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AS A PRACTITIONER in the field of high ability or gifted education, I am well aware of the polarising opinions that this work can provoke.
Some people may feel that the allocation of resources to what they perceive as a privileged group is a wasted exercise. The mistaken belief that all gifted children are from middle-class backgrounds, and will all do well at school, seems to prevail in many instances.
The truth is that many gifted children will lose interest in school if they are not challenged and this could result in them underperforming.
I would also suggest that it is beneficial to Irish society to foster our brightest students and we need to do so if we want to excel in areas like science, technology and the smart economy.
The Centre for Talented Youth
The Centre for Talented Youth (CTY ) Ireland is a not-for-profit programme based in Dublin City University that offers challenging courses to high-ability students aged between 6 and 17.
Last year some 6,000 students attended courses run by CTY Ireland at DCU and various other colleges around the country.
Recently we conducted a survey of parents of academically talented students who attend our courses.
Some 1,440 parents completed the survey and reported on the experiences of their children in schools throughout Ireland – every county was represented.
Many of the parents came from lower socio-economic backgrounds and 10% had children who attended DEIS schools.
15% had children who were twice exceptional – that is they had high ability but also had a learning difficulty including Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD or dyslexia.
Approximately 80% of the parents said that their children attended public school.
While many of these parents spoke of the positive academic and social experience that their child has at CTY Ireland, many were very dissatisfied with the schooling provided for their children.
More than 70% of parents said that their child was not challenged at school and that they very rarely or never received differentiated assignments.
A common thread in parents’ descriptions was the lack of planning and consistency in setting tasks for their children. Almost half of the parents felt their child’s homework assignments were of little or no value.
International comparison
Ireland is rightly lauded in many circles as an excellent educational system and teachers in this country are usually more qualified than their European counterparts but our record in the education of high ability children is poor and, indeed in many cases, is non-existent.
The absence of gifted education on the agenda for special needs education is a worry when one considers that many of these children are two to three standard deviations above the middle – but are expected to follow the same curriculum as students of much lower ability.
This can lead to boredom and frustration at school and a child not performing to the best of their ability.
Results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (2015) further illustrate this.
While Ireland has improved its mean scores in maths and verbal areas the scoring at the upper level of these exams is not encouraging.
Fewer than 10% of students perform at the higher levels of maths and our science scores demonstrate that many students are not achieving to their potential.
Unchallenged
Parents who completed our survey reported that more than half of the schools have no policy in place to identify high ability students and that their school has no policy for accelerating students through the curriculum.
This is despite the fact that all of the research in this field shows that acceleration and differentiation of material works for these students.
I have worked in this field for more than 20 years now and during that time we have made great strides in ensuring we identify more students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and from diverse backgrounds including new communities.
But the problems at school are still the same as they were when I started out. Regardless of their background, gifted students are not being challenged enough.
The norm is that those exceptional children have to wait until everyone else is finished until they move to the next lesson or they are ‘rewarded’ with extra questions on the same material for finishing quickly.
I do recognise that schools have limited resources and many are doing their best in difficult circumstances but the solution for high ability children seems to be to just let them at it and it will all work out in the end.
Sadly with years of being unchallenged and never having an opportunity to do stuff that they are interested in often leads to high levels of underachievement and children not reaching their potential.
With much of government policy focusing on the smart economy and the need to promote skilled jobs in the technology industry, it seems surprising that no strategy exists to promote the learning of our brightest students.
Dr Colm O’Reilly is the Director of CTY Ireland at Dublin City University and has written a number of reports on gifted education.
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And the new Junior Cert will exacerbate this problem, no more Higher and Ordinary level for subjects (except in Maths, English & Irish where it’s goes from 3 levels to 2), therefore the high achieving students at one end of the spectrum will be covering the same content as a student at the opposite end of ability spectrum.
@eric nelligan: I am currently experiencing what it feels like as a parent of one of these kids, Dublin is too far away to be affordable to send my child to one of the courses mentioned. It seems their fate is in the hands of individual teachers, some are great in allowing them to work away on their own, some are not and insist they work as part of the class. My little one hates school, she genuinely sees it as slowing down her progress. I still want her to interact with people her own age so there’s a very fine line I constantly
@eric nelligan: I am currently experiencing what it feels like as a parent of one of these kids, Dublin is too far away to be affordable to send my child to one of the courses mentioned. It seems their fate is in the hands of individual teachers, some are great in allowing them to work away on their own, some are not and insist they work as part of the class. My little one hates school, she genuinely sees it as slowing down her progress. I still want her to interact with people her own age so there’s a very fine line I constantly
@eric nelligan: I am currently experiencing what it feels like as a parent of one of these kids, Dublin is too far away to be affordable to send my child to one of the courses mentioned. It seems their fate is in the hands of individual teachers, some are great in allowing them to work away on their own, some are not and insist they work as part of the class. My little one hates school, she genuinely sees it as slowing down her progress. I still want her to interact with people her own age so there’s a very fine line I constantly
@eric nelligan: I am currently experiencing what it feels like as a parent of one of these kids, Dublin is too far away to be affordable to send my child to one of the courses mentioned. It seems their fate is in the hands of individual teachers, some are great in allowing them to work away on their own, some are not and insist they work as part of the class. My little one hates school, she genuinely sees it as slowing down her progress. I still want her to interact with people her own age so there’s a very fine line I constantly
@Rachel O’ Meara: Feel like I’m in the wrong because no matter what I do it’s never enough as she’s so far ahead she’s doing secondary school work while she’s only half way through primary school.
@Rachel O’ Meara: Sorry for the repeated posts the app seems to have gone a bit glitchy.
@Rachel O’ Meara: the app keeps telling you there was a problem with your post when there isn’t so multiple duplicate posts are common. Perhaps The Journal could have a look and sort out a fix.
@jamesdecay: Perhaps, first time it’s happened to me but I’ve seen it happen to lots of other people so I consider myself lucky, makes a poster look a little stupid to post multiple times but it’s definitely the app as I only hit the post button once.
@Rachel O’ Meara: True, it’s happened to us all, it is a glitch in the app. I think many parents do have to be persistent though when their child is getting bored and isn’t finding subjects to challenge her mind. Hobbies can fill that gap sometimes, but as you say, it’s awkward if the others are all much older.
Not to be pedantic there Colm but ADHD and autism, while they can affect learning, are not learning difficulties.
@G Manning: was thinking the exact same as I was reading it.
@G Manning: Suspect ADHD is simply a reaction to hidden sulphites in modern processed food ingredients. Less than 10mg/lg can avoid labelling.
Glucose Syrup
Fructose Syrup
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Cornflour
Maltodextrin
Dextrose
Baking Powder
Gelatine
Maize Starch*
*Used as an excipient (filler/binder) in many tablets.
Also colorants in food & drink such as diet colas e.g. E150b, E150d are sulphite based.
@Chemical Brothers: It’s not. Take off the tinfoil hat.
While I agree gifted students should receive differentiated work, non-differentiation is an issue for a lot of students. I’d disagree that the cohort of students you’re speaking of are unchallenged, perhaps not sufficiently challenged but not unchallenged. Also parents feelings or opinions (no planning/policies etc.) does not necessarily reflect reality though of course it may. Also a parental survey, while useful, is not an exact tool and potentially affected by a lot more than what may or may not being done by a school.
@G Manning: I think we (& Colm particularly) can safely say that a lot of these kids are unchallenged during their school years. Primary school particularly can be exceedingly boring and traditionally a reasonably number of smart kids became disruptive and did not do well at school. Those lucky enough to attend DCU can gain massively from the experience, in terms of overall wellbeing.
Schools will never have the resources to deal with this cohort of children. The curriculum by its very nature must be targeted at the middle ground.
Rather than try and adjust the curriculum, it would be better to put more funding into facilities like CTY.
The author’s main point is well made though. There is a ‘stigma’ towards gifted children. And I don’t imagine he sees ‘learning difficulties’ in any other way than the literal one.
@jamesdecay: For the majority the middle ground is what they get but some teach to the other end of the spectrum, they constantly go over material ad nauseam to even the middle ground learner so that no child gets left behind. While it’s admirable to want no child to be left behind on the other end of the classroom spectrum there’s children who go home cranky and upset when the teacher goes on and on about something they got the first time round. They become frustrated and angry and that’s not good for them either. The middle ground seems like a happy balance but unfortunately you can’t please everyone with this approach as the two ends of the spectrum end up feeling left out, weaker students get left behind and those ahead still end up frustrated.
@jamesdecay: Up until recently there were H, O and F levels in Irish, English and Maths and H and O levels in the rest. But now everything is moving to Common levels.
The DES recognize as children with exceptional ability to have a special need , but won’t resource schools to allow them to make proper provision to support these children .
In our school, we have managed to eke out time with the SEN teachers and we have systems in place in the mainstream classes such as peer tutoring , shared maths , online programs to provide more individualized work.
With classes of 30 or more in most primary schools, it’s always going to be difficult to meet every individual need . The government constantly talk of “ our brightest and best ,” but that’s all they do – talk!
What is needed is state funding to roll out these CTY courses to venues across the country. They also need the cost reduced as paying for the courses soon adds up, if you can even afford them.
Imagine a child who is used to being the smartest in the class, never really having to try, put that kid in a room of equally gifted kids and the difference you see is amazing. The realisation that there are kids out there smarter than you can be just the thing a coasting kid needs.
We know advanced kids can hide their abilities in order to fit in with the crowd, but imagine if the crowd was full of advanced kids, then they can just be themselves and to some kids that is a hugely welcome experience.
Gifted kids deserve as much help as other academically struggling kids because at the end of the day they should all get the education they need.
@Andrew Byrne: Well said.
As a primary school teacher I can echo a lot of what Colm is saying here… the brightest children typically have to wait until last for the attention they deserve (just as much as those who have a greater need for support and guidance)… the problem, in many cases, can be traced back to class size. I teach 35 children. Schools are underfunded and understaffed.
The main problem is that a large proportion of Irish parents have little regard for, understanding of, or interest in education. Not their fault; generations of poorly educated teachers produced an attitude of indifference if not hostility, to a theocratic system that often conflated education with rote learning and violence. The H.Dip. was never an adequate qualification. The forcing of Irish on the children of a nation barely able to feed itself in the early 20th century, may also have been an issue.
@Nick Caffrey: Poorly educated teachers? All teachers have university degrees. Hardly poorly educated.
@Nick Caffrey:
Some parents just can’t be arsed – simple!
Streaming is the answer. I know we do not like this reality but it is the better answer. Students are challenged at their pace. I teach maths grinds and i see the lowered confidence levels of those who are being pushed too hard.
@Seeking Truth: it probably is, if you can find a way to sell it without calling it streaming.
@Seeking Truth: “ Streaming” isn’t the answer. How would you propose that would work at primary ? And primary teachers use group work for most subjects . A student with EA may not have EA right across the curriculum.
@Bríd Uí Mhaoluala: streaming is more of a secondary school idea.
I remember that my secondary school did encourage students to take some higher level subjects if they were up for it, but we could certainly opt for pass level in others. Maybe boys are taught differently? I know quite a few friends who were pressed by their schools to take all honours subjects if they were good at some subjects. That sort of streaming is too intensive.
I thought myself multiplication in first class. The teacher took my maths book away. Didn’t want me getting too far ahead of the rest of the class
@Darren Byrne:
I used to have all the text books for the year finished by October/November, then get pulled up by the teacher for daydreaming for the rest of the year.
I see my son doing it now.
@Patrick Nolan: yes, used to love reading the history books but no that’s not allowed. Just sit there if you’re finished. That was certainly one thing I was taught in school, just do enough to get by.
I wish this didn’t sound so familiar.
She/he probably “thought” you should concentrate on your English
@Maurice Glennon: I take it you meant to reply to me. But yes I lie somewhere on the autistic spectrum so frequently make mistakes when not concentrating enough on it. However if she wanted me to concentrate on my English she should have set and assigned me said work rather than leaving me sitting in silence for 30 minutes while the others did work I had already done.
One of my children attended CTYI for several years at DCU. She was nominated by a primary school teacher after her grades started to fall. She was basically ‘dumbing herself down’ in order to slow her academic progress to that of the mean. She was unchallenged and became bored. We as parents had always provided extra academic challenges for her outside of school, but this failed to deal with the slow pace of the general classroom learning. CTYI was the first time she met other children who worked at her pace. There was a mix of children from across the spectrum of the ‘class system’. I would encourage anyone who feels that their child would benefit from this programme to research it and consider having their child assessed.
Delighted my daughter’s picture was featured in this article ;-)
I used to run a gifted and talented programme in an Irish school. It went really well until the thickest child in the school and her parents wanted to know when she would get to participate. At that point, the principal shut the programme down because it was “discriminatory”. Figure that one out!
@Smiley: sounds like the Principal was just waiting for an excuse to close down the programme. Keeping it simple I would say. Easier life.
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