Saturday 28 December 2013

Christmas in a Different Season

Hyde Park, Winter Wonderland - Ice sculpture display, -8 degrees C

The meteorologists are predicting a windy, slushy, UK Christmas day with a bit of white in the hills up north. So although it looks like a white Christmas is only on the cards, the approach to Christmas day will continue to be a bit different to the preparations in 42 degrees that Sydney is experiencing right now.

Charlie's Advent Calendar, Silent Night singing gingerbread tin,
Candle and a Costco Christmas village on a hall table
Family Tree - an all year touch stone
We put all our Christmas paraphernalia, apart from our stockings, into storage back in July so the search was on for decorations. M bought a train racing around a snowy village to the accompaniment of carols, luckily it had a volume button so the lights could be enjoyed without the tin whistle songs. I collected green, pink, purple, gold and teal baubles to hang on the tree. Willow wrapped the light pulls in the bathrooms with tinsel pipe cleaners and Petal claimed the odd numbers on the Chocolate Hotel Advent Calendar and lit the advent candle (we forgot to blow it out a couple of times and it burnt through a few too many days), the picture one was bought from a Christmas shop in the Cotswolds. Charlie had his own Advent calendar from the local pet store but didn't like the treats.  The Count down to Christmas was organised. I think we were all feeling a little anxious about how it would work out without any of our family around.

Kiwi presents have arrived - 4:30pm Dec 10
The ornament box from Leelee will
come in very handy!
Twig ball
Reindeer display
Christmas trees were sold at fruit and vege shops, special rural locations and at garden stores.  The garden shops had huge displays of Christmas cheer, every colour imaginable.  The pastel colours with white tinsel seem to be 'the' colours for 2013. Aylett Nursery on the St Albans orbital road had Santa in a grotto, mechanical Reindeer for sale and amazing twig ball stars covered in LEDs to hang in the bare trees - at £100 each they were regretfully left on the shelf.  We went to Scotsdale Nursery here in Cambridge to buy our tree.  They had hundreds of them all wrapped up in nylon nets.  One of each type (Norway fir, Blue Spruce and Nordmann Fir) and each size were on display for you to choose which one you wanted then the assistant de-netted one to check if we liked the shape - I felt so guilty about how difficult it would be to put the net back on if we didn't like it that I said yes to the first one! Afterwards we discovered that they have a plastic funnel that the tree is pushed through trunk first to wrap the stocking of net over.  We paid and the tree was delivered the following Wednesday.

Knowing that I had to post NZ and Aus parcels by the end of the first week of December, Christmas shopping started early. Nana was a great help as we wandered around Cambridge looking for the exact Christmas jumper Petal had described. Thanks to Fatface (a store - not Nana!) I found just what she was looking for and a good one for Willow.
Finally something handy for summer Christmas picnics
Make up your own and order
Postage was always going to be a bigger part of the budget allowed than the presents themselves but I think pressies are more about the process of picking something for the person rather than the value. Little and light were the guiding terms! Luckily the Talking Tees shop in Cambridge had a great selection of comments screen-printed onto cotton tees so the boys were taken care of early on, a little sweetie added to make it a little less boring.  It was difficult thinking and finding summer pressies for the Southerners when all was scarves, gloves and woolly slipper socks here. Sorry if you're one of those with the winter woollies - just put them away until July. In Marks and Spencers - food, they had great cooler bags - light, yep - little, can be after rolling! The guy at the checkout thought I was nuts buying so many. After spending a day or so wrapping everything I had to make a couple of trips to the post office.  Nana took the G's 40th and the Sydney pressies home but with Ma and Pa's Golden Wedding anniversary and K's birthday so close to the Christmas season I had to visit the PO fairly often.  I ended up having the same girl each time and she got quite friendly.

I have joined the Cambridge Philharmonic Society and am really enjoying singing in a choir that is 130 strong. A local charity asked us to sing the carols as a draw card for their Christmas fundraiser but M had his work do and Petal was feeling poorly so I didn't go. As a tribute to Benjamin Britten they decided to perform Peter Grimes as their Christmas piece. The choral parts were very tricksey but I think we only missed a couple of entries on the night, terrible to let the marvelous Tim Redmond down.  The orchestra, under his baton, is fabulous. One long term member of the chorus said that she thought over half of all the music teachers in town were in it. Even though the soloists were tremendous ( a few - Daniel Norman as Peter, Elisabeth Meister as Ellen and Mark Holland as Captain Balstrode) it still was a fairly morbid yarn for the season with Grime's(fisherman) three apprentices dying off one after the other and to stop brutal repercussions of the gossipping villagers (Chorus etc) Balstrode counselled Grimes to take his boat out beyond rescue and sink it.  The teacher, widow Ellen had hoped to marry him and was wailing mightily at the end with real tears!
Thai tea before Peter Grimes - Petal stayed home with Charlie
RevD came up from London and lucky G happened to fly in on time to take R's ticket (Going to Orlando for a conference was an extreme escape method!). G went to Kings with us the next night to hear carols from the King's Men, the brilliant trumpeter Alison Balsom and the Pipe organ with David Goode and Stephen Cleobury playing. It seemed strange that there were no Christmas decorations anywhere, I prefer the old custom at St John's of greening the Church throughout December until the unveiling of the nativity scene at Christmas Eve Mass.
Oxford st

Beginning the Ice sled ride, the pod swung out and tipped over

One evening we trained down to London to see the Regent and Oxford St lights.  There was also a Winter Wonderland funfair on in Hyde Park with Christmas markets, rides, an ice-skating rink and a couple of shows.  I got tickets for the Ice Palace, the freezing conditions inside made the London evening feel balmy. We enjoyed a delicious hot waffle and tried to work out all the German names on the rides. The girls got fantastic views of London from way at the top of the drop tower ride they went on - Petal was shouting for her Ventolin on the first drop but soon shared Willow's enthusiasm for the sensation of flying.

M had enough of a thrill going
down the escalators getting
to the tube station!

Long Drop

Walker Pipe organ at St John's
played beautifully by Simon

Vaulted stone roof - amazing acoustics
RevD organised a Bethlehem Mass this year at St John's. This means it is held at midnight - Bethlehem time which is 7:30 UK time. This is so families can come and Priests can get home at a reasonable hour for supper and sleep before early rising for stockings. On Sunday evening the church was packed with locals from all denominations at the Candlelight Carols. The Watford Mayor did one of the readings and I got to sing O Holy Night under a stone vaulted roof - very cool sound with pipe organ backing. Singing tucked away behind the organ, looking out over an old church full of candle light was an amazing experience. M recorded the Silent night in the Eve mass but not this one so it can remain perfect in my memory!
Carols by Candle light in St John's - Watford
The Nativity unveiled on Christmas Eve - I wonder where that cactus in the back corner came from?
 We had a Christmas Eve brekky with homemade crackers and the Southern Hemisphere pressies so they didn't have to traipse down to London. Thanks for all the gifts and funny comments on the cards - they bought family much closer.
Double sided wrap - spot the scarves
in church tomorrow

Instructions from Leelee for a U.S. pick up

Poss' scarves will be useful - an Arabic Bah humbug?
Too smiley. Granny's Da Vinci bridge has been solved!

and the gloves will be handy!
Charlie went and got the pressie from Nana
(that he snuck out of her bag just after she
bought it) and demanded a Chrissy play.

Our UK family, RevD and R, invited us to spend Christmas day with them. Thanks to their sense of fun, we have had a great time. We all went to Christmas Eve Mass with Bishop Norman officiating a service for another full Church. After Mass we had a supper of quiche and fruit mince pies. (I hunted high and low for Walker's ones but ended up having to order them online, the people from Inverness paid for next day delivery even though I had missed that screen, so we would get them by Christmas - best in the UK! Baker's Delight ones in Aus the only rivals).
http://www.walkersshortbread.com/uk/cakes-tarts/mincemeat/

Christmas day dawned bright and clear, the icy strips on windscreens and patches on the road were as close as it came to a white Christmas. We were all thinking of the hundreds of families in England with no electricity and flooded homes after the rotten storm came through and flooded rivers in Surrey.

R is keen for stocking openings to be a little later if the event is repeated in future.  He was woken by Neil Diamond's little drummer boy telling the household to 'Come, they told me par-up-u-pum-pum', very loudly.  In a home full of RevD's classical disks - it was a shock. Charlie certainly knew which was his and got stuck in. The teens sauntered down full of sleepy grins. For brekky we had warmed up savoury muffins and ginger bread men with our gingerbread coffee and hot choc. Then by 9:30 RevD and R were out the door and off to Church. Our excuse was that we couldn't all get through the shower in time and someone needed to stay home to put the Turkey in the oven.
Santa has been! How long will the girls manage to stretch out the stocking opening?
All wrapped this year because Petal was nosing around too early.
RevD left orders that the fire was to be burning brightly on his return - guess who was happy to comply.
Our summer Christmas feasts in NZ or Aus, are usually a buffét - a chicken platter with Leelee's stuffed eggs and a plain garden salad for immature taste buds, a cold sliced corned beef, potato salad, a spinach, pumpkin, beetroot and feta salad, a cold pasta salad, sometimes scotch eggs (with beef sausage mince!), potato gems and roast potatoes, a green bean, asparagus,almond and lemon dressing salad and others that magazines inspire, cherrios with toothpicks and a dipping sauce, platters of asparagus rolls, crisps, dips, cheesels for the kids to wear as rings, nuts, lollies and Roses chocolates. Dessert is usually a late tea after pressies and a swim in the togs Santa bought. Chocolate eclairs, Trifle, Brandy snaps, strawberries, cherries, Pavalova with a kiwifruit and passionfruit topping are laid out on the sideboard with ice cream pulled from the freezer as required.
A delicious spread thanks Rob

We only eat what we want to on Christmas day!

Our first winter Christmas feast made sense in the cold with a fire.  We managed to find strawberries from Egypt and Cherries from Chile and Brandy snaps from Fox foods so we were able to keep some of our usual feast traditions.  R introduced us to red cabbage with cinnamon and balslamic and brussel sprouts sauteed in butter with chestnuts and bread sauce(which sounds and looks pretty suspect but was delicious) the goose fat roast potatoes were perfect, as were the Parmesan roasted parsnip and leeks in cheese sauce. Peas and carrots were on hand for the less adventurous. Completing the feast were mini sausages wrapped in prosciutto, stuffing, gravy and the birds were moist and tender.  For tea we had dessert, too full for the Christmas puds so they(chocolate and brandied fruit) were kept for Boxing day. A Sainsbury Trifle was quickly consumed along with the fruit, brownies and brandy snaps.

After dinner we swapped gifts, watched the Queen's Christmas address and played a game of Cranium - R, Petal and I narrowly beat RevD, M and Willow. Petal's humming and R's blind drawing of a deckchair secured the win. RevD and I both played wonderful Patsys(AbFab) M drew a convincing double chin profile and Willow figured out what crapulous means - not the antonym of fabulous we think it should be.  Sherlock Cluedo will have to wait for the new year. A late supper of left overs, cheeseboard and a cheese pizza for Petal was grazed from as we sat and watched the Downton Abbey Christmas special. For Boxing day lunch R made a yummy celery soup with the help of Delia Smith. We may have to go easy on the eating for the next day or two or be charged extra weight on our holiday flights.


Humans and dogs at the Vicarage must have been very good
Charlie has emptied his stocking
Lulu is a bit confused about it all but managed to eat all of the treats from the boy's stockings. Chester played it very cool, moving from knee to couch to floor as the wrap piled up.
Santa bought books - Yeah!
This would be okay if it were Christmas charades - but no just a celebratory reindeer dance to work up an appetite.

Lulu's toy better not end up in your nest again Charles, she wasn't interested in the  Christmas socks - not smelly yet!
Charles is sporting his Christmas sweater - needed for chasing squirrels with Chester in the cold backyard
It was so good to be able to see all the Christmas fun at home via fbk, email and skype. Keep safe this summer break.

Reading Now: Willow gave me a biography about Wordsworth's and Coleridge's daughters who basically gave their lives to being their father's PAs and were good friends by Katie Waldegrave. Santa bought 'Not without you by Harriet Evan for a little light holiday reading. M gave me two books by Chantal Coady - The Chocolate Companion and Rococo, Mastering the Art of Chocolate which I am looking forward to flicking through as I nibble on the Lily O'Brien chochies R and RevD gave me.

Review of CPS 'Peter Grimes'








As Benjamin Britten’s centenary year comes to a close, Cambridge Philharmonic made sure it ended with a huge Big Bang and not a whimper.  Their production of his 1945 opera, Peter Grimes, was quite simply one of the most spellbinding evenings this reviewer has spent at West Road Concert Hall. A near-full house enjoyed a concert version on December 15 that went far beyond what you might expect from a static performance of a theatrical art form.
The 12 professional soloists (plus a non-singing boy) made dramatic entrances and exits and acted their operatic socks off. With barely room to squeeze past their music stands, they nevertheless managed to create a tangible 19th century Aldeburgh - the scene of this heart-rending and heart-stopping psychodrama.

Given the huge forces under the incredibly competent baton of Timothy Redmond, it is hard to know where to begin what will be a catalogue of praise. Britten’s wonderfully sinewy and sea-salty score was played with perfect balance and drama by an enhanced Cambridge Phil. Their playing, for instance, of the famous second Sea Interlude, the savage storm, was thunderously powerful with terrific booming brass and screeching strings. One could feel the Suffolk coast tearing away.

One of the really unexpected delights of this memorable evening was to see the orchestra full on as though they were an extra set of players. In usual circumstances the band is hidden away in the pit but here we could enjoy, nay marvel, at Britten’s genius for impressionistic orchestration – the way, for instance, the storm shimmered its way through the string section. Harp, viola, flute and percussion all had starring parts and did the score proud.

The soloists put all they had into an evening of such emotional tension that the audience seemed unable to move – not a cough or shuffle disturbed the dramatic pageant going on in front of us. Central to this was the tenor Daniel Norman as the eponymous fisherman. Seldom has this reviewer (a huge fan of this great work) seen a more powerful Grimes or one so suffused with such pent-up anger and frustration. His powerful tenor (sounding more like baritone) voice soared above the orchestra and the huge chorus standing at the back of the stage. His was a raw, visceral performance, one that for once made complete sense of the fisherman’s descent into madness by the end of the final act. It was simply mesmerizing.

But here was real strength in depth with pitch perfect performances by Elisabeth Meister as Ellen Orford, Mark Holland as an earthy Balstrode and Yvonne Howard playing the coquettish innkeeper ‘Auntie’. Her ‘nieces’ were beautifully sung by Kristy Swift and Christina Haldane. There were indeed no weak performances and every soloist gave it their all.
As Norman’s tormented Grimes carried his dead apprentice boy up through the auditorium, there was almost a palpable sense of shock. This is partly because we were so close to the action, but also because the singers, players and choir gave so much of themselves.
By the end of the opera, we all felt emotionally drained. There was a buzz in the audience that we had seen something utterly special; yes a great operatic masterpiece but also a production that had head and heart. What a way to celebrate a big 100!


- See more at: http://www.localsecrets.com/ezine.cfm?ezineid=4040#sthash.JbPzZTCr.dpuf

Friday 13 December 2013

Gifted Education is good for the whole class

I am not really one for conspiracy theories, I think human nature is enough to explain most of the inequalities, balls-ups, power plays and nastiness perceived in any organisation but I am beginning to wonder.  I am beginning to wonder if there is a room somewhere in media land whose sole purpose is to produce a generalist slap at the education system every Monday.

A popular UK paper printed a doozie the other day about the highest achievers in Yr2 being tracked to find that they were failing to reach their potential (not measured - just an expectation that high grades in yr2 will result in high grades in Yr11) by GCSEs. Of course it was all teachers in all classrooms ignoring the achievers because they chose to deal exclusively with the underachievers to get the government off their back. I'm not even going to rant about the lack of sources etc because you all know how this type of writing works. The thing that really surprised me, were the public comments at the end.  Within an hour there were 30; ranging from protest that their kids had excellent teachers to the knee jerk reaction desired by the author of "all teachers are useless' with a good smattering of - 'let's pay the better teacher's more and dump the deadwood'.

This ridiculous addition to the orgy of teacher bashing after PISA results were announced - again - made me decide to comment and as I am incapable of remaining within 40 characters on the topic of Gifted Education, I thought I would vent to a much smaller audience in full voice! If you think you recognise yourself in an example you're possibly right but I promise not to mention any names.


History re-enactment task
The plastic bag is a modest representation of nakedness
in the clash of cultures - Sydney 1788
I remember so clearly hearing my lecturer at Massey University saying "Gifted children need gifted teachers'.  As I joined the rest of the undergrads sit up a little straighter and modestly evaluate the state of our giftedness, he popped our bubble by going on to say 'not necessarily gifted intellectually but gifted in your professional skills". With that bucket of cold reality we suddenly realised that the field was going to be hard work and require every once of intuition and creativity available.  Every year in the 26 since I have recalled this comment and wept at the truth of it.
In my own classroom as a new teacher, I learnt that the word many of us overlooked in that sentence was the most important of all - need.

Dramatic adaptation of a Yr7 novel study. Small group
multiple parts - interpretation and representation
Small plot incident for each group - performed and recorded
The majority of kids in a classroom do okay with teachers who start at page one in the text and work through the publisher's idea of what makes good curriculum coverage - they do okay with the teacher who is only a couple of lessons ahead of them in their knowledge of their topic(many good teachers find themselves in this predicament because of cut funding to secondary education) - they do okay with the exhausted burnt out teacher who wants the end bell to ring more than them - they do okay with the teacher who is so desperate to be accountable that education becomes a series of boxes to tick off - they do okay with the teacher who took up teaching to be the boss. The cooperative teacher pleaser types often do very very well in these conditions because they can predict what the teacher wants and are rewarded with good grades for fulfilling these in Primary school.
Kids who have special needs do not do okay without differentiation.

Yr 7/8 read a novel every fortnight and complete response tasks that offer a self selection of levels.
Lots of marking - lots of thinking - lots of interaction with text and solidly improving comprehension skills
Students self select novels after an introduction of the term's themed collection. Classics to high interest low challenge
Yr8 'Camp' - An aboriginal artist explains the symbolism
in his work, boys are allowed a go on the didgeridoo
A bush tucker tour and a rock pool study at Coffs
Harbour completes the academic integration plans.
Art, History, Science in real environments
They lean without knowing they are.
Gifted kids are just as different from each other as any other section of the population. Some will succeed in every field they attempt: they will be good at sports, skilled in the arts, top in math and science, a literacy star, responsible and popular. Some are philosophical observers, some are hypersensitive and may need help to cope with the physical and social impact of their world, some are bullies, some are arrogant, some hate attention and try to 'fit' with their cohort - mimicking what they feel is normal and some are twice exceptional which means they have a developmental, physical or cognitive problem too.

Gifted kids are kids with special NEEDS. Giving them what they need is not elitist or only to be afforded if there is a surplus - imagine the uproar if vision impaired kids only got their work enlarged and printed on buff paper when the school budget was in surplus! Providing what gifted kids need doesn't have to cost too much more than the effort, time and resources to identify them and skilled differentiation.

The most ironic thing in the whole issue is that if gifted kids are identified and catered for in the classroom, every other child  will benefit. (An exception to this is the hot housed child whose self worth and identity is completely based on bringing the top grades home to mummy through fastest completion and an ability to do exactly what the teacher has asked for but without relating concepts outside of the set task. This child. will feel confused at options and open ended tasks and will hate school when 100% in a rote test is not the ultimate achievement in class.)

Gifted kids need teachers who

1. Recognise them. 
Unfortunately multiple studies have demonstrated for decades that many teachers identify the above average cooperative child - the younger the child the greater the chance that they are not the highly intelligent ones.   Gifted does not always translate into high grades at school.  School is constructed for the average child and most frequently it is the above average kids who love being timed and graded, the gifted kids may have other things on their minds. The many teachers who are able to identify Gifted kids are also able to identify the needs and interests present in the rest of the class which translates into student fit lessons resulting in engaged learning.

2. Aren't afraid of them or made to feel inferior by their questions and ideas (which may pretty silly at times!) What child doesn't want to be taken seriously - who do you know that would enjoy a 'I'm better than you so just do as you're told' attitude from a tutor?

3. Can cope with the idea that they may be fast and clever in some areas but need extra help in others. A teacher who consistently pretests and plans units with ability groups gives the opportunity to all students to be working at the level of optimum challenge.

4. Do not have an 'extra for experts' box full of meaningless busywork. This is when school becomes deadly boring for everyone - teachers are generally creative and flexible and need to flex these muscles to provide lessons that don't need fillers. Being able to predict the pace and challenge levels required by all the students in the class is one of the most important skills a good teacher uses to plan effective learning activities. There should NEVER be an attitude that everyone has to complete exactly the same activity in the same way - slow workers (note not necessarily slow learners) stay in and fast workers do another word search - Ugh!!!  This applies to homework too - repetition to secure a newly learnt concept or skill is good, research, investigation and application are great, useful tasks to improve skills and cement literacy and numeracy tools in memory is fine but busy work for homework's sake is not. (The wordsearch is an effective tool if used cleverly - eg As a pretest for a new unit of study, create a wordsearch full of topic words and a few that aren't. Ask the kids to make a list of all the words they can find - highlight the ones they know are part of the topic and write how they are connected then circle the ones they think are part of the topic but are not sure how to explain the connection. This gives the teacher a simple view of the knowledge and understanding each child has before the study begins.)

5. Plan units of work that integrate across the curriculum attached to a theme so the rote stuff has a purpose. To secure facts and figures into long term memory requires practice and repetition - this is so much more effective when couched in meaning. Themed units are best planned in teams. Thorough preparation, resources lists and contact details mean that this work will be relevant and adaptable for many years.  Of course if teachers offer variety in learning style as well, all will be humming. (http://www.icels-educators-for-learning.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemid=64 have a look at this site for many descriptors of learning style models if you're ready to think beyond visual/auditory/kinaesthetic.)

6. Compact skill practice to test mastery then provide extension. Allow them to use mastered skills to solve a problem or explore an open ended task instead of making them do all 98 exercises just because that is what the majority of the class needs. This simple skill of compacting is a tool that every teacher can be ready to use regardless of time or resources as long as they understand the topic deeply and are a little bit creative. Of course others need you to have more practice of those basic skills on hand to grow confidence. Think of lessons as a road trip, some kids need a bit longer in the suburbs, other kids need to explore the tourist route and others prefer gunning down the freeway. Your job is to get them to make as much progress on their journey as they can in the most effective way for them - it is not to have them all get to the same intersection. If the kids think that is the goal many will stop off for ice-cream.

7. Provide feedback that identifies where they have done well and with suggestions on how to improve even if they are working beyond what their stage requires. Getting As without any challenge is the kiss of death for future achievement.  All kids need to learn how to cope with failure and to develop a work ethic. For early achieving gifted kids this is doubly important or the knocks of senior school and adult life will make them feel as if they have been lied to and as frauds. However don't fall into the trap of revaluing the grades of the whole stage because a couple of kid's As are well beyond what a A in that stage is. Always have a marking schedule attached to every assignment so the students can see what effort and skills are required to receive the high grades. Include a level that every child in the class can achieve and a box at the other end to provide acknowledgement for motivated and interested kids to 'go beyond'. Provide a question or two, over the 100% mark, at the end of every test to give your fast paced workers an opportunity to show what they can do. Consider removing time limits for tests so you actually find out what the kids know rather than how fast they can write it down. Time management is a test technique that every senior student should be well aware of but if we are really more concerned about what the kids have learnt rather than concentrating on preparation for the high stake end course exam, this idea makes sense.

Two of eight selected by TV producers through  an
 interview process from their Food Tech class to compete
in  Kitchen Whiz, a kids cooking show.
Their teacher had nominated the school for entry
8. Provide an audience for their hard work. Every child needs this but how often is it only the teacher that gets to see what has been done. How often have you heard kids say 'Why do we have to do this I'll never have to find adverbs in a sentence when I leave school'. Give them a purpose and even grammar can be fun and meaningful. Only a handful of kids are motivated by grades.

9. Teach them. One year I watched a group of talented  mathematicians given the next year's text book because they had been accelerated and enriched superbly by their previous teacher. They were left to work 'independently'. Intervention from senior staff and parents achieved little change. The following year most of those kids had to go back to the same grade text(different publisher) because although mildly gifted, they had been unable to master the concepts without direct teaching - no surprise there! For one, the embarrassment and her highly competitive nature forced her into a 'this is stupid corner' that effected her attitude towards learning in all her subjects. I hope she had the courage to drag herself out of it eventually.
Another year a group of 8, Yr 1 students blitzed a yearly in-class reading test, scoring reading ages of between 8.6 and 11 when they were only 5-6 yrs old. I tested them individually on the NEALE to separate their sight vocab and comprehension ages because the staff were frustrated that many of these students were unable to work independently and were beginning to see them as behaviour management issues. All but the child who had scored a reading age of 11yrs were between 3 and 5 yrs behind in their comprehension skills.  Saying words is a decoding skill, understanding words is a different matter altogether. No wonder these poor kids couldn't work independently, the teachers were, rightly, extending them but without realising that they couldn't understand the instructions even though they could say each word in them correctly. Over thirty three weeks a specialist course was applied (Jack's Map is a spiral reading programme that starts with a sight vocab of 8yrs and low comprehension skills required to a sight vocab age of 12+yrs with high comprehension skills required - no withdrawal. It was used as their guided reading task in class and for homework). The teacher used conscious questioning techniques, big book modelling and poetry with the whole class. All but one (diagnosed on the Autism spectrum later with a low IQ and one of the best spellers in the class) were caught up to having their comprehension age within 6mths (an acceptable - normal gap) of their sight vocab age, which of course had been allowed to continue progressing. Teachers who teach the student rather than just the curriculum will facilitate learning successfully for everyone in class.

10. Understand the big picture. Gifted kids are not better or special, just different. Sometimes their thinking and application will produce amazing results and other times they may achieve nothing. How and why they do this is often different from their peers. Generally they need to know the aims and goals of an activity before they will settle to rote learning, they need the big picture before the pieces. They enjoy deriving the facts rather than building a pyramid of facts. Teachers are introduced to Blooms taxonomy early in training, although all areas are important, gifted kids find flow in their learning when working in the higher order thinking skills end. These activities take less time to prepare but more time to mark. Like all learners they should be given opportunity for sustained individual thinking work and cooperative discussion and application, be aware that some kids do their best work at home because they are able to stay in flow without the arbitrary bells and timetables interfering, but be careful - some parents just can't help themselves.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
Author, dysgraphic (dictated her work)


“Many times I can see a solution to something differently and quicker than other people. I see the end zone and say ‘This is where I want to go.’” 

Charles Schwab (left),business man, dyslexic, read classic comic’s versions of literature to keep up with reading assignments.



“I get stubborn and dig in when people tell me I can’t do something  and I think I can. It goes back to my childhood when I had problems in school because I have a learning disability. I never  wanted to be perceived as handicapped or limited in any way.” 

Ann Bancroft (below), polar explorer, teacher, author, dyslexic






Hawking, while recognized as bright, was not an exceptional student. At one point during his high school years, he was third from the bottom 
of his class. But Hawking focused on pursuits outside of school. 

Stephen Hawking (below) Shown here in 0 gravity. 
At age 21, while studying cosmology at the University of Cambridge, he was diagnosed with 
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis







He did not speak until the age of three and 
teachers labelled him mentally slow. 

“Anyone who has never made a mistake 
has never tried anything new.” 

Albert Einstein (below), scientist


“I felt like an alien. I always felt like I never 
belonged to any group that I wanted to 
belong to.”Steven Spielberg
movie maker, dyslexic, struggled 
with math, dropped out of high school
11. Stay open minded about the labeling that can damage perceptions and behaviours. In the world of money and funding, numbers and cutoff points are required.  The magic IQ of 120 was the point for a diagnosis of mildly gifted and 130 for moderately gifted.(double check with your Education Dept. for the latest numbers - education has the fastest pendulum of any field.  The more kids there are the higher the 'gifted' definition becomes.)
"It is a lonely existence to be a child 
with a disability which no-one can see 
or understand, you exasperate your 
teachers, you disappoint your parents, 
and worst of all you know that 
you are not just stupid." 
Susan Hampshire
Actress and Author, dyslexic
Some children receive an average score but when taken through a more complex series of tests it is discovered that they have very high cognitive abilities in one area and very poor abilities in another.  This information is worth every cent of the often substantial fees charged by Ed Psychs. With this information teachers can design programmes for the child's strengths to support and improve their areas of weakness. This split result is not uncommon - always seek more information if results received don't feel right. High intellect with barriers to performance is a torturous hell for a person to be trapped in. If they have a particular talent and a focused determination this may be overcome without intervention (Einstein) but often they just end up in the Principal's office or spurned by their peers without ever really understanding why.  The statistics that come out of the USA, who are able to track large populations of their gifted students because of their school district controls, concerning drop out rates and young suicide rates, are terrifying. Identification and personal intervention saves lives.
Highly gifted and profoundly gifted kids are few and far between in schools and are usually accelerated.(General advice is that kids should be working at mastery level for the year above the year they are accelerated to.) Miraca Gross, at the University of NSW, has done phenomenal work for these kids with her research and support net, her Tall Poppy Syndrome cassette tape was an early catalyst in my career. Of course the IQ number is a rational way of trying to predict needs and behaviour but is artificial in itself as it measures one pinprick in time. Because of this I have always warned parents that the results of the tests will remain confidential to the coordinator and the labels of mildly or moderately gifted is all the teachers will be told - as required. I have often heard people say that high marks can't be faked but be aware of the child who doesn't want the label throwing the test. For those tested one to one, the skill and objectivity of the psychologist will have a big impact. At one school where I was coordinating part of their gifted programme, we noticed highly inflated scores resulting from one practitioner so ended up having to ask parents to go to one of three whose reports we trusted as this school's board demanded that parents provide the report and proof of high IQ for inclusion in the gifted programme. If using a timed pen and paper group general ability test - do your homework to find one with high correlations to other instruments.  The term g-loaded has been used to describe a psychometric test that measures abstract reasoning skills well. Ring around or write to experts in the field if your school is contemplating a formal identification programme or find an excellent Educational Psychologist for advice. For my PD one year, the Principal agreed to let me have sessions with the Ed Psych whose reports were the best of any we received at school.  This was an invaluable series of three, morning sessions.

12.  Are masters of multiple resources.  Teachers who know their library and resource centers like the back of their hands and have a healthy collection of resources in their classroom will be more likely give the most suited learning tasks. Planning units involves browsing shelves for anything related much as an efficient householder checks their pantry and cleans out their fridge before planning the week's menu. It helps get the creative juices running and saves a lot of time. Even with pretesting you can be surprised at the challenge required or the remediation necessary and  need to have materials at hand to fit. Good teachers are magpies with their store cupboards full of bit and peices needed for a moment of inspiration or a hands on demonstration when the planned object lesson wasn't enough for one or two. Before poaching future grade's resources for the accelerated, talk to the teaching team to find out what texts are being used so you don't use something the child will see in the following years - this is really important for novel studies and the basic math texts.  You don't want your advanced students to be annoying their next teacher because they have always 'done' what the teacher has planned.  One of the biggest curses of education in modern times has been the mass production of write in texts. This is the one suits all rabbit hole many trip into. There are always exceptions, handwriting and multi topic mental math revision books are a case in point.  Even if a school adopts a single math programme the course should be supplemented with materials that meet the students needs as they are presented, the child must be taught not the programme.

13. Enjoy playing with ideas, possibilities and have a healthy sense of humour. This frees the mind to make important cognitive leaps.  Happy, accepted and engaged kids learn more successfully and develop more creative responses and applications in their set tasks. This is only possible where behaviour is respectful towards all in class and self regulated. As a young teacher I was told not to smile until Easter, while I appreciate the advice to maintain order and draw the behaviour lines in the sand early smiling and laughing when a moment calls for it releases any tension bought about by discipline like a good stretch after  exercise. The relationship environment and behaviour expectations need to be transparent and predictable to allow the safety in which to learn effectively.

14. Are fair and honorable. Treat all the kids in the class with respect. Don't use passive aggression with gifted kids to control them or 'motivate' them, they'll just become minimalists or non-cooperative. Many gifted kids have a very inconvenient strong sense of justice which in younger kids, may not be applied to themselves! It is impossible not to make judgement blunders from time to time but sincere apologies are appreciated.  Always apologise publicly but discipline serious matters to the side. if you have different expectations of a student and intend to use a different grading scale make sure the student is aware of this before the task is begun.  To give a child a C for the same work that another child received a B for because you thought they could do better is unfair and will cause resentment. Never promise anything you cannot pull off. The only triumph a teacher should feel or demonstrate in class is when a student has been successful. You are not competing with your students but are facilitating a love of learning and developing useful citizens.

HOM
Thinking Hats
Revised Blooms
15. Are fluent in Cognitese (Metacognition talk and modelling).  There are so many excellent thinking skills resources available now so there is no need to invent anything.  A favourite of mine for Middle School aged kids is Costa and Kallick's Habits of Mind or Intelligent behaviours.  DeBono's Thinking Hats is hands on and applicable in any lesson so a good place to get the Kindies started. Don't timetable 1/2 an hour for a thinking skills lesson - give it a purpose - name and use them every day wherever they fit!  If you lack confidence pick a couple a Term, learn their thinking speak and plan to use them in your language and social science classes as curricular activities. As with anything, the more you do it the more natural and simple it is.  Let the kids catch the thinking bug off you!  The benefits include improved self-regulation, learning independence and improved problem solving skills across the curriculum and social situations and of course deeper engagement in learning and improved long term memory. (These websites have some interesting tools http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html - https://thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk/resources/ http://billsteachingnotes.wikispaces.com)

 Gifted kids need schools who

1. Celebrate achievement in a wide variety of areas. Providing catalyst opportunities like Art shows, Math competitions, Debates, Film Festivals and Science Fairs, is just as important as the weekly sports competitions. An active arts programme with plays, concerts and an ever changing variety of kids performing at school assemblies is vital for gifted kids but hugely beneficial for the whole school community. This functions as a big part of the purpose for skill development mentioned earlier.

2. Have a close relationship with their community. Mentors, volunteers, incursions and excursions provide audience, motivation and inspiration. Kids with high intellect are not the only ones who benefit from this osmosis with the real world.

3. Support staff development and teaching partnerships. Teacher's inspire each other and support each other when time is set aside for refresher courses and sharing. Good communication in the staff room ensures that the whole of first term is not wasted finding out what works for which kids. An attitude of teamwork makes okay teachers good and good teachers great.

4. Develop effective and meaningful service programmes. Skills and talents self-combust when not used and shared. Most schools have leadership programmes; but not all kids want to be the badge wearing - peer evaluating top dog that many of these programmes create. Very few older kids want the extra teacher pleaser work that is listed as privilege by an optimistic committee. Kids will exert themselves when the effort is worthwhile intrinsically, making beauty, solving a real dilemma, fulfilling need in their communities. Many kids have a burden for social justice and once a gifted kid is in flow you'll be hard put to stop them.

5. Cluster their gifted population. This is not the same concept as streaming because the grouping is not based on grades but on intellectual potential - remember one does not necessarily mean the other! Gifted kids think differently from the average. The fact is that gifted kids are frequently out of step in their development (asynchronous) with their peers and this can be a lonely and misunderstood place to be. Generally they move through Piaget's cognitive development triangle, Kolberg's moral development continuum and if supported, through Maslow's hierarchy of needs before average expectations. This of course has a huge impact on their social lives. A 5yr old who wants to map out every possible scenario and rule for an invented game before beginning will frustrate and become frustrated with the kids who want to run around with skipping ropes in pairs playing horses.  By clustering the moderately gifted in a class together they will have a better chance of developing meaningful friendships. The 'loner nerd' concept of gifted kids is false but can be created by careless class divisions.  Gifted kids challenge and inspire each other so often a kid who is off task and naughty in one group will be happily engaged in another. If gifted kids are never allowed to work with their intellectual peers social problems that are worse than boredom, uncooperative group behaviour and isolated distraction will develop in some.  It is difficult to identify young gifted kids without the intervention of a Educational Psychologist but keeping kids whose comprehension skills are advanced (ignore high sight vocab skills as flash carding parents can distort their kids performance and many may be very disappointed in their child's third year of school when the thinkers catch up and pass the performers) together is a useful start.  Please remember that A grade performance is not necessarily indicative of giftedness just as D grade performance is not necessarily indicative of a low IQ.

6.  Actively follow a thinking skills curriculum. Designing a spiral of skills throughout your school that suits your population and ensuring that all the staff are trained and using thinking speak in their classrooms is essential for children to be aware of and use thinking constructs.  Many Gifted kids use these instinctively without having names or labels. Time must be allowed for regular refreshers, reporting back on good ideas etc or changes in staff or the negative attitudes of a few will make a lie of your marketing!

7.  Run an equitable discipline system. All good schools have a transparent discipline system with easy to understand levels, warning systems and clear processes of communication between staff and students and with parents.  A teacher's arsenal of behaviour management strategies are supported by whole school networks. Equitable means equal for all but does not mean the same for all. There will always be some kids that these fine plans don't work for, these kids are often kids who are troubled at home or have intellects that are superior or inferior to the majority of their peers.  Speak plainly about the issues with the parents and child together in an interview with the class teacher and a senior staff member present. Develop a plan of response that tackle's one or two issues at a time.  Make it clear that physical and verbal violence will result in immediate isolation but make sure the systems are in place to allow this. Consistency of course is the most effective tool and the hardest to follow through on, ask any parent. Always ask yourself - what is it that we want this discipline to achieve, how best may this be done?  Developing empathy is very difficult in those that don't have it natrually, dealing with deep anger and dissatisfaction is difficult and sometimes punishment becomes a desired release.  The best way for long term cooperative and responsible behaviour is to develop healthy self esteem, caring relationships and strong levels of motivation in learning activities.  OF course none of this is fast and none of it is easy or guaranteed to work out okay in the end.

8. Acknowledge the talents of students and teachers by ear marking time and funds for extracurricular activities. This is a tricky area for some teachers do so much more than others – all of it on top of their normal workload.  Senior staff need to ensure that their core responsibilities are not disadvantaged or that their most enthusiastic teachers don’t wear out. You don’t have to be gifted or talented yourself to facilitate inter school debates, sports or to find theatre, arts or music opportunities for students. However extracurricular coaching in any field does require an ability or interest in the field. Looking out for the myriad of competitions and joining kids up – advertising them at assemblies etc is a mammoth job but is simple to do if a parent volunteer can be found to coordinate it. Many universities have departments that run specialist activities.  A good example is the Australian Math Trust run by the National Australian University in Canberra. There are always speech or writing competitions around for your talented humanities students and local shows usually allow school age entries. 


The issues addressed in this looooong, blog that is neither complete nor faultless, are what I have found worked in my last school. From when I started the formal ID process of Yr3s and new kids (8.6yrs+) 10 yrs ago, we have had average populations of 31% mildly and moderately gifted kids in each year level. The great majority have enjoyed their schooling and developed into excellent thinkers and producers, as well as being kind and considerate individuals. I miss them all but am hopeful that the school's legacy of a strongly integrated gifted programme will continue and reap more excellent results.
Part of the Yr10 French class ready to leave for the airport.  Each of the kids in the class of 8 worked to earn their fare
New Caledonia is the closest French speaking nation to Australia.  Don't speak - don't eat.




If you are concerned about depression, anxiety or isolation in a student please seek help immediately - it doesn't just go away.  If the child is gifted encourage the practitioner to read Linda Kreger Silverman's work. Her later work and some research processes have attracted criticism in the field of G&T Education but I have found her case studies and observations in this book to be a helpful prompt when faced with challenging thought patterns and behaviours in Gifted kids.
References for the quotes and images for the Twice Exceptional people above:
http://www.biography.com/people/stephen-hawking-9331710