Gifted Awareness Week Celebrated in NZ

Gifted Awareness Week Celebrated in NZ, June 15-21, 2014

The New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education, in collaboration with NZAGC (the New Zealand Association for Gifted Children) and giftEDnz (the Professional Association for Gifted Education), and other gifted education organisations in New Zealand, will celebrate and promote Gifted Awareness Week this year from June 15-21. This annual campaign aims to raise awareness about the necessity for gifted education and the learning needs of the gifted child.

“Gifted Awareness Week is an important time to celebrate gifted children, their extraordinary abilities, and their needs. It is our time to advocate for the provision of equitable educational opportunities and to help our wider community to understand this need,” says CEO Deb Clark.

“Gifted children continue to be over-looked in our education system. Resources to support their specific learning needs are scarce or under-utilised through a lack of awareness of what it means to be gifted and what is needed to support the gifted learner.” says Ms Clark.

During Gifted Awareness Week, the New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education will host political panels in Auckland and Wellington. Members of Parliament from various political parties will present their Party’s views and policies on gifted education. Associate Professor Tracy Riley, a Director of the Centre and Chair of giftEDnz, says, “Being able to work collaboratively with parents and educators, under the leadership of the Centre, strengthens our advocacy to the Government that gifted and talented children are priority learners too”.

This year students will be sharing, learning, and collaborating on projects throughout the country to highlight their right to quality education opportunities which help them to progress and achieve in their learning. More information about these projects and the political panels can be found at www.nzcge.co.nz.

New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education was established in 2014 as the result of a merger between The Gifted Education Centre and Gifted Kids. Collaboratively, the organisations are New Zealand’s largest specialist provider of gifted services directly to children. They have over 35 years’ experience in delivering specialist programmes from early childhood, through primary to college aged students and include the programmes One Day School, Gifted Kids, Small Poppies, and Gifted Online, operating from Dargaville to Invercargill. The Centre also offers a gifted education consultancy service.

For more information about New Zealand Centre for Gifted Education please visit our website www.nzcge.co.nz.

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