Supporting High Potential and Gifted Students: Insights from Cranbrook School’s Professional Learning Session

This week, Cranbrook School teachers facilitated an enriching CTTT session focused on ‘Supporting High Potential and Gifted Students’. Drawing from UNSW’s mini-COGE course, our educators shared invaluable insights and strategies to better support these exceptional learners.

Cáit Mullooly kicked off the session by discussing environmental factors that impact the development of giftedness. She highlighted the pivotal role of teachers as catalysts in accelerating students’ gifts, and emphasised the importance of identifying and adequately challenging gifted students to prevent underachievement.

Nick Tsoukatos built on this by advocating for the replacement of ordinary classwork with extension work, rather than delaying extension work until core content is completed. He stressed the importance of running pretests at least two weeks before a new unit to adapt the program for students who demonstrate mastery of core content. Using strategies from The Williams Model (1993), such as ‘Attribute Listing’ (which involves the skill of analysis, requiring students to list the attributes of or list the properties of something), Nick provided examples of how he had challenged his high potential Year 9 students.

Caroline Usasz developed this focus on strategies for differentiation by exploring how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) provides a robust framework for blending inquiry-based learning with content knowledge demands. She shared successful strategies for introducing metalanguage to high potential Year 8 students and underscored the power of autonomy in challenging gifted learners.

James Adams concluded the session by presenting research on the positive impact of concept-based curricula for extending high potential students. He also showcased VanTassel-Baska’s Integrated Curriculum Model (ICM) and shared engaging, interdisciplinary projects from the Cranbrook Honours Curriculum.

This session was a testament to the dedication of our teachers in fostering an environment where high potential and gifted students can thrive.

Hannah Thomas
Director of Professional Learning