Introduction
This page includes information to those schools which are part of the Ottawa - Carleton Region. Information here was provided by Meghan. If you are from this area and you know of some more information that would benefit parents of this region, please let us know. This article was presented to the Ottawa Citizen and we are fortunate to be able to include it here.
How do we educate our brightest children?
One little girl walked into her first day of kindergarten with a well-thumbed copy of Anne of Green Gables under her arm. She spent most of that day in a state of high anxiety over the fact that she couldn’t find a ‘bosom buddy’ among the rest of her classmates.
An eight year old boy keeps his teacher constantly on her toes with his unexpected inventions and experiments. His parents are afraid he’s going to either blow the house up or burn it down.
And a 14 year old girl is passionately involved in more associations and causes than anyone can count. She’s determined to change the world, and she just might do it.
Gifted kids come in more varieties than you can count. But when their abilities far outstrip the standard curriculum, there can be difficulties. A consistent lack of challenge in school can lead to poor study skills and poor self-image. The very brightest kids are sometimes unable to learn at the same pace as the rest of their classmates. Some of them shut down, refuse complete their work and become underachievers. Others act out their frustration and boredom, disrupting the class and creating discipline problems for their teachers.
Finding the right environment for these children can be difficult. What are the options in Ottawa?
Resources Outside the School System
Parents themselves can do a lot to prevent problems by providing challenging after school experiences for their children. Many gifted children excel in the arts, and these can provide excellent opportunities to learn organizational skills and perseverance. Sports may also help in building self-esteem through hard work and success.
Also, there are many private schools in Ottawa which can offer children smaller class sizes and more individual attention, as well as an enriched or accelerated program. Private schools may have more flexibility to adjust or modify their programs than the public school system. But, depending on the size of the school, they may not be able to offer as much in the way of enrichment materials, and they can be very expensive.
Home schooling is another option, and one which is growing in popularity. The benefits of working one on one with a parent/tutor are un-matched. Home schooled children have a unique opportunity to work at their own pace in every subject, which can be especially valuable to those students who are developing very unevenly. The 1st grader who reads at an eighth grade level but still struggles with printing can be more easily accommodated at home than in any other venue. Organizations such as the Home Based Learning Network provide support and social contacts to home schooling parents and children.
The Ottawa Carleton District School Board
The OCDSB offers full-time programming to gifted students in grades one through twelve.
In senior kindergarten a few students will undergo screening for giftedness. Usually, it is the kindergarten teacher who nominates students for this, but parents may also request testing by sending a letter to the principal of their child’s school. Both the parent and the teacher will then have to fill out nomination forms.
If the child scores at or above the 99.6th percentile they may be offered a place in the OCDSB’s full-time Primary Gifted Program (grades 1-3). These students will receive an Individual Education Plan (IEP) through a formal process involving meetings between parents, professionals, and school staff. Though they can be allowed to move through the material faster than other students, they still have to meet the goals outlined in the provincial curriculum for each year.
There are only about 50 children currently enrolled in the Primary Gifted Program. Their educational, social, and emotional needs are considered to be so unusual they can’t be met in the regular classroom. Thomas Edison might very well have been an example of this sort of student. His mother was forced to home school him because the school couldn’t cope with his unconventional intelligence.
At the end of grade 3 all children in the OCDSB are screened. Any child who scores in the top 2% will be offered a place in a full-time gifted classroom with an IEP. Gifted programming is available in both English, and French Immersion.
Those students who did not qualify for full-time classes, but still managed to score in the top 5%, are given differentiation in the regular classroom. They are not formally identified gifted, but their teacher may compact the curriculum for them, permitting the student to either explore the subject in more depth or move on to different activities. If the number of these students in a single school is high enough, the principal may organize a withdrawal program in which certain students leave their classrooms once a week for enrichment. In the event that there are 3 or 4 such students in a single grade level, they can be ‘clustered’ together in a single classroom among other students.
Parents have the right to decline a gifted class placement, if it is offered to their child. They also have the right to request gifted testing from the school at any time (though scheduling delays can crop up outside of the standard end-of-kindergarten and grade 3 testing). And they can pursue private testing if they feel that their child’s test scores are not indicative of their true potential. Private testing is an expensive option and parents considering this route should check to see if their insurance covers ‘psychological services’ for family members. If it does, they will need to submit a referral from their family doctor to the insurance company.
More information on OCDSB’s gifted programming can be found at the Board website (www.ocdsb.edu.on.ca). Click first on General Information, then on Special Education and look among the PDF files listed there.
Ottawa Carleton Catholic District School Board
The Catholic School Board does not offer any full-time gifted classes. High achieving children in grades 1-3 may receive in class enrichment, clustering, or curriculum compacting, just as they do in the OCDSB.
All students are screened at the end of 3rd grade. Gifted children in grades 4, 5, and 6 can take part in a Program for Gifted Learners. They will be bussed, on a rotating schedule which works out to approximately once a week, to their designated gifted centre where they can attend classes in the company of other gifted children. After grade 6 there is no specialized gifted programming, beyond what the individual school can do to accommodate the student’s IEP. High school students may be allowed to take some courses from higher grades in their specific areas of talent (such as the 10th grader who takes 11th grade math).
Neither the Catholic School Board nor the OCDSB support grade acceleration, though it does happen occasionally. It is not considered an alternative to gifted programming. French Immersion, while popular with parents, is not considered to be gifted programming, either.
Whatever options parents choose, whether private school, home school, OCDSB, or the Catholic School Board, they can find a great deal of support and advice on-line. The Association for Bright Children has chapters in nearly every region of Ontario, including Ottawa. Ontario Gifted has many informative links and a lively message board where parents can ask for advice, share stories, or simply chat with other parents of gifted children. Neither organization requires any proof of giftedness and everyone with an interest in gifted children is welcome to participate.
And hopefully, these services will continue to be made available to our children, after the budget is finalized.
Ottawa Regional Co-ordinator for Ontario Gifted