Bright students always have a hard time in school. That's because, a long time ago, educational theorists decided that age, not ability, was the best indicator for learners' general levels of knowledge. That might have been brilliant insight more than a century ago. Today, it's absurd.

Consider two Year 4 students. One speaks English as a second language and the other communicates only in English. They're likely the same age but are clearly operating on different levels of intellectual and personal development. Such is the plight of gifted students in class. They can't help that they:

  • learn quickly and sometimes teach themselves skills, like reading or complex maths
  • posses unusually well-developed abstract reasoning and problem-solving skills
  • can seem to have poor concentration but are actually great at multitasking
  • display a good knowledge of subjects
  • tend to ask a lot of questions
  • can be very interested and knowledgeable in a particular area
  • tend to set very high standards for themselves and find it hard to accept failure

Gifted and talented students often have a tough time in our education system. It's simply not designed to accommodate wide variances within student groups. One parent of a particularly gifted learner confided that the biggest challenge is keeping her daughter inspired. She just can't stay motivated within an educational system that, more often than not, lets her down.

Do you know or suspect your child is gifted, talented or both? We want to provide some guidance for parents so they can properly identify their gifted/talented child. So they can find the testing to make the diagnosis official and work with the schools to find the best educational opportunities.

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Gifted and Talented: What's the Difference?

Many schools make available a gifted-and-talented curriculum. That's so their particularly apt pupils may still enjoy the school experience while catering to their advanced abilities. But why are there two different designations? Aren't gifted pupils talented? Aren't talented students gifted? In a broader, more pedestrian sense, those words are used interchangeably. However, in educational terms, their meanings are slightly different.

Gifted students are those who excel in at least one academic subject. Those include Maths, Sciences, and Languages, including English. Talented students are those with a natural aptitude for practical skills. Athletes, musicians, designers and the like fall into the 'talented' category.

"Wait a minute!", you say. "Haven't you ever heard anyone say 'She's a gifted musician?' or 'He's a gifted player?'"? Of course, we have. But, as mentioned above, those two terms are commonly used interchangeably. In educational circles, there must be a distinction. Activities for talented students are different from those designed for gifted students.

Advancement drives our point home. A gifted student may easily jump a grade without much harm to their academic record, if any. If a teacher is wise, they would not advance a talented student without heavy consideration. One may be talented but still struggle academically. Such a student might be assigned more homework than their peers just to get them caught up but that wouldn't be a good idea.

A long-haired young woman earing a light coloured top and glasses holds a book close to her face while reading.
Gifted learners enjoy self-study, particularly if what they study challenges their intellect. Photo by Lucrezia Carnelos on Unsplash

How to Identify a Gifted or Talented Learner

With that distinction now made clear, let's talk about practicalities. The sooner you identify your child as gifted or talented, the earlier you and the school can get started. As shown above, it's vital to provide these students with the educational challenges they need.

There is no one universal definition of 'gifted' that is accepted by all organisations or associations for the gifted. Take the dedicated children’s charity, Potential Plus UK, for instance. The very word ‘gifted’ tends to bring up negative connotations based on superiority and elitism. Therefore, they prefer to use the phrase High Learning Potential.

Regardless of the exact wording, most organisations agree that gifted children have several common characteristics parents should watch for. You might notice the first signs while your child is still an infant. Do they sleep less than other babies? Are they particularly active players? Did they start babbling early and do so constantly? Those are all markers of gifted potential.

If they displayed no such signs - or, perhaps, you didn't catch them, what about toddlerhood? Are they unusually focused on their games? And are those activities rich with make-believe? Perhaps they experimented with their toys; or maybe used building blocks for other purposes. Or broke off a doll's leg to use as a microphone or pointing device.

As they creep towards school age, you might notice a particularly refined sense of humour. Or maybe they try out new ways to do their chores. Perhaps they make up new rules for a standard card game. They might even invent a game. If your child exhibits some of these traits - combined with profound empathy, these may be signs of high learning potential. Even if they prefer talking with adults rather than playing with kids their own age, you just might have a gifted child on your hands.

All gifted children share a feature called ‘asynchronous development’. This means that while they possess advanced cognitive skills, their physical and emotional maturity may lag behind. The brighter the child, the more asynchronous their development tends to be. What about talented children?

There was once a boy, a chubby toddler with curly, to-die-for hair, who was running along an arcade. His little feet made slapping sounds on the pavement, something he seemed delighted about. But then, there was a sudden overhang. The sound of his foot slaps changed. He stopped in his tracks and paused, then walked back a few steps and slapped his feet down. And then, he advanced a few steps and repeated the motion. He did this again and again.

This boy, now much older, exhibited very early signs of talent. At the time, he didn't have the cognitive skills to process his discovery. But he knew his ears were telling him something vital. So vital, in fact, that he had to go back and forth, comparing the sound of foot slaps. He made it easy for his parents to not miss his talent. They decided to homeschool him to ensure its cultivation.

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Testing a Child for Giftedness

Obviously, it's not enough to proclaim your child gifted or talented. To endow your learner with all the specialist gifted provisions, your child’s school will require that they sit for a standard IQ test. A psychologist should administer this test, or the school may choose another, such as Cognitive Ability Tests (CATs). This test is usually administered to student groups at school.

To get some idea of your child’s abilities prior to formal testing, you could submit them to informal testing. Potential Plus offers access to an online screening tool. Mensa, the world's largest and oldest High-IQ society, also offers home tests to kids aged 10 and sometimes younger. They also sponsor supervised Mensa IQ tests.

Some parents baulk at having their children tested. They give a variety of reasons, the predominant one being that they simply want their child to remain a child. In many cases, proving a child is gifted places a heavy burden on their young psyches. Also, handing them over them for testing could be a frightening ordeal. A young child may automatically think there's something terribly wrong with them. Or they may become anxious, fearing that they won't live up to their parents' hype.

Those are all valid concerns. However, they shouldn't stand in the way of determining distinction. Later, when the gifted or talented child is in the school environment, they may struggle to adapt without the allowances made for their advanced skills. Their talents-gifts may not be fully cultivated unless testing has established to which degree the student is gifted-talented.

A small child exploring the use of paints and coloured pens on rocks and paper
The Montessori model allows for exploration of diverse materials and their possible uses. Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

School Education for a Gifted or Talented Learner

Normal school curricula comprise a 70:30 ratio of teaching basic skills and higher cognitive learning. This can be disheartening to gifted children. They tend to grasp key concepts quickly. After those are all digested, they have a burning need to challenge their higher cognitive learning skills.

Parents of gifted and talented children have difficult choices to make. Organisations such as Potential Plus UK, the National Association for Able Children in Education (NACE), and the Scottish Network for Able Pupils (SNAP) are there to help. They have been working with the government to improve the quality of education for the gifted.

Unfortunately, the current UK government policy is aimed at too broad a spectrum of children. Fully 10 per cent of the top students in any given learning facility are included in the same program. Most gifted education teaching manuals and publications in the UK address only the needs of bright children. They almost universally recommend a ‘one-solution-fits-all’ approach. That usually comprises in-class extension work, leavened with stimulating after-school or holiday activities and the occasional pull-out group.

The whole initiative is targeted at moderately gifted student. With very few exceptions, the needs of the exceptionally gifted/profoundly talented child are not recognised, discussed or addressed. The lack of stimulating education for exceptionally gifted students can have serious consequences.

In general, students whose needs aren't met suffer from a lack of self-esteem. They often have trouble adjusting emotionally and socially. They may suffer from anxiety or its more pernicious cousin, depression. The feeling of persistent underachievement makes all of these issues worse. For the deeply empathetic gifted student, those effects are magnified.

Selecting the Right Schools

Parents of gifted and talented children can be at a loss as to what kind of schooling is best for their kids. Some experts believe in the value of accelerating children to higher years. Mensa's gifted child consultant, Dr Lyn Kendall, seems to disagree. She states: “I am not entirely comfortable with the idea of accelerating a child. At what point does one stop? Is university a suitable environment for a child of 12?”

Admittance into non-fee-paying schools with an excellent gifted and talented programme, one like Queen Elizabeth Boys' Grammar School in Barnet, can be difficult. Remember that. on average, schools aim to channel 10% of all students into their gifted learning programs. That forces the Barnet School and others to maintain long waiting lists.

Parents who can afford private school choose that option rather than waiting for an open spot on the public school rolls. They may even prefer private schools because the smaller pupil-to-teacher ratio guarantees greater differentiation and individualisation. As mentioned above, homeschooling works particularly for gifted learners. Parents can personalise lesson plans to the level the child requires and tailor the experience to the child’s interests.

Parents can keep their gifted children stimulated through interesting learning material and experiences. Those may include watching documentaries, visiting museums and taking field trips. They may engage a private tutor to bring more diversity to their children's learning experiences. Or they may join a community of 'gifted learner' parents to tag-team teach small groups of students. Associations like Potential Plus offer a host of resources and advice for parents and teachers, and organise activities for gifted children to socialize with each other.

The Montessori method is only one used to accelerate learning. Under this learning system, kids use groundbreaking materials which make quite complex concepts seem easy. Montessori schools are ideal for younger learners but also work well for students approaching adolescence.

Those students may then join the International Gateway for Gifted Youth (IGGY). This is an international social network that provides gifted students aged 13 to 18 with access to high-quality learning content. IGGY members are invited to collaborate with other gifted youths and internationally renowned academics.

All UK schools are now required to have a Gifted and Talented Coordinator; one who can hopefully offer your learner greater personalisation. Contrary to popular belief, gifted students have to work hard on exams, just like their peers do. Only the effort is different. While students try to amass enough knowledge to score well, gifted students may have to tame their vast stores to produce only the desired answers. Helping gifted students husband their knowledge is just one of these Coordinators' tasks.

A black and white snap of a small boy wearing a dress shirt and bow tie with his hands up and fingers extended, crying.
A gifted child may feel intensely frustrated at not being able to express themselves. Photo by Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash

Advancement and Other Challenges

Some gifted or talented children also have learning difficulties such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and autistic spectrum difficulties. Understandably, these can lead to great frustration. A toddler might scream in the agony of not being able to make themselves understood. Pro tip: start teaching your infant baby sign language. That way, gifted or not, they will be able to communicate even with a minimal verbal vocabulary.

A gifted/talented learner may have the intellectual capacity to express themselves well, do assigned work and complete tasks. But if they operate with one or more difficulties, they may be prevented from doing so. And they don't know why. It's enormously frustrating. Fortunately, Potential Plus published a Fact Sheet on Dual and Multiple Exceptionality. It is vital to identify all areas of functionality so that parents and schools alike can ensure the child’s needs are catered to.

Moving up a year or more is a particularly thorny problem. The higher-level curriculum may be better suited to a gifted and talented learner. But the learning environment probably won't be. Even mundane aspects of higher-year classrooms - bigger desks and taller chairs, can be off-putting. To say nothing of all the students likely being so much bigger. And there's no guarantee that the teacher or students will treat the younger pupil the same as they would any other of that peer group.

Higher-level classrooms can be a lonely place for a young, gifted student. For one, simply because the curriculum is more advanced doesn't mean that the gifted learner is on par with their classmates socially. They may not understand many of the cultural references their classmates speak of. Certain types of music, films they're not yet allowed to watch... Even younger gifteds' life experiences are limited, compared to the older students.

Spending the majority of your day in such an out-of-place setting would provoke terrible anxiety. It may even compel a gifted or talented learner to mute themselves - to stifle their gift or talent. That way, they could return to a setting that's better suited to their physical and emotional self, rather than to their gift. So what's the solution?

Schools already make an effort to meet these learners' intellectual needs. Those efforts may not be sufficient but they are a start. Advancement may satisfy the gifted learner's intellect but will likely cause harm to other aspects of their development. Simply put, students shouldn't be made to adapt to and learn in an environment where they do not feel equal.

Alternative education initiatives like homeschooling and Montessori learning may be the best paths to educating a gifted or talented learner. Or perhaps a hybrid model of learning would do well. The student might spend time in school but explore their gifts through extracurricular activities. True, it might be harder to conduct science experiments outside of a laboratory but they could certainly join debate societies, take music lessons or learn computer programming outside of school.

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Sophia

A vagabond traveller whose first love is the written word, I advocate for continuous learning, cycling, and the joy only a beloved pet can bring.