Choosing child care, preschools and schools for gifted and talented children

If you have a choice about where your gifted and talented child goes to child care, preschool and school, it’s good to choose somewhere that can support your child’s abilities and learning needs.

When you’re choosing a child care centre, preschoool or school, it’s OK to share information about your child and talk with teachers about how they can help your child.

Some parents choose to home-school their gifted child. If you’re interested in this option, you’ll need to check the regulations in your state or territory.

Check out our articles on practical steps to finding a school and choosing a school. They have general tips on how to choose a school that suits your child’s characteristics, personalities, strengths, needs and interests.

Preparing gifted and talented children for child care, preschool and school

Your gifted child might be excited or curious about starting child care, preschool or school. And because of their advanced abilities, your child might also be more aware of changes ahead than other children their age. Your child might have strong feelings about these changes too. Even moving between classes can feel more challenging to gifted children.

Here are practical tips to get your child ready for transitions to child care, preschool and school:

• Visit the child care centre, preschool or school with your child to see how learning happens.
• Go to open or orientation days. They give you and your child a chance to get more comfortable with the new place and to meet teachers and other children.
• If your child has questions about the learning program, encourage your child to ask the teachers.
• Talk with your child about how the teachers work with children and the different things your child will do to learn.
• Ask teachers about support for your child as they settle in. For example, your child might need help to make friends.

Get more tips for settling into child care, starting preschool and starting school.

Challenges at school for gifted and talented children

Gifted and talented children might need extra support for particular challenges when they go to child care, preschool and school. For example:

• Children might be younger than other children in their class if they start school early or skip grades. This can work well if they get along well with older children. But it can be harder if their social and emotional development isn’t as advanced as their other abilities.
• Children might like to learn differently from the way learning usually happens in their child care, preschool or school class. For example, if they’re used to following their own interests at home, they might have strong feelings about their child care, preschool or school teacher guiding their learning.
• If gifted children don’t get the right learning opportunities, they might not be able to use their abilities to get good school results. And if this happens, they might lose confidence, find it hard to make friends or seem a bit ‘lost’.
• A child might underachieve at school if they have an undiagnosed learning disorder – for example, dyslexia.

The first step in sorting out these challenges is talking with your child’s teacher. You can also talk with other school staff, like the school counsellor, the principal or the student welfare coordinator.

Your state or territory association for gifted and talented children can be a great source of information and advice as you explore these challenges.

Talking with educators and teachers about gifted and talented children

Talking with educators and teachers is the key to building a good relationship with your child’s early childhood educators or a good relationship with your child’s school.

When you have a good relationship, it can:

• help educators or teachers learn more about your child’s abilities
• help you ensure that your child’s learning and other needs are being met
• help you and the educators or teachers work together on any challenges your child experiences
• make it easier to raise problems if they come up.

When to communicate with your child’s educators and teachers
The simple answer is – whenever there’s a change, either with your child or at child care, preschool or school. This might be when your child has a new teacher, or when they move to a different room or year level.

It’s also good to let teachers know when your child is happy with their learning. For example, ‘Ravi came home so excited yesterday. He told me all about the planets’. Or if your child isn’t happy, ask their teachers if they know why.

You can also communicate with your child’s educators and teachers if your child’s learning needs aren’t being met by the mainstream curriculum. For example, you could advocate for an individual learning plan if your child doesn’t already have one.

How to communicate with your child’s educators or teachers
Here are ideas for communicating positively with your child’s educators or teachers:

• Make an appointment to talk with your child’s teachers about your child’s learning needs.
• Share information about your child’s learning needs with their teachers. This can include examples of your child’s advanced work or learning, or an IQ test and learning needs report.
• Ask your child’s teachers what they’ve noticed about your child’s learning needs and interests.
• If you need to talk with teachers about problems, it helps to come ready with positive and practical suggestions or solutions.
• If a problem continues and your child is unhappy, you can ask to meet with the centre or preschool director or the school principal.

If you can’t sort out school challenges and problems by communicating with school staff, you might need to think about moving schools if you can. Some states and territories have opportunity classes, selective high schools, extension classes and other gifted and talented programs and support. These options might suit your child better.

Different school or same school as siblings?

If you have gifted children and typically developing children, where they all go to child care, preschool and school is a big practical consideration.

If your children have very different learning needs, you might choose to send them to different centres, preschools and schools. This situation can give all your children the opportunities they need to learn and develop. Another advantage of your children going to different schools is that typically developing children can learn without any expectations from teachers who’ve taught their gifted siblings.

You might send your children to the same school if the school can meet all their needs or if there are limited choices in the area where you live. This can be good for your family, because it means you can focus on building relationships with only one school. Keeping track of and going to school events might be easier as well.