Anthony so what happens to kids who are intellectually gifted and are also gifted at sport and music. If you have schools that only focus on one area you have to sacrifice the others. Schools should have a range of focuses to cater for every student. They should aim for the highest of levels in all areas as that way they include everybody, when the aim is mediocre a lot of students miss out.

My children are identified gifted one has an IQ of between 160-165 SB4 and SBLM, the other between 150-154 SB4 and SBLM and the other between 145-150 SB4 and WISC. All of them were extremely advanced and all suffered serious neglect in the education system that resulted in them suffering psychological distress and health issues. Despite knowing that the system would not place them in Selective Schools and they even lost their appeals saying that on the 'tests' on the day they didn't score high enough. Funny given that on every other test they always scored at very high levels.

When we requested documents under FOI there is alarming evidence of bias and manipulation. Formal complains have been made that have been allowed to be handled and covered up by those that we allege are responsible whilst my children continue to miss out on their identified educational needs.

My youngest daughter who was on Today tonight last week missed out for next year, she was beyond stage outcomes at school identified gifted by the DET own psycholgoists and the UNSW. Everybody notices she is gifted yet the DET’s seems to not to want to identify her and place her.

When there are schools that are worth so much money and there is no supervision and accountability there is a serious risk of corruption. The system isn’t dumbing down It is cutting down and I believe that there is a conspiracy against gifted children and especially gifted children who’s parents speak out.

Jolanda,

Not sure whether you're for or against selective schools, because you start out kind of anti but then clearly are working hard to get your own kids in. On balance I think you're pro select schools but your real concern is how the selection process is administered.

On that score you get no rebuttal from me. Once select schools are formed, the potential for rorting of the selection process is massive, especially once those schools start producing superior results. Further, the potential to apply irrelevant criteria (student conduct, etc) may have perverse outcomes. sometimes gifted children have poor conduct precisely because the school is not in their league.

So the bottom line seems to be more select schools, but a more transparent and rigorous selection process.

Anthony

Anthony the reason I have fought to have my children placed in Selective Schools is because the comprehensive system was unable to meet thier needs as identified highly gifted children and they were suffering serious pscyhological distress as a result. Everybody said that when they got to Selective Schools that things would get better. The Primary schools would blame lack of funding and resources for neglecting their needs. Problem is that when the time came they wouldn't let them in.

There was also the issue of school always trying to mark them down and put them down so as to present them as not that gifted and me as a pushy mother so that they wouldnt' appear to be so neglectful.

Educationally selective schools do not cater for highly gifted students as the majority of highly gifted students need to be accelerated through the curriculum the only advantage is that they no longer have to continously prove that they are smart.

I believe that alot of students that are obtaining placement are not gifted, they are just very well trained and to me that is so unfair as it just allows those that are in a better learning environment to have an even greater advantage.

I do have a serious issue with the Selection procedures as I know for a fact that they are biased, corrupted and unfair.

Thank God I went to a selective school. Some of you don't know what it is like being stuck in an underprivileged State School: full of thugs, junkies, homophobes and anti-intellectuals, then the students followed this example. I think I was bashed after school just about every day of the week.

What was the school response? "Its character building". I hated school. No wonder so many gifted kids suicide.

I honestly just wanted to learn, I liked books and I actually did my homework. This was socially unacceptable in the local state school and I was cast as a freak for doing the right thing. The geeks were game for the meat-heads.

The teachers didn't care. They turned their backs on bullies, as they were just bullies themselves; there were never enough classrooms, so we had classes in corridors. Standards? What standards?

I was outcast because my parents were not in the union movement or in the ALP. My God did the thugs bash the crap out of me for my parents not being "real workers".

Our teachers frequently asked us what our parents voted for. My hand was the only non-ALP hand that innocently rose. Bashed after school: yet again. That was some time ago.

Now that I'm a teacher, I assure you that not much has changed in State School environments except the politics. Some of the policies have changed.

These are unfair distractions for the kids.

No wonder so many take refuge to the private school system. Selective schools are a better refuge for learning than private schools, in principle, as education should be free for all.

The other thugs and bastards can use the schools as child minding centres if they like.

Give the students who want to learn the choice to do so in learning environments in peace, without such distractions and unfair peer stress.

I hope you teach in a private school saint fletcher, I'd hate my kids to get you as a teacher in their public one. Its a pity you had such a horrible experience, but I can quote you many equally horrible experiences in private ones. That's the trouble, individual schools are only examples of individual schools. But one or two bad experiences in a public school and it seems perfectly acceptable to damn the whole lot of them. Trinity kids can brutalise year 7's with an anaconda, or Tara teachers can refuse to accept a students claim that she was raped ona school excursion, or a parent can sue an expensive Victorian private school because her child left unable to read, and it doesn't even seem to damage the rep of the school involved. I wonder why they are all teflon coated, yet any bit of muck about one public school seems to stick to the lot of them?
Both my daughters and I have had wonderful experiences in good old comprehensive public schools and gone on to uni. My husband went to expensive private ones, hated them all and failed to get to uni. But what do anecdotes prove? Only that some schools are good and some are not so good, and some are good for most kids but bad for some too, no matter whether public, private or whatever.

Not quite, Ena.

It's not good enough to take personal experience and try to argue it away just because it's personal experience. In that case, why have boards such as this one at all. Fletch has experience both as a student and as a teacher. As a student, he shared my experiences of ostracism and bullying because we wanted to learn and achieve rather than work on our capacities as Aussie yobbos. [Yes I carry some bitterness. So sue me.]

As a teacher, looking at the system from an entirely different perspective, and no doubt having experience of several schools and colleagues in many schools, he is in a position to show that the experiences which he and I, and others on this board, have related, are not just exceptional experiences of unlucky kids. In fact, Fletch argues, they arise as a necessary consequence of a public schooling system which is flatly unable to meet the needs of gifted children in a normal school environment - and which may in fact be anatagonistic towards those children.

You're right, this happens in private schools too. All the more reason to have publicly funded, merit-based select schools.

Anthony