may be able to learn independently, this does not mean they should learn in this way, disconnected from the classroom teacher and unwatched by any formative assessment. In fact, the significant role played by important persons as a crucial catalyst in the process of talent development means that for these learners, a close and trusting relationship with their classroom teacher is particularly significant and potentially transformative for their educational journey.

 

Some of our gifted learners have a second exceptionality, experience a lack of motivation, or need provisions and support to improve their goal-valuation so that they can achieve their learning goals. Other gifted learners are rocket ships: they will travel to corners of the universe (this one, and others) which we cannot see ourselves. But even rocket ships need NASA!


List of References

 

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (2011). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, AITSL, Melbourne. 


Baudson, T.G., & Preckel, F. (2016). Teachers’ Conceptions of Gifted and Average-Ability Students on Achievement-Relevant Dimensions. Gifted Child Quarterly, 60(3), 212-225. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986216647115


Clark, B. (2002). Growing up gifted: Developing the potential of children at home and at school (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.


Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Beyond boredom and anxiety. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.


Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: HarperCollins.


Department of Education (2021, February). High Potential and Gifted Education: Guidance on implementing effective learning and teaching practices to develop the talent of high potential and gifted students. High Potential and Gifted Education P12, NSW Government. https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/pd-2004-0051


Fredricks, J. A., Alfeld, C., & Eccles, J. (2010). Developing and fostering passion in academic and nonacademic domains. Gifted Child Quarterly, 54, 18–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0016986209352683


Gagné, F. (2009). Building Gifts into Talents. In B. Macfarlane and T. Stambaugh (Eds). Leading Change in Gifted Education: The Festschrift of Dr. Joyce Vantassel-Baska (pp. 61-80). Prufrock Press.


Gagné, F. (2015). Academic talent development programs: a best practices model. Asia Pacific Education Review, 16(2), 281-285.

 

Jung, J.Y. (2014). Predictors of Attitudes to Gifted Programs/Provisions: Evidence from Preservice Educators. Gifted Child Quarterly, 58(4). DOI: 10.1177/0016986214547636


Jussim, L., & Harber, K.D. (2005). Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9, 131-155. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0902_3


Hately, S. and Townend, G. (2020). A Qualitative Meta-Analysis of Research into the Underachievement of Gifted Boys. The Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 29(1). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21505/ajge.2020.0002


Lassig, C. (2009). Teachers’ attitudes towards the gifted: The importance of professional development and school culture. The Australasian Journal of Gifted Education, 18(2), 32-42. 10.21505/ajge.2015.0012


Little, C.A. (2018). Teaching Strategies to Support the Education of Gifted Learners. In S.I. Pfeiffer (Ed.), APA Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (pp.371-385). American Psychological Association. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000038-024


McCoach, D.B. and Flake, J.K. (2018). The Role of Motivation. In S.I. Pfeiffer (Ed.), APA Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (pp. 201-213). American Psychological Association. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000038-013


McCoach, D. B., & Siegle, D. (2003). Factors that differentiate underachieving gifted students from high achieving gifted students. Gifted Child Quarterly, 47, 144–154. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/ 001698620304700205


McCoach, D. B., & Siegle, D. (2014). Underachievers. In J. Plucker & C. Callahan (Eds.), Critical issues and practices in gifted education: What the research says (2nd ed., pp. 691–706). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.


Mofield, E. & Peters, M.P. (2019). Understanding Achievement: Mindset, Perfectionism, and Achievement Attitudes Among Gifted Students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 42(2), 107-134. https://doi.org/10.1177/0162353219836737


Mofield, E., Peters, M.P. and Chakraborti-Ghosh, S. (2019) Perfectionism, Coping, and Underachievement in Gifted Adolescents: Avoidance vs Approach Orientations. Education Sciences, 6(4) https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci6030021


Speirs Neumeister, K.L. (2016). Perfectionism in gifted students. In The Social and Emotional Development of Gifted Students: What Do We Know; Neihart, M., Pfeiffer, S., Cross, T., Eds.; Prufrock Press: Waco, TX, USA, 2016; pp. 29–40.


Siegle, D. and McCoach, D.B. (2018) Underachievement and the Gifted Child. In S.I. Pfeiffer (Ed.), APA Handbook of Giftedness and Talent (pp. 559-573). American Psychological Association. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0000038-036


Steenbergen-Hu, S., Olszewski-Kubilius, & P., Calvert, E. (2020). The Effectiveness of current Interventions to Reverse the Underachievement of Gifted Students: Findings of a Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review. Gifted Child Quarterly, 64(2), 132-165. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986220908601


Subotnik, R.F., Olszewski-Kubilius, P., & Worrell, F.C. (2011). Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education: A Proposed Direction Forward Based on Psychological Science. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 12(1), 3-54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100611418056


Author

Brendan Archbold


NB: Please note that this article only represents the views of the author(s), and is not necessarily representative of the views of the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented.

 

 


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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the AAEGT.

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The Thermostat

By Devon Harris • May 16, 2026
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.

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Planting Seeds of Change

By Nassain Jones • May 16, 2026
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.

I Got Lucky... Other's Don't

May 15, 2026
A note before reading: This piece touches briefly on a period of depression and thoughts of self-harm, shared as part of one person's lived experience.  I’m gifted… apparently. 99.8% percentile. A few years ago, I did a test that informed me of the news. The whole world of giftedness began for me when trying to better understand the struggles my kids were having at school. Questions like “why are they like that” of course leads to an inevitable microscope placed upon yourself as the parent. In hindsight, knowing what I know now, giftedness seems obvious. But as a kid, I was not only completely ignorant to the idea but surrounded by classrooms where such a notion drew unwanted attention to yourself. I grew up in a relatively low socioeconomic area. At school, lessons were mostly an inconvenience. I remember once explaining to somebody in year 3 that my favourite time in class was during exams when it was raining outside. Some thought it weird, I guess because of that I may have questioned if it was too. Otherwise, school was about footy. Before school, morning tea, lunch, and then sprinting home the second the bell went. I only remember random snippets from primary school; one of my teachers’ obsession with lollies, the giant plastic mats with dishwashing liquid and hoses on the last day of the year, the goofy way a friend bolted out of a classroom one afternoon… I remember distinct events like they were yesterday, but generally it was mostly a blur and uneventful. I got along with pretty much everyone, but everyone was more of an acquaintance than a friend, except for one friend which you would describe as being close. High school wasn’t much different. Lessons again felt more like an inconvenience that interrupted sport. One of my Year 9 report card comments was: “He relies too much on his ability.” It sat beside a row of A’s. I only remember it because my parents found the report recently and handed it back to me. As an adult and knowing what I know now, it was part of the overall “ooooohhhhhh” realisation moment. Looking back, I cruised through school academically and never really learned how to study. Things came easily enough that I could get away with doing very little, and because of that, I never developed much discipline academically. Sport, cars, friends, footy, avoiding bullies - that was where my energy went. I did have one friend through high school who, in hindsight, I suspect was also gifted. I’ll call him Pete. There was a similarity in how we thought. We’d bounce between ideas, projects, plans and random interests. Pete had a knack for fixing or inventing things. We couldn’t afford a CD player in the car, nor keep replacing the eight D-sized batteries for his portable stereo, so he rewired the back of it with a cigarette lighter plug to draw 12 volts directly from the dash. We sat the stereo on the back seat and thought it was brilliant. Pete’s room was always littered with gadgets, wires, half-finished projects and things pulled apart to see how they worked. We stayed close throughout high school. Then I started university. I enrolled in a degree that, in hindsight, should have fascinated me. But something was wrong. For the first time in my life, what was being taught wasn’t just sticking. Worse still, I wasn’t interested. I’d sit through lectures feeling detached, then head off to training or skip classes entirely, figuring I’d just read the notes later and I’ll remember, and it’ll be fine. But I wasn’t fine. First semester was a scrape through. Second semester was littered with fails, withdrawals and subjects barely passed. I had no idea what was happening or why it was falling apart. Admittedly, I felt lost. I withdrew from university at the end of the first year. Over the next four years I worked full-time while studying part-time, accumulating pieces of numerous different degrees before eventually giving up altogether. Being part time, the lighter subject workload allowed things to “stick” a little better. I had no real direction, no real motivation, I watched my friends finish their degrees and start their careers. I felt like I had missed the starting gun and was left floundering. Slowly depression crept in. I joined the Army Reserves hoping that maybe doing something completely different might shake me out of it. It didn’t. Then, within the space of two months, the toys went out of the pram. I broke up with my girlfriend of four years, quit my job, walked away from the Reserves, and bought a one-way ticket to the other side of the world with no money behind me. Once through customs, I lived off baked beans and tomato soup, sleeping on floors, couches, and occasionally under large bushes in a park where nobody would notice me. My parents would have helped if they knew, but I made sure they didn’t. I didn’t want anything. I didn’t want a career, didn’t want to travel, didn’t really want to work. I just felt flat. There wasn’t much thought of self-harm. Sure, it came up as an option, but the response to that was simply: “That’s pointless as I won’t be around to enjoy the problems it solves.” Days turned to months. And then one night, one magical night, I had a night out with some old school friends who were also out that way. One of them days later dragged me to play rugby again. I later joined a rugby club and made new friendships with the team who had no idea how much of a turning point they had provided. I landed a job not long after and eventually enrolled in another degree. This time, a degree that I was intrigued with. I developed an interest in a career and found a desire to expand my education. For the first time in my life, I sat in a classroom excited about what I might learn. The first time. Ever. I was 25. Again, I thought it weird… who gets excited about learning something? Apparently, most people. I have since come to realise that the learning itself had never been the problem, rather the problem was that somewhere along the way I’d disconnected from it entirely. Nobody had ever really explained how my brain worked, nor noticed that cruising through school wasn’t necessarily the same thing as thriving. Due to this, the compounding effects (in my opinion) seem to have led to a loss of challenge, loss in direction, underachievement… you could include a loss of identity. In time I returned to Australia a very different person. Education wise, I then had two degrees (completed this time). I then also ran into Pete again in my late 20s. This time that connect wasn’t there with (as I later found out) him battling an opioid addiction which later manifested to a glass pipe. As it turns out, he too was lost post high school but encountered a different path. I deeply lamented on what might have, or rather, what should have been for him. Today, more and more is being learnt about gifted children and how to support them properly. It would be incredulous to suggest that all Pete’s problems stemmed from being a gifted person without support… but was it? We’ll never know. I do sometimes wonder what difference that understanding might have made for both him and me. What if somebody had pulled me aside and explained why interest and engagement mattered so much, or why coasting through school wasn’t a good thing without challenge? What if someone had challenged me properly before I disconnected from learning altogether? Maybe I would have achieved more. Maybe not in the end. But I suspect those six years after high school could have been far happier or fulfilling ones. I don’t really see my story as a warning about giftedness and what may occur if awareness or actions are not put in place. Plenty of people have had far harder journeys than mine. Rather, if anything, I see it more as an avoidable near miss. I got lucky. Others don’t.

I Am

By Logan • May 15, 2026
We are very grateful to grade 8 student, 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.

What Gifted Students Taught Me Beyond the Classroom

By Hasan Talukder • April 28, 2026
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.

A Mind Beyond Her Years

April 7, 2026
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.

Unmasking missed identification

By Amanda Larkin • March 12, 2026
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.

Back to school: From both sides of the desk

By Hayley Kuperholz • February 11, 2026
Some ideas for teachers and parents on how to support the back-to-school transition for young gifted children.

A search for happiness

May 30, 2025
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.