Promoting Potential into Performance: Developing Rural and Regional Communities of Enrichment Practice

Abstract

All students are unique in background, ability, experiences and needs, while gifted students are even more so, as their gifts need nurturing into expressed talents. So, how do you enhance the learning of gifted children to nurture their talents, especially those in rural and regional contexts where access to suitable activities to engage and challenge them is limited? Within a differentiated curriculum, enrichment programs are one way to support current school provisions for gifted students that contributes to the development of their gifts into talents. The issue though is how these enrichment programs are implemented. Although in-school enrichment programs are commendable in providing all students with opportunities to have their learning enriched, gifted students need more challenging provisions that go beyond the learning opportunities of their same-age peers. Hence, special programs that go beyond the classroom and beyond the school are also beneficial for gifted students. This paper provides vignettes of exemplars from an innovative program, the UNE TalentEd Enrichment Program and discusses outcomes of the program so far. Framed within a component of the Model of Dynamic Differentiation (MoDD) and underscored by a community of practice of support from parents, educators and community members, this program provided enriching opportunities for gifted students to exhibit their potential as performed talents.