Giftedness

Learning fills a deep, emotional need for the gifted. Their strong intellectual drive is combined with unusual sensitivity and intensity.

The unique characteristics of gifted learners can make it difficult for them to thrive in a traditional classroom. Often classes are too easy or too rote - or both! In response, some gifted kids rebel, while others deny who they are in order to fit in.

An appropriate educational setting and program helps gifted children thrive. It provides:

  • True Peers - When among peers who share their passions and intensity, gifted children can feel free to be themselves, rather than hiding their intellectual drive
     
  • Differentiated Learning - Gifted children tend to develop asynchronously — a 6-year-old may have mastered multiplication and division but be an emerging reader, for example.  Schools for the gifted accommodate this asynchrony through differentiated learning, ensuring students are appropriately challenged and supported in every area.
     
  • Authentic Learning - What they learn needs to be relevant so that they can connect their skills and information to their everyday lives. Gifted learners need less repetition and more depth and complexity in the curriculum. 
     
  • Social/Emotional Learning - Gifted children benefit enormously from a social-emotional curriculum that helps them identify and manage their intensity and emotions while connecting with peers who share their interests and abilities. At Helios, teachers approach every part of the day with an understanding of the social and emotional needs of gifted learners.

With an environment designed to meet the needs of gifted children, Helios supports children in harnessing their talents and developing a rock-solid sense of self, so that they emerge fully prepared for the challenges of high school and beyond. 

"After moving to Helios, for the first time in years we have felt free of the suffocating anxiety that accompanies meeting the intense intellectual needs of a profoundly gifted child. Previously, our son had attended a highly ranked, conventionally rigorous private school from preschool through 3rd grade. But at Helios, he is now exposed to an integrated curriculum and intellectual rigor tailored specifically for the processing abilities of highly gifted learners. We wish we had learned many years earlier that highly gifted learners require a substantially different approach than what traditional schools, focused on grade and test score achievement, can offer."

- Jullia Q