Dr. Orla Dunne

Good morning, David.

Thanks for having me.

So Centre for Talented Youth Ireland runs university style courses for gifted learners from six up to 17.

So that would look like primary school classes on a Saturday and our residential programme that we run in DCU during the summer for secondary school students.

So students will come in and take subjects that they might not necessarily be exposed to in primary school or in secondary school, indeed.

Subjects like aeronautical engineering or zoology or forensic science or writing-based subjects.

So what we're really focused on is bringing in students to challenge them and stretch them academically, which sometimes they don't get in school.

And also, of course, creating a good social environment where they can meet like-minded peers.

Sometimes they can get a bit bored and that can be very frustrating.

You know, if you really want to move ahead, but you're kind of stuck, obviously students can become sometimes a bit, you know, demotivated that they feel like they want to move ahead.

So we really enjoy getting to kind of get to see these students kind of stretch their talents and really focus on their strengths as well.

So students usually come to us via a few different ways.

So typically they might score pretty well on a standardised test in school and then they come and they would sit one of our assessments.

But increasingly how we're getting a lot more of our students is through educational psychologist reports.

So these typically would be our twice exceptional students.

So twice exceptional are students who are gifted with an additional education need.

That would be maybe autism, ADHD.

dyslexia, dyspraxia.

And if they've gone to an educational psychologist, usually they'll have given a test as well.

You know, testing verbal reasoning, fluid reasoning, things like that.