Telephone Advice Service

If you would like to speak to a trained and experienced Potential Plus UK advisor for:

• support on a wide range of issues related to High Learning Potential
• useful strategies to help your child at home and school
• ideas to enrich your child’s learning
• support on parenting a child with High Learning Potential,

then please phone 01908 646433. Telephone advice calls are half an hour long and cost £36 for non-members of Potential Plus UK. Members of Potential Plus UK have priority access to information, advice and guidance, including the booked advice appointments, which form part of their membership. Our advisors are fully trained by Potential Plus UK to answer all your questions relating to supporting and parenting a child with high learning potential.

However, the advisors can only give guidance based on the information provided to them by the parent. More constructive, personalised advice about the child and detailed recommendations can only be given if Potential Plus UK is able to carry out an Assessment for High Learning Potential and meet with the child face-to-face.

Here are some examples of issues regularly covered during telephone advice calls:

• How to Identify Children with High Learning Potential: signs and characteristics to look out for, common traits, problems that can arise in school or at home, spotting potential in a young child, keeping a young child motivated, learning and having fun at the same time.
• How to Work with Schools: questions to ask schools, how to approach schools, how to develop a good working relationship with your child’s school, parental rights, how to get involved with your school.
• Social/Emotional Issues: guidance on bullying, emotional worries, lack of social interaction, perfectionism, stress, anxiety, depression.
• Choosing the Right School: what makes a good school for a child with High Learning Potential, what to look out for, questions to ask, evidence to see, help with school admissions appeals, recommendations, More Able Policy, identification. Educational Provision: extension, enrichment, acceleration; what do they mean and how are they implemented?
• Handwriting: issues with poor presentation, refusing to write, poor motor control, hand/eye coordination, unfinished work.
• Underachievement: not producing work to standard expected, deliberately working at lower level, being the class clown, behaviour issues, boredom.
• Resources/Activities: a Potential Plus UK advisor can recommend books, toys, games, places to go, activities to do with HLP children, creative ideas and Potential Plus UK explorers groups.
• Dual or Multiple Exceptionality: Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, ADHD, Asperger Syndrome and other conditions alongside High Learning Potential which sometimes lead to High Learning Potential going unnoticed.

Parents and carers whose child is experiencing difficulties, such as those listed below, may benefit from their child doing the Assessment for High learning Potential, which provides a more personalised picture of their child’s strengths and weaknesses:

• not being challenged at school,
• struggling to fit in with their peers,
• losing the motivation to learn,
• underachieving,
• questioning authority,
• demonstrating challenging behaviour,
• overly anxious or impatient,
• not wanting to join in with activities,
• lacking self-esteem,
• highly sensitive,
• experiencing bullying,
• refusing to go to school.