The Extent, Nature and Effectiveness of Planned Approaches in ...

Recommendations for Effective Practice• Cornell et al. (1991) suggest it is important that the research focuses on determining for whomacceleration might be desirable and for whom it might be undesirable. Factors that could beconsidered are a student’s attendance record, physical size, degree of motor co-ordination,degree of motivation, and desire for academic challenge.• Interpersonal skills should also be considered; skills such as participation in non-schoolextracurricular activities, relationships with peers, relationships with parents, emotionaldevelopment, parent involvement, grade placement of siblings, relationships with older peers,teachers, and self image (Pyryt, 1999).• Feldhusen et al. (2002) offer the following guidelines for acceleration: academically, the childshould demonstrate skill levels above the mean of the grade desired; socially and emotionally,the child should be free of any serious adjustment problems, should demonstrate a high degreeof persistence and motivation for learning; the parents must be in favour of gradeadvancement, but the child should express the desire to move ahead as well; the receivingteacher or teachers must have positive attitudes toward the acceleration and be willing to helpthe child adjust to the new situation; efforts are generally made to have grade advancementoccur at natural transition points such as the beginning of a new school year; and all cases ofgrade advancement should be arranged on a trial basis. A trial period of six weeks should besufficient. The child should be aware that if it does not go well he or she may request to bereturned to the original class placement; the child should not be made to feel he or she is afailure if it does not go well.• Care should be taken to ensure that early entrants are not culturally isolated, and that teachingis culturally relevant and appropriate (Bevan-Brown, 1993, 1996).• A student entering any educational institution at an age earlier than expected will requireforward-planning of his or her education, and the options should include a merging ofaccelerative and enrichment approaches.• As with all approaches to provision, early entry should be used in conjunction with othereducational options, but more importantly, the curriculum, teaching, and so on must bequalitatively differentiated, ideally including elements of enrichment.• Early entry to a tertiary institution should primarily be the student’s decision but families needto be supportive (Olszewski-Kubilius, 1995). Students should also have the support of peersand counsellors (Noble et al., 1993).• There must be a good match between an educational setting and a student’s needs andcharacteristics (Olszewski-Kubilius, 1995).• Acceptance into tertiary study must be based on substantial information from a variety ofsources and people (Olszewski-Kubilius, 1995).DUAL ENROLMENTDual enrolment, or concurrent enrolment, refers to a student’s simultaneous enrolment in two differentlevels of schooling. Although the most commonly reported form of dual enrolment is that of secondarystudents enrolled in part-time tertiary study, it is also possible for students at primary level to attend anintermediate school or intermediate school students to attend secondary school. Perceived this way,dual enrolment is a form of subject-specific acceleration, which allows gifted and talented students theopportunity to move beyond the curriculum of their expected age level in one or more areas. Forexample, a primary student might attend a mathematics class at an intermediate school, or a seniorsecondary student may enrol in a University level computer science paper. In New Zealand, the term ismost commonly associated with enrolment in the Correspondence School; however, it must berecognised that dual enrolment at the Correspondence School offers students distance learning108