What is the “program” for gifted children in your country’s schools like?

7 comments

1. I don’t really know for sure but one gifted kid I knew skipped the last 2 years of high-school (I don’t know if he did this through a structured program or just taken the exams through the exam commission)

   And another was homeschooled since there wasn’t adequate support in the schools

   So I assume the program is kinda no existant/bad

2. I don’t really know for sure but one gifted kid I knew skipped the last 2 years of high-school (I don’t know if he did this through a structured program or just taken the exams through the exam commission)

   And another was homeschooled since there wasn’t adequate support in the schools

   So I assume the program is kinda no existant/bad

3. I don’t think there is any here in Poland. In my high school there was once a mathematical genius, but he was treated like everyone else. In fact he almost didn’t graduate from high school because he was doing so bad in Literature/Polish.

   Gifted children are in general invisible, because most of the time teachers think that they’re just doing very well, and they prefer to focus on the ones that are doing badly. So the geniuses are bored and nobody cares about them.

   Good teachers identify them and try to do something to make them learn more, e.g. in my middle school there was a guy really good in maths and he was given different problems to work on during classes, because what the rest of us were doing was too banal for him.

4. There’s none. There’s special private schools for children who their parents believe are highly intelligent but no program in the regular schools.

   If you are good at a subject you’re usually asked to go around and help the other children. Danish basic schools (before “”high school”” or whatever choose when you’re around 16) loves averages and they don’t want to create a competitive environment. Parents would be angry if teachers were perceived as favoring kids who were good.

5. Not really a thing here. Used to be more common to skip classes but these days it’s almost unheard of.

   Instead you are allowed to specialize *a lot* at our equivalent of high school. You could as an example read 200 points of basic math during those 3 years or you could read 600 points of advanced math. The last 100 points is kind of rare though as it’s not that beneficial for university enrollment even though it’s the most advanced course. In my school of ~600 per year (total 1800) students we were 5 IIRC who picked the final math course. I think that was a record year because we were all friends/classmates who picked it. Mentioning this so other Swedes don’t get confused why they haven’t heard of it. There is also an intermediate level which is common.

   Not a lot before that age though. Most of the gifted students at my schools were bored to death due to lack of challenge.

6. I don’t think there are any in Austria. There are private schools, but they are not for gifted children. Some schools require an entry test, to see if you fit in, but I wouldn’t necessarily call the children gifted, and it isn’t marketed that way.

7. In primary school I was sort of placed in a gifted students “program”

   It was really just the occasional special class one on one with a teacher where I would do more advanced and demanding work. It was nothing that strange really. Weirdest thing might have been the fact that I was one on one….

   In secondary school they had no programs at all. I was treated like everyone else, which Is something that I think was for the better. Being excluded is never good