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

ideas beyond the school curriculum, researching new problems, and confirming special talents. Theyalso report that students enrolled in residential programmes gain a sense of independence andresponsibility. In New Zealand, the New Zealand Council for Gifted Children provides holidayenrichment programmes on the University of Auckland campus (see Hendy-Harris, 2001), and in thepast, Massey University has offered Saturday programmes for students with advanced skills incomputing (see Riley & Brown, 1997). Both of these provisions are perceived by their providers asgiving gifted and talented students positive learning experiences, though no empirical data related totheir effectiveness supports these claims.Out-of-school programmes are also provided by advocacy groups, such as the New ZealandAssociation for Gifted Children, and private organisations, such as the George Parkyn Centre. This issimilar to worldwide trends. For example, Freeman (1998) reports that in Britain, several localauthorities and a few private organisations run out-of-school activities. The Ministry of Education(2000) includes outside provision of this nature in its continuum of approaches, however, the reviewof the literature did not yield more than descriptive reports of these approaches. Therefore, ifprovisions of this nature are to grow and expand, including university-based programmes aspreviously described, the evaluation of their effectiveness would be important.The literature also reports the existence of special schools for the gifted and talented in other countries;however, in New Zealand there are not any state schools designated by the Ministry of Education assuch. However, there are private schools which cater for gifted and talented students. For example,Thomas Kennedy Junior Academy is a small, independent, fully registered private school establishedin 1993 to support students with special abilities and talents (Education Review Office, 2000).Internationally, these schools range from magnet schools which specialise in certain curricular areas tofull-time residential schools which specialise in mathematics and science. For example, Mönks andKieboom (2002) report that of 24 European countries, 15 make provision for gifted and talentedstudents through special schools; however, they do not describe the nature of these schools. Freeman(1998) reports that in Britain there are many ‘unofficial’ highly selective schools for the academicallygifted, many of which are private and accelerate students in efforts to better assure academic successand Oxbridge entrance. Similarly, Winner (1996a) describes many private schools in America as “defacto schools for the gifted” (p. 269). Gross and Sleap (2001) report that in New South Wales there are‘selective high schools’ and these aim to cater to the needs of academically gifted students. Freeman(1998) also describes non-selective maintained schools in Britain which specialise in teaching certainsubjects to a high level, such as the 222 Technology Colleges and Language Colleges. These ‘magnetschools’ aim to attract (rather than select) talented children to an area of excellence, such as music.Special interest centres in South Australia operate in a similar manner (Gross & Sleap, 2001).Shore and Delcourt (1996) report that students in special schools have more positive attitudes towardlearning and view their learning as student-centred. Additionally, they report that in regards to socialacceptance, these students were seemingly unaffected. The homogeneous nature of special schoolsmay ease curricular differentiation.For senior secondary students, the literature describes the Advanced Placement Program (AP)® of thenon-profit organisation for secondary and postsecondary institutions called the College Board in theUnited States (AP® Central, 2003). The programme is a cooperative endeavour between secondaryschools and tertiary institutions which recognises that tertiary-level material can be taught to advancedsecondary students. Academically able students can enrol in any of 34 courses in 19 subject areas(e.g., art, biology, foreign languages, psychology, statistics, etc). These courses are offered in manyschools, but also are now available through distance education programmes. Students may also takeAP exams, and those who are successful receive tertiary credit. Thus, the goal of the programme is togrant students credit, advanced placement, or both in recognition of their achievement in AdvancedPlacement courses and exams. This is not a programme designed only for American students. In 1999,704,000 students in 14,000 schools from 80 countries took more than 1.1 million exams (Curry,MacDonald, & Morgan, 1999). Of the 3,500 tertiary institutions which accept AP grades,approximately 500 of these are outside of the United States (e.g., Australia, Canada, the UnitedKingdom, South Africa and many European countries). It appears that no New Zealand universities125