What’s Happening at the Bottom of the World?

by Rosemary Cathcart, Ph.D.

May 6! Or May 7, 8, 9 or 10! Right now some 60 small children in New Zealand are waiting eagerly for one of these days to arrive. When it does, it will be their first-ever day in One Day School – and they can’t wait!

The First One Day School

Almost 30 years ago, back in 1996, another group of small children were also waiting eagerly for their first-ever day in One Day School. But where the children in 2024 have a beautiful modern building to move into, the children in 1996 were lining up outside the doors of an elderly underground church crypt.

So what is the “One Day School”? Why on earth did it start in a church crypt? And what’s it got to do with gifted children?

Let’s clear one thing up straight away. One Day School is not a church school. The crypt was the only space that could be found willing to offer a home to a group of gifted children.

New Zealand was and to some extent still is a very egalitarian country. The idea of a child being significantly more able than others was largely dismissed. Teachers were not (and mostly are still not) trained in how to identify or provide for such children. Parents suggesting their child might be gifted were treated as boasting or deluded.

But there was a New Zealand Association for Gifted Children, and in 1983 a woman called Rosemary Cathcart became its national president. Herself a high school teacher, she too had hit the wall of ignorance when her own child turned out to be gifted. As president she saw many other families struggling similarly to help their children.

Then an opportunity arose to develop a program within an elementary school setting. Wearing her parent as well as her teacher hat, Rosemary took a holistic approach to this, spending two years trialling various strategies, observing and recording children’s responses, and eventually developing a specific “Model of Needs” as a guide for program development.

Rosemary went on to share this model in teacher workshops, but knew she was one of only a tiny handful of teachers nationally working in this field. Something was needed to, in her words, “make gifted education visible.” So in 1995 she founded the George Parkyn Centre, New Zealand’s first gifted education centre.

New Zealand’s elementary schools back then were often too small to allow for any grouping of gifted children. In 1996 the George Parkyn Centre decided to set up a centrally located program which would allow children from several schools to come together to form a viable learning group for one full day every week. And thus One Day School was born.

There was of course no official support and no funding, and many schools were initially very dubious. Hence the search for a venue which ended up in a church crypt! Other unlikely venues across the years included a working fire station and a disused army camp.

Yet ultimately the One Day School had 18 venues around New Zealand and some 600 children attending. Clearly it was doing something right: changing lives, said parents quite simply.

Teacher Education

Meanwhile the George Parkyn Centre was actively supporting gifted education in other ways. It took teacher workshops from one end of the country to the other. It organized national conferences, bringing various international speakers to New Zealand. It supported Small Poppies, a group for preschoolers, run by an exceptional woman named Sue Breen. It hosted researchers. It lobbied vigorously for political change, leading to a Ministerial Working Party which, for the first time in the country’s history, made it mandatory for schools to serve the gifted. Sadly this change was not to last, but it set a precedent which has helped to encourage more teachers to look at this aspect of education.

Over these years, Rosemary was continuing to observe and record the strategies being used in the One Day School, both those she had initially developed and those she and other One Day School teachers put together over time. For example, a unit called “Caxton: Right or Wrong?” demonstrated a different approach to setting a task for gifted learners. Rosemary’s earlier experience working with gifted children led to a holistic approach, explained in her book, They’re Not Bringing My Brain Out (Cathcart, 1994)– a telling quote from an eight-year-old gifted boy explaining his feelings about school. Subsequent editions followed. In 2020, a fourth edition was published, with a foreword by Linda Silverman. By then these two women from different sides of the world had come to know and respect each other, building a valued friendship for them both.

REACH Education

But just reading a text is not enough, and one-off workshops are not enough. Teachers, like all learners, need opportunities to practice, to receive feedback and to reflect. If this is to happen, they need access to a properly constructed and professionally delivered course. Thus in 2005, Rosemary left the Centre, spent a year developing such a course, and launched it through an agency she called REACH Education.

The Certificate of Effective Practice in Gifted Education, a 13-module course, is now in its 19th year of delivery. It has Level 6 Microcredentials under the New Zealand Qualifications Authority, but also, much to Rosemary’s surprise, it has attracted participants from many different countries - Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Sweden, Germany, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Dubai. It is the only teacher training program endorsed by the Institute for the Study of Advanced Development (ISAD). In 2017, it won NAGC’s Professional Development Network Award.

THE NEW ONE DAY SCHOOL

Now, very unexpectedly, Rosemary has been asked to revive the One Day School program. A philanthropist in her hometown of Rotorua simply rang her up one day last December, invited himself round for a visit, and announced his wish to fully fund such a program, complete with building. That’s meant a great deal of hard work in a very short space of time, but now opening day is drawing near and excitement is building!

And not just for the children! Rosemary and her teaching staff are also highly delighted to be embarking on this revival. It brings some interesting challenges. The educational climate is very different from what it was 30 years ago, not least because of the developments in technology. The first One Day School did not have a single computer when it first started – hard to believe now. So one of the challenges for the new program will be to discover what needs to change and what remains true and relevant.

QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT

One of the fundamental aspects that will not change is the program’s holistic approach. This is reflected in its qualitative assessment system. Of course, this always has included quantitative data, both from the schools and from psychological testing – originally the Woodcock-Johnson, this time with Raven’s Progressive Matrices 2. But also always the program has used a carefully selected range of other approaches. An example of the child’s original creative work can be immensely revealing, not simply about skill level, but about emotional maturity, perception, observation and persistence. Directed observational drawing can be equally revealing. Involvement in a group ethical debate and participation in a short drama activity each demonstrate significant but different aspects of a child’s understanding and personality. A one-to-one interview between the child and the director can begin to build a relationship that will be important during the child’s stay in the program, while also helping gain an initial insight into that child’s interests, ways of thinking and level of confidence. A very short questionnaire which asks the child about learning style preferences and also about personal interests and future plans helps the child feel ownership of the enrollment process and again can be very revealing.

So now, with its first assessment week behind it, the new One Day School is once again a challenge and much to learn!

Footnote:

Being a typically shy New Zealander, Rosemary isn’t comfortable with talking about this, but over the years she has been given various awards, most recently being made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM). New Zealand has retained the Honours system similar to that used in the UK, beginning at the top with knighthoods. The ONZM is two levels down from that and is a significant award. She now has to go to Government House where it will be presented by New Zealand’s Governor General. Rosemary commented that she accepted because any such award sends a message that the powers-that-be think gifted education matters – and that’s a message she wants to get across. Click here to learn more about the award.