More than 100 Invercargill primary pupils have taken part in a screening week at Enrich@ILT – the highest number of students being screened in the 11 years the day school has been operating.

Children who have been identifed by their schools as possibly being gifted are invited to attend the screening with the Enrich@ILT team, headed by Marlene Campbell and were this year joined by gifted expert Dr Rosemary Cathcart, an “icon” in gifted education in Aotearoa, Campbell said.

Dr Cathcart has been extensively involved in gifted education since the early 1980s. She has been instrumental in developing programmes for children and young people, supporting parents, providing professional learning and development, writing books and articles, conducting research on moral development, and is one of New Zealand’s foremost advocates for gifted children and young people.

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Dr Cathcart said life was not easy for gifted children.

“We come up against a lot of mythology in this job, such as that life is easy for them, and that they’re automatically going to succeed. You come up against the belief that you won’t find gifted Maori kids, you won’t find gifted kids from low-decile schools, that every parent thinks their child is gifted. But it’s very, very hard to be them and hard for them to understand why other kids don’t get their jokes, why the other kids get fed up when they want to have a game and it’s got 127 and-a-half rules. That child can be very lonely and I’ve met some fairly dramatic examples of that over the years.

“The converse of all of that is that you so often find these kids tend to be very caring people, they tend to be very alert to issues of justice, world peace, environmental change, they have nightmares - they are the kids who simply cannot watch the news. But on the positive side that’s a huge resource of rich humanity that has so much to give the world.”

Enrich @ILT was undergoing a period of change, meaning having Dr Cathcart to help steer the team along had been a great relief, Campbell said.

Enrich student Jayden-blaze cooking diabetic and celiac-friendly kai. PHOTO: Supplied

The New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education (NZCGE) is phasing out its locally-funded Centres around New Zealand, including Enrich@ILT. With the high level of support for the school from the ILT it is not an issue of economics, however it does mean that Enrich is essentially rebuilding its curriculum.

Enrich@ILT would continue to provide students with choice, challenge and time to engage in units of work that offered a high interest to them, Campbell said. They could explore their talents and passions with a three-teacher team in an environment of like-minded peers.

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“With the unique environment being an old nightclub there are many different spaces to work in and 1:1 access to a variety of technology resources not always available at their school.

“3-D printing, with two printers and a wait list each day, this provides a challenging task to design in code and have visual spatial engineering skills to successfully print in the correct design and dimensions.”

Morgan and Tane 3D problem-solving at Enrich. PHOTO: Supplied

Students development as a whole person and a holistic approach to developing them as a whole person was also a focus, Campbell said.

“We want them to leave here feeling confident and comfortable in their own skin. Understanding their emotions and why they may feel different is vital.”

The ILT high level of support and resourcing ensures equity for all learners despite socio economic differences.