Our Consultancy Service works alongside educators, parents and other adults to help them better support their gifted children. We share practical advice, guidance and resourcing support. Our consultancy team are highly experienced and knowledgeable in both gifted education theory and practice and all have experience in teaching and/or parenting gifted children.
We use a range of face-to-face and distance delivery methods for effectiveness and efficiency.
The words DIVERSE, FLEXIBLE, PRACTICAL, INFORMED and COLLABORATIVE best describe the nature of the consultancy support we provide. Check out a the range of services we provide below.
We support communities to establish their own localised professional centre for gifted education. They offer our MindPlus programme and additional programmes and provisions they wish to offer. They also plan and provide for the professional needs of the schools in their cluster. We work with members of the community to establish the Centre and provide on-going support to ensure its longevity and quality.
With many years of experience supporting educators to better identify and cater for their gifted and talented learners, we specialise in the provision of flexible and tailored professional learning and development, responsive to the specific needs of each school that we work with.
“While they shared their knowledge and expertise they were also was very mindful of our school culture, so it feels very special and unique the way we have integrated this into our setting. I would rate NZCGE highly in terms of their ability to determine your need and tailor a package to suit, the quality of professional advice and resourcing, the level of professionalism, and value for money.” AP large urban full primary school.
In looking for alternative and effective ways to support schools, educators and students we have embarked on providing School-Based Mentoring and Modelling. This service provides a member of our staff on site at a school for either a half day or a full day per week for an extended time period, either a term, a half year or a full year. The on-site presence of the facilitator allows us to embed the support in to the fabric and flow of the school and for the facilitator to become immersed into the school culture, tailoring support accordingly.
“Our NZCGE facilitator is knowledgeable and open to working within the vision and values that we hold dear as a school and community and has become an invaluable part of our staff.” - Deputy Principal
To find out more about mentoring for you or your staff click here or contact Anna on 0800 769 243 or anna.meuli@nzcge.co.nz
Just as schools look to the RTLB service for advice and support for students with learning and behaviour difficulties, so too can NZCGE provide advice and support to schools and teachers when they have a particular gifted and talented student they would like some targeted support for. NZCGE Consultancy Facilitators are able to help educators identify and determine need and can help to establish and review a personalised plan for learning.
NZCGE has built up expertise around ensuring depth and complexity is present in learning for gifted students and now specialises in offering PLD workshops that facilitate learning with Kaplan’s Depth and Complexity Framework. We are collaborating with JTaylorEducation to ensure quality PLD true to the Depth and Complexity Framework and tailored to the application within the New Zealand Curriculum and School context.
It is easy to say that we need depth and complexity in the material, contexts for study, thinking and responses for and of gifted students, but much harder to really explain what those two words mean. For me, using Sandra Kaplan's depth and complexity icons have made those two words much more transparent for my students. They can understand that by saying - think, answer or explain "in depth" means, use the language of the discipline, go into detail, explore the ethics involved, or dig into patterns or trends that emerge etc. They can understand that by "complexity" of thought, answer or explanation we mean thinking about links across time, disciplines or perspectives. It is all very well to want depth and complexity but when you empower the students to understand those concepts in a practical way for themselves, you are much more likely to achieve them!
Sue Bufton | Regional Lead Teacher NZCGE
To find out more about our Consultancy Services or to contract our services, contact our office on 0800 769 243 or email us through our website.