I have worked in a lot of different schools, and a recurring question was: Is my child gifted? Sometimes, parents come with the certainty that their child is gifted, and other times, they don’t even know that it is the case. In Ontario, teachers are not licensed to diagnose anything. However, they can always share their observations with a child’s parent and suggest further investigation. There are a lot of tests and IQ scoring tools that exist on the net. For working with a number of gifted children in regular schools (private, public, French and English), I know for a fact that it is not necessarily the child that has all of the best grades and no problem in class… The “gifted” label is often misused for children getting good results in school.

To get a proper assessment, a lot of specialists and relatives of the child are asked to share their observations. Lengthy meetings, consultations and reports, eventually lead to the development of strategies to be put in place for a specific child. But did you know that more and more forward thinking programs, like the International Baccalaureate Program, or the Highscope program, focus on inquiry-based learning. In other words, these programs are designed in such way that each child’s needs, interests and abilities are recognized. This allows each individual child’s development to be nurtured and fostered to their own rhythm. In other words, by offering your child, weather gifted or not, the tools and the rules to make good choices, letting them explore the world through inquiry will lead them to be the key decision maker in their learning. Empowering, don’t you think?

Self-esteem and confidence are key element for a child’s academic success. One way of ensuring that your child is finding their school environment as comfortable as can be, is by giving them the peace-of-mind that they are mastering what is being taught in class.