Gifted learners have the potential to develop to a level significantly ahead of their year group. The nature of modern-day classrooms is that work is often set at a mid-level, resulting in the more academically abled children’s full potential not being reached, as standardised teaching is unable to fully challenge them. Not only will this impact student’s academic grades but also their desire and motivation to learn. Students can become bored, disengaged, and at times disruptive if the necessary challenge is not provided. These individualised needs should be met in order to maximise performance and stimulate talented pupils.
In 2010, the gifted and talented scheme was relinquished, meaning that there are no longer explicit guidelines as to how schools should best provide for these student’s needs. There is also resulted in no allocated funding for gifted students, meaning that the provision of resources varies between schools demonstrating that some student’s needs will be overlooked.
Gifted children often feel the expectation that they have to answer everything correctly and are not allowed any mistakes. A safe space needs to be provided to enable talented students to take risks without feeling the social stigma that is attached to getting the wrong answer. Crescent Tuition has a culture where there are no wrong answers, only opportunities for further development, facilitating real challenges.
Talented students feel the external and internal pressure to achieve perfection, creating a toxic environment resulting in stress and anxiety. This naturally has an impact on student’s mental health and can inadvertently impact student’s overall ability to perform in exams and time-sensitive environments. At Crescent Tuition, we provide resilience training to allow students to take risks and attempt questions that are potentially above their academic level, in order to challenge them to achieve.
Students who have the potential to achieve a level substantially beyond the rest of their peer group, have characteristics which can present themselves in numerous ways, including abstract thinking and a constant need for mental stimulation. Students who present these characteristics have different learning needs At Crescent Tuition, we have experience with working with students who are intellectually gifted catering learning styles to these individualised needs.