Timeline for Working Party Process and Reporting

The Minister of Education will announce the membership and Chair of the Working Party on 15 May 2001.

The first meeting of the Working Party will be held on June 6 2001. The first meeting of the Working Party and advisory group combined is scheduled for August 2001. It is envisaged that the Working Party will require five meetings, probably each comprising an evening and a full day, before the end of November 2001, and that two meetings of the wider group (at the beginning and end of the project respectively) will be necessary.

The Working Party will provide a report to the Minister of Education by 30 November 2001. Following consideration of that report, the Minister will determine the ongoing role of the Working Party, and the nature of any future reporting responsibilities.

Process and Membership

The group will comprise eight members, from the following sectors:

• academics specialising in the area of gifted and talented education (2)
• teachers in mainstream settings (2)
• teachers working with gifted and talented students in specialised settings (2)
• School Support Services' advisors, currently contracted by the Ministry to work with schools in the area of gifted and talented education (1)
• parents (1)

Administrative and clerical support, and technical or analytical support will be provided to the group by the Ministry of Education.

The Working Party on Gifted Education met six times between June and November 2001, for a total of 11 days. Two of these meetings took place with the wider Advisory Group (see Appendix A for members). Draft material was also circulated to the Advisory Group for comment at various stages in the process.

Consultation

Further consultation was undertaken through a variety of means. Public submissions were called for early in the process, and the deadline then extended until 30 September 2001. The requested focus of submissions was around the three key questions set out in the Terms of Reference, but the Working Party also encouraged gifted and talented children to make submissions about the type of education they believed would best help them to achieve to their potential. These submissions were welcomed in any format. In addition to placing an Official Notice in the Education Gazette and an advertisement on TKI, some groups or individuals were directly invited to make a submission. This occurred midway through the process and was to encourage participation from sectors the Working Party was concerned it might not otherwise hear from. These groups were:

Name

1. Auckland Kindergarten Association

2. Barnardo's Child & Family Services

3. Business New Zealand

4. Christchurch Association for Gifted Children

5. Christian Early Childhood Education Association of Aotearoa

6. Early Childhood Council

7. Federation of Free Kindergartens

8. Federation of Rudolf Steiner Schools in New Zealand

9. Gordon Dryden

10. Montessori Association of New Zealand

11. New Zealand Council for Gifted Education

12. Ngai Tahu Development Corporation

13. North Canterbury Support for Gifted and Talented Children

14. New Zealand Family Day Care Association

15. New Zealand Playcentre Federation

16. New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA

17. New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee

18. NZEI Te Riu Roa

19. Pacific Island Early Childhood Council of Aotearoa

20. Tauranga Support Group for Gifted Children

21. Te Köhanga Reo National Trust

22. Te Pütahitanga Matauranga

23. Te Rünanga Nui o Ngä Kura Kaupapa Mäori o Aotearoa

24. Te Rünanga o Ngati Porou

25. Te Rünanga o Turanganui a Kiwa

26. Te Tari Puna Ora o Aotearoa/NZCA

27. Teacher Education Federation of New Zealand

28. Thames/Hauraki Gifted & Talented Association

29. Tuhoe Education Authority

30. Tuwharetoa Iwi Partnership

This approach yielded mixed results, and the Working Party struggled to engage with the business sector and with Mäori communities during this process. The Working Party decided at its first meeting to co-opt a Mäori member onto the group, but neither of the two people approached was able to take on the role. As the process was halfway through by the time these responses were received, it was felt inappropriate to continue to try and co-opt a permanent member. The limited time available did make it difficult to compensate for this lack of permanent input from Mäori, but the issue has been addressed as a priority for the Phase 2 Recommendations.

Ninety submissions in total were received by the Working Party. The names of individuals and organisations that made submissions are listed in Appendix B. Ministry officials also undertook some consultation on the education of gifted and talented children during this time period, on behalf of the Working Party. Discussions of this nature were held with: Peter Witana of Te Akatea; Te Makao Bowkett of the PPTA Huarahi Mäori Motuhake; and members of the Early Childhood Advisory Council.

Literature Search and Information Gathering

Ministry of Education staff undertook a literature search on gifted and talented education on behalf of the Working Party. Relevant articles were selected and considered by the Working Party at its early meetings. A bibliography is listed at the end of this report. The Chair also wrote to a number of overseas jurisdictions seeking information about their policy and practices. Models considered were those from Israel, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, the USA (at federal level), Russia, China, Singapore, and Taiwan. The presence on the Advisory Group of two Australian academics with extensive experience in this field also provided the Working Party with a good understanding of the international context.

Roger Moltzen (Chair)
Roger is a senior lecturer and Director of Special Education programmes at the University of Waikato. He is a New Zealand delegate to the World Council of Gifted and Talented Children and to the Asia Pacific Federation of the World Council. Roger co-edits APEX: The New Zealand Journal of Gifted Education and is on the editorial board of three other international gifted education journals.

Lyn Atkinson
Lyn is Principal of Ilam Primary School in Christchurch. She has been involved in gifted education for a number of years and has attended a number of international conferences on this topic. Lyn assisted as a facilitator in the Christchurch College of Education's 2000 gifted and talented professional development contract for Canterbury.

Rosemary Cathcart
Rosemary has been Director of the George Parkyn Centre Charitable Trust for Gifted Education since its establishment in 1995. She has been involved in gifted education for twenty years in a wide variety of roles, particularly in professional development and programme development, and has published a teachers' manual derived from this work. She travels extensively throughout New Zealand working with many tertiary institutions, resource centres, schools and parents groups, is involved in the Centre's advisory and research support, and acts as director of the One Day School programme.

Lynne Couling-Brown
Lynne began teaching in 1981, and has taught in both the primary and secondary sectors. She has always had an interest in the education of gifted and talented students, and has recently conducted action research in this field. She is currently HOD Special Needs at Okaihau College in the Far North, and also has responsibility for the school's provisions for gifted and talented students.

Nikki Fraser
Nikki is a parent of four gifted children. As a consequence, she has been involved in a wide range of roles in gifted education for more than 15 years. She is a primary school teacher in Wellington and has responsibility for school-wide programming for gifted and talented students. Nikki has served on the National Council of New Zealand Associations for Gifted Children and contributed the parenting section to McAlpine and Moltzen (ed) Gifted and Talented: New Zealand Perspectives.

Julie Mills
Julie is now Principal of the Gifted Kids Programme based at Tamaki Intermediate School, but had previously taught for 15 years at Northcross Intermediate, where she was responsible for implementing programmes for gifted and talented students across the school. She has been involved and interested in gifted education for 12 years and during this time has run pre-service and in-service courses in this field. Julie is also involved with the Future Problem Solving Programme both as a coach and as a national evaluator.

Dr Catherine Rawlinson
Catherine is a Senior Lecturer at the Auckland College of Education, where she teaches courses on children with special abilities, and developmental psychology. She has had 10 years teaching experience in New Zealand and English primary schools, and has undertaken post-graduate study in gifted education at Homerton College in Cambridge. She has completed a PhD with Auckland University in the area of self-concept, self-efficacy and enrichment programmes for gifted and talented children.

Shirley Taylor
Shirley has been a primary school teacher; resource teacher, advisor and consultant on children with special abilities; special education advisor; and college of education lecturer. She is currently an advisor on gifted students based at Wellington College of Education, and is training to be an educational psychologist.