Gifted Education In Australia

The issue of gifted education revolves around two main elements- identification of gifted learners and maximising their learning outcomes. Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education References Committee Inquiry into the Education of Gifted and Talented Children (2001) emphasised on the need for special educational approach towards the gifted children. The Melbourne Declaration on the Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA, 2008) also expects of Australian school systems to:

-promote a culture of excellence in all schools, by supporting them to provide challenging, and stimulating learning experiences and opportunities that enable all students to explore and build on their gifts and talents. (MCEETYA, 2008,
She was accelerated because she could read before starting school and was also advanced in her mathematical ability. A lot of the studies (Gross, 1993, Cox, 1977) have found gifted children to be early or avid readers. More than 90% of the gifted students studied by Gross (1993) in an Australian longitudinal study could read before their fifth birthday. Jaeda still enjoys reading in her free time. Both Cox (1977) and Gross (1993) have found that the most favoured free time activity of gifted children is reading. It is common for gifted children to be reading books that are above their grade level. Due to being advanced in their academic abilities they are often accelerated. Hollingworth (1931) noted that by the time the gifted children ‘are eight or none years old’, they ‘are more or less accelerated in scholastic status and appear as the youngest in the class’ (Hollingworth, 1931, p. 153). Terman (1925) found that almost half of the children he studied were ahead of the other children of similar age in school performance. 20% of his studied sample had been accelerated either part or whole of the first
Various studies (Terman, 1925, Cox, 1977) have found that a large number of gifted children are first born. Almost half of Cox’s (1977) subjects in his study of gifted children demonstrating advanced abilities were first born. Silverman (1988) has also stated that the gifted child is typically noted as ‘an only child or the first born of two siblings in a middle class family’ (p. 18). Webb (2014) states that the reason for this is that first born receive a lot of attention from their parents, spend more time with adults and the parents have higher expectations from them. It is due to these environmental factors that they have a higher chance of being identified as gifted. These factors may also mean that the giftedness is more likely to be nurtured. As her parents are well educated and have a mid-high socio-economic status, it is quite likely that Jaeda would have been provided with a supporting and nurturing environment required to unfold her giftedness (Pfeiffer,