Verity Preparory School and College, ASSAGAY

WHY MAKE A SPECIAL-NEEDS SCHOOL FOR THE EXCEPTIONALLY ABLE CHILD?

The education system is, on the face of it, awash with schooling options.

One would think that there is a niche for everybody and that little else can be added to the mix. Academic excellence and lofty ideals are promised — and largely delivered — by most schools. Is there really anything that can be done differently?

This train of thought is, in essence, the exact problem. There is a significant minority – up to 5% of all children - with exceptional abilities and high potential, who never achieve to the high levels of which they are capable.

This is due to the fact that their thought processes – while highly developed and able to cope rapidly with large volumes of data – do not fit the traditional, rote-learning schooling methods.

The so-called gifted learner is not the typical goody two-shoes who gets straight A grades. More often than not the truly gifted child is bored with school, tries to avoid it, performs in a lack-lustre manner and is often seen as an enigma by teachers and parents because they “just know better things are possible.”
Highly capable children, for the most part, are eager to go to school at first. Once there, however, they find that their questions, their prior learning and their unique viewpoint or analytical reasoning does not “fit in” with the orderly, targeted step-by-step approach of conventional schooling.

Children with high potential need to explore in-depth, they need to be free to discuss tangents that – to most of us – may seem irrelevant. However, when their eagerness to learn is stunted by a lack of time or encouragement due to the need to meet a pre-set list of curriculum targets, they lose interest and motivation. Often they will begin to withdraw or to act-out and get into trouble in conventional schools – even in highly regarded top schools. If they do not see a purpose to the tasks asked of them, they tune out and do the minimum needed