Honouring Sonia White

As we look back on gifted education advocacy, identification, and programme development in NZ then Sonia White, gifted education consultant and author, stands out. 

Her presence in the gifted community reflects a practical, classroom-to-system focus - emphasising appropriate identification of gifted learners, thoughtful programme design, and opportunities for gifted young people to engage in meaningful academic and social experiences.

Sonia White is one of the relatively few specialists in gifted education who have come from secondary teaching. She was Chair of Secondary (Auckland) Gifted Educators (SAGE) - a group of Auckland educators focused on supporting gifted and talented students; she wrote a comprehensive identification tool for gifted secondary students; she led the organisation of a one-day conference for secondary gifted learners that brought students together with workshops, academic talks, and peer connection opportunities, and she is the author of  “Designing Defensible Classroom Programs for Gifted Secondary School Learners”, a professional resource on programming for gifted secondary learners. 

She was also employed as gifted education advisor to schools with University of Auckland from 2001 - 2009.

In all her work, Sonia's primary focus was teacher professional development, working with school management, Gifted Education Coordinators and teachers. She facilitated workshops, seminars, keynotes, and provided one-to-one support in gifted education pedagogy, including: an overview of giftedness, establishing a school vision for gifted learners, defining giftedness, identification procedures and good practice, writing policies, acceleration, and provisions for gifted learners. She supported teachers in implementing a wide range of provisions, and similarly supported key teams in examining the quality of school wide provisions, including multi-levelling and acceleration; identification; and in meeting the learning needs of gifted underachievers, including Gifted with learning difficulties.

Sonia has also been involved in Gifted Education internationally since the 1990s, when she was invited on several occasions to present at conferences and schools in Australia, Hong Kong and the USA. Since there she has given numerous international presentations in various countries including the USA, France, Australia, and Canada. She has been a consultant for the World Council WCGTC Headquarters). She is a member of the WCGTC, and the International Centre for Innovative Education (ICIE Paris).

During Gifted Awareness Week, we acknowledge Sonia White for her contributions to understanding of giftedness and our gifted youth.