Leonardo Gifted School is partner or member of: ECHA - European Council for High Ability, WCGTC - World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, AERO - Alternative Education Resource Organization, BPLUSA - Big Picture Learning Design USA, University of Bucharest - Faculty of Phychology and Educational Sciences, University of Connecticut - Neag School of Education, Simon Fraser University - Faculty of Education

Enrichment

Enrichment

Enrichment includes activities in extracurricular time developed with Mentors.

The value added opportunity of gifted children directly working with mentors is invaluable.

  • Mentors are selected high profile individuals who ensure that the child can extend the knowledge and talent in the area of passion with a person who has a romance with the subject, who has obtained highly respected status in the field and is in love with the idea of paying his knowledge forward to gifted children.
  • Mentors  are authentic personalities who are able to offer a view on life and what it means to continuously grow your potential, face hardship, drawbacks or society or human opposition, and have success or fail
  • Mentors  offer the direct contact with the energy of enthusiasm for being a creator
  • They are specifically trained and experienced in working and teaching gifted children. They know not only their intellectual needs, but how their social and emotional needs make an impact on their development, how special these needs are – and they give much attention on nourishing them.

Leonardo Gifted School starts with the children who are eager to develop and to learn about their potential. They have an IQ over 130, tested with WISC IV/SON-R.

 

How do we develop the Enrichment?

We develop an enriched curriculum which is based on tailor-made curriculum which is oriented on the needs and interests of the current cohort of children. In order to develop an individualised curricula we work with counsellors and psychologists to develop an outline of the current state of child development and current needs, where the child is involved, and has a definitive say. We involve directly the child in the selection and matching with the mentors, and also in selecting the subject the child will pursue. The child is counseled to know his interests, passions and goals in life, from an early age.

 

We know that we work with a population of children to have mostly:

  • Asynchronous development
  • High IQ
  • Low EQ (Emotional Q) and SQ (Social Q) with the following characteristics: emotional stability, empathy, ambition, dynamism, independence. Also, many show these needs: early concern of death, mature sense of being a human, altruism, idealism, aesthetic sensitivities, high levels of energies, perfectionism, high sense of justice, strong emotional fixations (attachments)
  • Practical intelligence
  • Intuition
  • And most of our kids had a low bodily coordination.

 

Our plan is to always be able to offer them:

in order to engage their cognitive intelligence more support in developing:

  • Verbal intelligence
  • Mathematical Intelligence

in order to engage their emotional intelligence more support in developing:

  • Learning and reading management skills
  • Concentration capacity
  • Courage
  • Adaptability
  • Perseverance
  • Responsibility

Just for example, we have found out that most of the kids in their age group this year are kinaesthetic, and tactile, but we also have visual spatial and auditory-sequential learning style. And their biggest vulnerabilities were their high emotivity, high sensitivity, and their impulsivity.

So our enriched curriculum focused on 4 main dimensions:

  1. Developing their right hemisphere (EQ and SQ) in order to balance their asynchronous development;
  2. Developing a sense of love for learning (curiosity, revival of sense of stimulation, and inner stimulation) through Accelerated Learning and Speed Learning;
  3. Developing Higher Order Thinking Skills (De Bono Thinking Lessons – CoRT – Cognitive Research Trust which is also the main focus across all curriculum).
  4. In addition to this, all our curriculum is enveloped into the Multiple Intelligences model of Dr Gardner so we have a holistic approach which includes a balanced curriculum which takes the child through a rounded development on all MI

Our focus of all the curriculum, which includes Enrichment, is to build life attitudes, abilities and skills, not merely knowledge. We believe our main drive is to empower kids to have a positive self-image and leverage in all life situations based on their intuition, gut feelings, heart, self-motivation and strong belief in themselves.

 

Where can I find the list of activities provided in the Enrichment Program?

The Opportunities provided by the Enrichment change every year, and they respect the nature of the needs, interests, passions of the children in that year, or that specific age group.

A list of the activities provided during the Enrichment can be consulted here.