What Gifted Students Taught Me Beyond the Classroom

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.

By Dr Kate Aster (Burton) Gifted Awareness Week always makes me reflect on the long road we’ve travelled. It’s been a 22-year journey for me, both personally and professionally, shaped entirely by my child’s experience of being twice-exceptional in a world that didn’t know what to make of them. Like so many 2e kids, mine didn’t present the way schools expected. Yes, they were gifted. That part was obvious. But they were also anxious, highly sensitive, perfectionistic, and completely disconnected from their peers. In a classroom surrounded by same-age students and held to grade-level expectations, they were bored, overwhelmed, and starting to shut down. At home, we watched their spark dim. And yet, when I tried to advocate, not only as a parent but also as a PhD candidate specialising in giftedness at the time, no-one would listen. Not really. Every conversation felt like a dead end. Every meeting felt like it was designed to 'contain' rather than support. I was advocating relentlessly, but it was exhausting and isolating. The system just wasn’t built to respond. Then one teacher changed everything. We were lucky. Really lucky. We had all but given up. We were home schooling, when a chance phone call I made while looking for a mentor, resulted in finding someone who saw our child clearly and who was brave enough to do something about it. This teacher didn’t wait for permission. They advocated internally, organised the right assessments, and helped facilitate radical acceleration into a gifted and talented program. That decision shifted everything. Finally, our child was with peers who thought more similarly to them. They were more intellectually engaged. They received more challenging work. They entered competitions. And that challenge helped reduce their perfectionism, while the social connection improved their mental health - immeasurably. They began to feel seen and safe, and their confidence grew. They went on to graduate high school three years early - with distinction. They completed university three years early, and then received First Class Honours. Not because we pushed them, but because they were finally allowed to work in a way that suited their developmental readiness. They joined clubs, sat on committees, found their voice. All of these things that once felt completely out of reach when they were stuck at grade level and drowning emotionally. In primary school, the focus was on surviving the day. On keeping our child in one piece. This experience didn’t just change their life. It changed mine too. At the time, I wasn’t yet working in mental health. I was just desperately trying to get the system to see my child. The trauma of that experience became the catalyst for everything that followed. I completed a PhD, began publishing in the areas of giftedness and neurodiversity, and eventually became the Clinical Director of a specialist clinic supporting these children and their families. I also founded Gifted WA, nearly ten years ago now, because I didn’t want other families to go through what we did. I wanted to build a community. I wanted parents to be equipped to advocate effectively. And I wanted educators and professionals to truly understand the complexity and potential of these children. But here’s the thing: we should never have had to fight that hard. In Western Australia, we do technically have a Gifted and Talented in Public Schools Policy, but it is primarily made up of guidelines. Implementation varies widely across schools. The outcome often comes down to whether a particular teacher is willing to listen, to learn, and to act. This is why this year’s Gifted Awareness Week theme, “From Policy to Practice”, matters so much. Because even when a policy exists, if it is optional or inconsistently applied, it fails to protect the very students it’s meant to support, and families will continue to burn out trying to secure the most basic accommodations. What happened for my child should not be the exception. It should be the standard. When we get it right, when teachers and parents and professionals come together with shared understanding and a willingness to act, these students don’t just survive. They thrive. And it’s time we made that the norm. About the Author: Dr Kate Aster is the Clinical Director of Alchemy Therapy and founder of Gifted WA and My Neurodivergent Child. With almost 20 years of research experience and a decade working as a mental health professional, Kate combines clinical expertise with lived experience. She is dedicated to advocating for systemic change in gifted education and helping families and professionals meet the complex needs of twice-exceptional children.

“Gifted education doesn’t have to begin with a big budget or a new department—it starts with curiosity, conversation, and courage.”

Rhiannon Lowrey Ever tried explaining “twice exceptional” (2e)? Think of a student’s mind as a garden. For a neurotypical brain, it’s like a beautifully organised, formal garden—paths are clear, easy to navigate, garden beds are separate yet harmonious, everything flows. In contrast, a 2e mind - one that is both gifted and disabled, it is like a wild garden: overgrown in places and seemingly unkempt, not always a clear path, but full of surprising treasures once you venture inside. Though it may not look perfectly pruned, it’s just as rich in growth and wonder—just a bit more challenging to navigate. Both gardens are equally beautiful in their own unique way!

“Can you see Brian, the invisible boy? Even Mrs. Carlotti has trouble noticing him in her classroom.” - The Invisible Boy by Trudy Ludwig