Mailing address:

Rocky View Action for Gifted Children Foundation
100 River Ave.
Cochrane, AB T4C 2C3

Email:

contact@rockyviewgifted.ca

 Please note that the seminar will now take place at:

 Cochrane Ranchhouse.  (Aspen Room)

February 24, 2010

7pm

Please email us if you have any questions or comments @ contact@rockyviewgifted.ca

As members the Board of Rocky View Action for Gifted Children Foundation we will:

• Devote time, thought and study, to the role and responsibilities of a Foundation member so we can provide effective service.

• Be familiar with Foundation policies and operating principles.

• Work with our fellow Foundation members in a spirit of harmony, cooperation, and respect for differences of opinion. 

• Promote positive and collaborative relationships on the Board of the Foundation, between the Board and the greater school community. 

• Encourage parent participation. 

• Work with our fellow Foundation members to support the goals of the Foundation’s education and improvement plans.

• Assist the Foundation to excel in all of its efforts and undertakings. 

• Act as an advocate for excellence in education at the school and community levels. 

• Declare any conflict of interest. 

• Never disclose any confidential information we may have been privy to through our activities.

• Use the appropriate communication channels to address concerns. 

 Attend a free seminar on “TOP TEN TIPS for Parents of Gifted Learners”

This informative seminar will provide valuable information on how to parent for the unique needs of the gifted and talented child.

 Wednesday, February 24, 2010

7 pm

Nan Boothby Memorial Library

Cochrane, AB

 Please email contact@rockyviewgifted.ca to reserve your seat!

Centre for Gifted Education letter.pdf

We hope that the tournament was a fun time for all!  Our final five prize winners included players with a wide range of previous poker experience.  Please watch the website for our next poker tournament to be held in October 2010.

Support for gifted students?

Representatives from Rocky View Action for Gifted Children (RVAGC) met with the Rocky View Schools (RVS) trustees June 18 hoping to create a better way to educate gifted students.

RVAGC President Sheldon Jones, and Vice-President Christine Macleod, both parents of gifted children, met with the Board to discuss challenges faced by these students and parents.

“The kids are quite different. They learn differently. They’re not easy to parent. They’re not necessarily easy to have in the classroom,” MacLeod said to the Board.

“So that makes things a little interesting.”

According to RVAGC, five per cent of Rocky View’s 16,000 students are gifted, or approximately 800 kids. Students defined as gifted have been tested and tend to have exceptional abilities in a variety of academic and artistic areas.

The group is hoping that a more cohesive program will be developed, taking into account things like identifying gifted students, curriculum, flexible instruction, grade and subject skipping, as well as social and emotional counselling.

Clustering gifted students was also suggested. Gifted students would be grouped together in an effort to allow them to learn at a quicker pace than their classmates.

“It’s helpful for the children because they meet others like themselves,” MacLeod said. “Clustering is one of the best things we can do.”

RVAGC said underachieving is a problem for gifted kids if they are not challenged in the classroom, and many become frustrated or disillusioned with school.

RVAGC told the Board they have met with many frustrated parents who are not sure what to do once they have found out they have a gifted child.

“We go ‘Great , but what now after that?” said Jones.

Associate superintendent of learning David Peat said hearing from RVAGC was an opportunity for the Board.

“So what we have here is, I think, a tremendous oppotunity to work together,” he said.

Peat added Rocky View has been working on the issue and they need to strike a balance between groups and individual children.

RVS Board Chair Sylvia Eggerer said, “It’s been very informative and I’m sure that our administration will guide us at working together.”

Group Them Together

Gifted students need better support from Rocky View School two parents told trustees June 18.

Christina Macleod of Cochrane and Sheldon Jones of Airdrie head a new parent-led group called Rocky View Action For Gifted Children formed early this year with the intention of acting as a bridge between the school board, schools, and the home.

They told trustees that while programming for gifted students is delivered on a school by school basis, they would like to see uniform programming across the school division.

They recommended Rocky View Schools do mandatory testing of gifted students and that they be clustered together in each grade.

“It’s helpful for the children because they are with others like themselves and they challenge each other,” said Macleod, whose gifted daughter is in grade three at Elizabeth Barrett.

“We have gifted kids who end up having behavioral challenges because they are bored. Under development is a big problem, they don’t strive to push themselves because they have never been pushed,” she said.

Some other recommendations are teacher training, standarization, and consistent guidelines for gifted education.

Jones, the group president, said that Rocky View Schools is losing Gifted children to private schools and home-schooling.

“Parents don’t know what to do. We want educate the parents,” said Jones, adding the group provides a parents tool-kit.

Dr. David Peat, associate superintendent welcomed the enthusiasm of the parents.

“Three years ago we had no consistent framework. There had been three full years of affirmative action. What we have here is a tremendous opportunity to grow,” he said.

It’s estimated that about five percent of eight hundred students in Rocky View Schools are gifted but only four percent have been identified.

Some characteristics of gifted students are that they are early learners, high energy, impatient, perfectionists, emotionally and morally intense, self critical and display asynchronous development.