Education Commission Special Facilities For Bright Pupils Urged

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29245, 1 July 1960, Page 12

Education Commission Special Facilities For Bright Pupils Urged

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, June 30. Children of high intelligence have as much right as other groups, sucb as tbe intellectually handicaped. slow learners and deaf children, to the kind of edncation suited to their peculiar needs, said Miss G. L. Gardner, the head of the mathematics department at the Auckland Girls’ Grammar School, in submissions to the Education Commission today. Many slow learners were being offered more education than they could accept, but at the other end of the scale was a small group of highly-intelligent children who, geared to the pace of the majority, never fully realised their potential. There was a great danger in retarding them or allowing them to become mentally lazy. Miss Gardner urged that children of high intelligence should be accelerated in the primary

sthool and should begin their post-primary subjects at an earlier age. She said they should be recognised and treated as a special group, and should experience the full range of academic subjects, at least until University Entrance level was reached. Some opportunity should be provided early in their school career to enable them to realise their capacities—some system of external examination with scholarship awards. “In some ways. 1 consider the highly intelligent children in our schools to be the most retarded," said Miss Gardner. “Our brightest children' are beginning their post-primary subjects too late.” She did not envisage schools comprising nothing but highly intelligent children or anything approaching the hard and fast separation that was adopted in England, she said.