Michelle is the Office Administrator at the National Office in Lower Hutt. Michelle, who has a wealth of previous office experience, joined the NZCGE Team in May 2018. Michelle is married with two children. Education is in the family - her husband is a Secondary School teacher. As she steps into this role, Michelle says, “I’m excited about joining the NZCGE team to help support families and their extraordinary kids.”

Charmain has taught all age groups, from preschool children to adults, and has worked in gifted education for the past 9 years. She is a trained secondary teacher in English and Biology.  Teaching two such different subjects caused numerous challenges around timetable management and decisions about what to teach earlier in her career and, as a result, Charmain  relates particularly well to students who struggle with choices in our programme.

As a Search Consultant for much of her career she was contracted to recruit personnel nationally, with specialist skills for manufacturing, engineering and management service industries. Working confidentially with highly skilled and talented individuals on a business and personal level provided invaluable experience which has greatly influenced her endeavours in gifted education.

Charmain believes that understanding of and believing in ‘self’ is a key factor for our students. She is dedicated to supporting this journey in every possible way for each and every student that she has the privilege of working with.

Ashle did her teacher training in America and began teaching in 2007. She has always worked under the umbrella of special education, so she is particularly adept at motivating and engaging "non-traditional" learners. Ashle’s initial teaching qualification was in secondary education, but she has a master's degree in Special Education, and Ed.D. in Deaf Education.

While Ashle lived in America her experience with teaching was at a high school level. Since moving to New Zealand she has had the opportunity to work with children from new entrants through to high school. Ashle has also been able to get a bit of experience with early childhood education by doing some reliving at her children’s day care.

Ashle has two boys of her own, the oldest of whom has been attending Small Poppies since the start of 2017.  This is beneficial to Ashle as she can be especially compassionate and empathetic with parents as she is walking this whole gifted "journey" alongside them.

Ashle is particularly passionate about getting young learners to tap into their social and emotional intelligence, as well as just finding what interests them and running with it.
New Zealand Centre for Gifted education is proud to have a great team of educators such as Ashle behind them to encourage our gifted children to reach their potential.

Cathryn has a broad range of skills and experience gained through a diverse range of teaching roles from primary to tertiary level, including: classroom teaching (regular classes, both single and multi-year level, and specialist gifted education at Gifted Kids), one-to-one private tutoring, and remedial support for students with specific learning disabilities (SLD). She is passionate about identifying and supporting students who are “twice exceptional” (gifted with a SLD), as these students’ complex needs are often overlooked within our education system. In addition to her teaching qualifications, Cathryn holds a Post-graduate Diploma in Science (Cognitive and Behavioural Neuroscience), is an accredited Level C Assessor and a SPELD tutor.

Having been on a journey with her own gifted child, Ashliegh has an in-depth understanding of all of the struggles that can come along with gifted children and keeping up with them.

Ashliegh has home-schooled her daughter and it has given her the opportunity to become knowledgeable on a wide range of topics that spark Izzy's interests. While homeschooling has not been easy, it has helped to not only spark a passion for gifted education but has also helped Ashliegh (and her husband) to acquire skills in dealing with educational, social and emotional needs which she hopes to pass onto both our young learners and parents.

With a background in health science, human biology and chemistry, she is incredibly passionate about all things science and you'll find her and our young learners conducting some particularly amazing science experiments!

I originally hail from Invercargill and started my career in education as a secondary teacher of Biology, Science and Mathematics. I became an adviser of Outdoor Education and morphed into the area of assessment, first with Wellington College of Education and then Learning Media. I started working with gifted children at Rata Street in Naenae with my good friend Vicki Adam, in 2013. I also teach numeracy and literacy to adults and do gardening. (I can wield a chainsaw with the best of them.) I fervently believe that learning is a life-long process and think that learning involves being curious, reflective, open to new experiences and being a challenger of the status quo.

Nomi has over 20 years’ teaching experience and joined Gifted Kids in 2011. Although her first love is History, as seen in her MA in this subject, she has totally immersed herself in Gifted Education over the past few years, researching theories of giftedness and teaching practices most suited to gifted students. She has completed a Post-graduate Diploma in Specialist Teaching (Gifted Education) through Massey University and is committed to supporting the development of new ways of thinking with her students and teaching in ways that will add more connections to the wiring of her students’ brains. Nomi is a highly reflective practitioner and has extremely high expectations of herself and her students. In addition to her experience teaching children, Nomi also taught pre-service teachers before she came to New Zealand and brings her skills and knowledge of teaching adults to her work with our Consultancy.  Nomi has recently moved from her position as Regional Lead Teacher for our Wellington Units to work as part of NZCGE’s consultancy team.  She says of her work at NZCGE, “I love that I am learning new things continuously, because it is challenging and gives sense to my life.”

Smruti joined NZCGE’s teaching staff mid-2016. Her journey in gifted education began over 13 years earlier when she taught her first primary school class in New Zealand, and a few years later she found herself parenting two gifted children! Prior to that, Smruti's passion was foreign languages and translation. She has a degree in French and Russian and recently completed a Master's degree in French on the translation of children's literature. She delights in bringing her love of languages to her students and enjoys seeing how gifted children thrive on the challenge and mental stimulation that acquiring a second or third language brings.
As well as teaching gifted students, Smruti's sees another vital aspect of her role and mission as supporting and providing assistance to parents of gifted children, She feels great empathy for those who face the every day challenges and emotions of parenting and advocating for a gifted child. Smruti has a strong interest in twice exceptionality and hopes to pursue postgraduate studies and research in this area.
In joining the team at NZCGE, Smruti feels that she has finally found her tribe and can't believe that she gets to work with such diverse, intelligent and passionate people who all share the same dream, and who teach and share what they know with an open heart.

Sue Luus is the Regional Lead Teacher of MindPlus Wakatipu. She has worked exclusively gifted education for over 30 years and has two adult gifted children. Sue joined NZCGE in January 2018 after returning from Australia to live in Central Otago. She also worked for Gifted Kids, one of our founding organisations for several years. Her passion for working with gifted children was ignited by a young gifted child who was severely bullied at school. This inspired a determination to make a difference for gifted children in schools and sparked her continued studies in gifted education, culminating with a double Master of Education (Gifted Education) and a Diploma in Special Education.

As well as teaching gifted students, Sue is deeply aware of her role to support parents of gifted children, particularly in the social and emotional aspects of giftedness. In 2008, she was appointed the Australian liaison for SENG (Supporting the Emotional Needs of Gifted). Sue has delivered workshops for GERRIC’s school vacation programs (University of New South Wales) and Young Scholars (Brisbane, has presented nationally and internationally, has tutored in Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology and continues to work as a marker for post graduate teaching degrees in inclusion for Griffith University.

In returning the NZCGE team, Sue believes that she is “home”. She is inspired daily, not only by the children she teaches but by the passionate people who she works with, who share their expertise so generously and touch the lives of so many children and their parents.

Sue is the Lead Teacher of Small Poppies, which came under the umbrella of NZCGE in 2014. She has been teaching for over 40 years, involved in gifted education for over 30 years and has two gifted children, now fully grown with their own children. Since 1996 she has worked fulltime in gifted education, primarily teaching the Small Poppies programme. Sue is a life member of both the New Zealand Association for Gifted Children (NZAGC) and Explorers, the Auckland Branch of NZAGC; has served as NZAGC National President; edited both “Tall Poppies” and “Apex”, and organized and/or presented at numerous workshops and conferences for teachers, children and parents. She was a member of the Writing Team for the Development Band of the Mathematics Curriculum Statement and coordinator of a writing team for “Supporting Scientifically Talented Students.” As Assistant Director of Tamaki Education Centre in the early 90s, she initiated subsidised programmes for gifted children from local low decile schools. Sue is a former member of the Boards of giftEDnz and the Gifted Education Centre (GEC), and was director of GEC prior to the merger of GEC and Gifted Kids. She has a special interest in creative writing, maths, science and technology, and is passionate about her role working with our young gifted children.

Jenni began her teaching career after extensive travel and gaining a BA (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and PGDip (Development Studies). Wanting to move into education policy she decided being at the coal face was an important step, so became a registered teacher. 

After six years in the classroom with a strong digital technology and inquiry/project based learning philosophy, Jenni began exploring alternative educational opportunities including her Masters in Education. Other Professional development includes Te Ara Reo Maori (Level 4), and PGCert in Digital and Applied Learning (MindLab) where she was one of four nominees for the Expert Teacher Award in 2018.

Her small business, Tuitive, works with schools to integrate digital technology into the classroom and school systems, as well as develop and design school websites.

Teaching Gifted Online, as well as her roles with Virtual Learning Network and overseas online learning organisations allow Jenni to spend 6 months of the year living in Alaska with her partner. It is the perfect opportunity to maintain registration, educational development, and time with passionate students.