Gifted Advocacy

Self-Advocacy for Young People with High Learning Potential

Self-advocacy requires a child or young person with high learning potential to have a clear, calm understanding of themself, their needs and their learning ability. This must be coupled with an awareness of when and how to speak up – and with whom (parents, teachers, school governors, etc). These are skills that will need to be taught, possibly by a parent, responsible adult, teacher and/or using online resources such as those suggested below.

An alternative route to getting a young learner’s voice heard is for them to create or join a ‘student group‘ or ‘school council’.

Parent Advocacy

Parents or carers might be the most appropriate people to act as advocates for their child with high learning potential. This might entail being in contact with a school, (such as individual teachers, the head teacher, office staff, a SENCo, the board of governors), Ofsted or the local education authority. Home-educated children might need an advocate when liaising with the local authorities, council services, independent study groups or online tutors.

Children and young people with mental health problems, on the autism spectrum or who have any other form of Dual or Multiple Exceptionality (DME), for example, may well need advocacy by their parent or guardian when dealing with the local authorities, social services, health professionals or Educational Welfare Officer.

As well as these individual situations, some advocates find strength in creating or joining a parent ‘pressure group’ to reach out in numbers to the wider community.

Teacher and School Advocacy

Now that there is no ‘right to funding’ for school Gifted and Talented programmes, teachers, head teachers or governors might need to advocate (to other teachers, heads of year, head teachers, governors or local authorities) for funding or people’s time with specialist clubs, study sessions or equipment, for example.

As schools increasingly form groups of academies, advocacy to Teaching Assistants, SENCos, teachers and senior managers has grown to include those within other learning establishments, as part of school-to-school discussions. There are many ways in which a teacher, SENCo or senior staff member might need to advocate for a young, high potential learner or their parent.

DME / 2E

The term dual or multiple exceptionality (DME) is used in the UK to describe children who have both high learning potential and a special educational need (SEND) through a learning difficulty or disability. The USA uses the term 2E. the difficulty involved in advocating for a child with high learning potential multiplies when the child also has some form of special educational need or disability. Often, the special educational need becomes the focus for support and the high learning potential is ignored or remains unrecognised. Advocating for a child with DME can be hard. As part of Potential Plus UK’s membership, we offer a member only area which includes a group available to help support families of children with DME.

Highly Gifted Advocacy

Some children are very significantly advanced in their cognitive abilities, setting them even more apart from other children their age. The characteristics and difficulties associated with high learning potential children are even more extreme in children who are exceptionally or profoundly gifted.

Exceptionally gifted children are those with cognitive abilities in the top 0.1% of the population (or 1 in 1000) and profoundly gifted children are those with cognitive abilities in the top 0.03% of the population (or 1 in 3333).

Early development means that these exceptionally advanced children acquire and process information very quickly, affecting their cognitive and social development. Many suffer from social isolation due to the lack of a suitable peer group with whom to relate and feel an overwhelming pressure to conform.