Ella Tunnicliffee - Glass

When Giftedness is Developed into Talent

Ella Tunnicliffe-Glass - Winner of a 2008 Premier Scholarship Award 

With five scholarships, of which four are outstanding, a top scholar award in geography and a Premier Scholarship Award of $10 000 each year for three years, recognising her placement amongst the top 10 candidates in the 2008 New Zealand Scholarship examinations, Ella Tunnicliffe-Glass is undoubtedly both a gifted and talented student. 

Preferring to attribute her success to hard work and good time management, Ella is slightly uncomfortable with the term giftedness. However, by the generally accepted definition she is indeed gifted. That is, she has the ability to perform under the same conditions at a level significantly beyond her age peers. François Gagne, the guru on giftedness who visited New Zealand last month, states that gifted and talented individuals occupy the top 10% of the bell curve for human abilities. 

Gagne differentiates between giftedness and talent and has developed a model to explain how giftedness can be transformed into talents. It is during this talent development process that the influence of parental encouragement, effective and motivational teaching, as well as various other intra personal and environmental factors, play a key role in influencing the talent outcomes. 

When asked what Ella feels contributed to her success she explains that she has always worked hard, made sure she got all her assignments completed on time, had good time management skills and was always determined to achieve excellence. She throws into the success mixture the encouragement she received from her parents and the high standard of teaching she received at St Cuthbert’s College. 

Although Ella prefers not to be referred to as gifted and talented, she does exhibit several of the noted characteristics. Admitting that she is a perfectionist, she explains that one can always do better no matter how well one achieves initially. For many able students the perfectionist trait can inhibit the development of giftedness into talent. Not content with work that is not perfect, gifted students may achieve well below their potential because they would rather not hand work in at all than hand in something that is less than perfect. Or, because their spelling is not perfect they may not even attempt to write an essay even though they have exceptional creative ability. However, Ella differs in that she has mastered the perfectionism feature and turned it into a strong driving force coupled with determination and a healthy work ethic enabling excellence to be achieved in a varied field of interests. 

Without the provision of the more challenging tasks provided in the differentiated classroom, the abilities of gifted students can sometimes be diverted into activities not listed on the teaching plan. When asked about how she coped with finishing the work early during a lesson Ella replied that she had no problems with this and used to talk to her neighbours – usually about the work required in other subjects! 

Her involvement in such a vast array of activities is yet another characteristic. This, coupled with the determination to achieve at the highest level, meant that maximising any spare time that was generated was a high priority. Music was her main focus and Ella does confess to spending most of Y13 in the music department. The literature on supporting gifted students places a high priority on allowing such students the freedom to pursue their interests and Ella has demonstrated that it was not to the detriment of her other subjects. She was a member of the Concert Band, Blackwatch Orchestra and Chamber Music Group. Earlier achievements in music include gaining Grade 8 in both piano and flute in Y11 followed by Dip ABRSM in Y12. 

But Ella’s interests were not restricted to music. A keen debater she was a member of the premier Y12 and 13 teams which won the Auckland Regional Championships in 2008 and the coveted Holyoake Cup keenly contested with Diocesan School for Girls in both 2007 and 2008. This interest in debating took her to the Hague where she participated in the world’s biggest Model United Nations, debating resolutions regarding sustainable development from the point of view of the Republic of Korea at the Environmental Commission. She also enjoyed drama and participated in the annual St Cuthbert’s College Shakespeare Soiree. 

As can be typical of gifted students, Ella claims she struggled with chemistry and mathematics but also admits to gaining distinction in the Australian Chemistry Competition in Y13 and attaining a top 100 award in the Eton Press Senior Mathematics Competition. 

That Ella developed numerous gifts into talents is evident not only from her scholarship results but also from her record of awards and achievements since Y9. It spans over four type written pages. In all, she sat scholarship in eight subjects including Spanish, chemistry, statistics, biology, music, English and geography not to mention the ATCL examination for speech and drama, which she sat just two days after her last scholarship examination. 

Ella’s busy life continues this year at Auckland University. Her long term goal is to find a career that will utilise and further develop her interests in both medicine and law. In the meantime she has been short listed for the Girdler Scholarship to Cambridge University. 

Ella’s many achievements are indeed outstanding and it will be with considerable interest that we will follow her progress throughout what promises to be a very exciting academic future. 

That she is gifted is without doubt. But Ella’s most remarkable achievement is that she has taken those gifts and developed them into talents. She herself, rather than other external forces, has been the dominant motivator and the driving force to achieve at the highest level and to pursue further challenges. She dealt constructively with finishing work early in class and took responsibility for her learning through effective time management and decision making. That she is comfortable speaking about her achievements but slightly less comfortable about the gifted and talented notion is perhaps evidence that this is a topic that could benefit from better and more information distribution within the education community. 

Ann Saunders 
Gifted Coordinator