Primary school for gifted children – a Danish example

Søren Skriver Tillisch, Mette Christiansen, Tine Winther Munch, Dora Balic Zunic

Background

Ten years ago the specific schooling needs of gifted children had been given little attention in
Denmark. Therefore the founding of Atheneskolen (Mentiqa) in suburban Copenhagen, the first
school for gifted children in Scandinavia, was a novel experiment. This successful project, unique
in its scope because it today represents a full size primary school with an educational history
encompassing around 300 pupils, presents an interesting example of implementing educational
strategies for gifted children in a society without a corresponding tradition.

Object of investigation

In this article we will investigate the background of the school and the circumstances under which it
was established. We shall then investigate whether the school has been a success through various
evidence such as final marks, wellbeing investigations and satisfaction with specific subjects.

The background

To understand Atheneskolen and its creation it is necessary to draw a small sketch of the Danish
school system. In Denmark we have general compulsory education, not compulsory school
attendance. In Denmark, all children must receive 9 years’ education, but provided a certain
minimum standard is obtained it is a matter of choice for the parents whether the education is
received in/at:

1. a publicly provided municipal primary and secondary school

2. a private school

3. home.
Denmark has a long tradition of private schools with substantial government subsidy. This tradition
mainly originates in the ideas and initiatives of the clergyman, poet and politician, N.F.S. Grundtvig
(1783 -1872), and the teacher, Christen Kold (1816 -1870). The first ”free school” (private
independent school) for children was founded in 1852. Today about 14% of all children, i.e. about
95,000, at basic school level (including the voluntary preschool class and 10th form) attend private
schools.

Types of schools

Private schools in Denmark may be roughly divided into the following categories:

 small independent schools in rural districts

 large independent schools in urban districts

 religious or congregational schools

 progressive free schools

 schools with a particular educational aim, such as the Rudolf Steiner schools

 German minority schools

 immigrant schools.

The bottom line is that private schools will be recognized and receive government financing
regardless of the ideological, religious, political or ethnic motivation behind their establishment.

Some private schools are very old, some are quite new, and new ones are still being added.

Legislation

All parties in the Danish Parliament want legislation ensuring financial support for private schools,
partly based on the notion that the municipal schools also will benefit from the experience and
competition offered by the private schools.

The legislation contains detailed rules about government financial support but only the most general
rules about the educational content and whether the overall teaching is equal to what is generally
achieved in the municipal school.
All that is demanded of private education is that it measures up to that of the municipal schools. The
small independent schools with a 9th grade are obliged to hold final examinations after 9th or 10th
grade, unless they have informed the Ministry of Education that they will not hold the examination.
However, in principle it is not up to any government authority but to the parents of each private
school to check that its performance measures up to the demands of the municipal schools.

It is the parents themselves who must choose supervisors to check the pupil’s level of achievement
in Danish, arithmetic, mathematics and English and whether in general the overall teaching of the
school measures up to what is normally demanded in the municipal school.

The private schools receive a grant (”per pupil per year”) for their operational expenditures, which
in principle matches the public expenditures in the municipal schools  minus the private school fees
paid by the parents. This is to ensure that public expenditures for the private and municipal schools
follow the same trend. The exact wording is thus: “To be eligible for public financial support,
schools must be of a certain minimum size. A school must have a total of at least 28 pupils in the
1st to 7th grade, though only 12 in the school’s first year and 20 in its second year”.1

Today a free school is usually established by a group of parents who want to maintain a school in
the local area – a school that the municipal authorities would otherwise close down. The other, and
in the past more common, reason could be that the parents want to establish a school with special
focus on specific skills or interests – e.g. music, sports etc.

Atheneskolen

The initiative for Atheneskolen was taken by one person, who – influenced by her own childrens’
conditions at school – found that no school offer was available for gifted children in Denmark, with
great educational and social consequences for this group.

When our school started 11 years ago, everything concerning gifted children was brand new in
Denmark. A few years earlier, the Gifted Children association was founded in Denmark, and they
opned up the discussion about this neglected group of children. When Atheneskolen/Mentiqa started
in 2004, it also started a big discussion in the media. The school made the headlines several times
and the headmaster and several parents and children gave interviews.2

1 https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=172928

2 E.g.: http://politiken.dk/indland/ECE79783/saerligt-kloge-boern-paa-specialskole/. http://www.kristeligt-

dagblad.dk/kirke-tro/intelligente-b%C3%B8rn-har-brug-hj%C3%A6lp.
Atheneskolen was founded in 2004, by the name Mentiqa (changed in 2007), and its concept is so
far unique in Scandinavia, apart from a few smaller Mentiqa schools in Denmark. There are some
public schools in Danmark where, in addition to the standard school curriculum, extra curricular
acitivities is offered for gifted children. It may be in the form of teaching during school hours, but
on a higher educational level than usual, or it may comprise specific topics that challenge the pupils
and where the classes are outside school hours - the so called Da Vinci classes.

Through interviews and press coverage on national television and newspapers, the project received
substantial attention, both positive and negative, since Denmark has no tradition in dealing with
gifted children in the school system. However, an appreciable interest – especially from parents
having the same experience as the founder of the school – occurred. There were therefore no
problems in obtaining the number of pupils required to establish the school.

The intention of the school was in fulfilling the needs of gifted children as regards the education,
understanding, and taking part in the learning process – and, last but not least, in finding out what a
whole day at school should offer for a gifted child.

Only gifted children attend Atheneskolen – an IQ of 125 is a criterium for attending the school –
and at the same time all teaching is based on a high level with particular consideration of each
pupil’s special background.

The questions to be answered were, to name but a few:

 how many breaks would the children need during a day? And how long should they
be?

 should the children be ordered to go outside the classroom during recesses - or would
it be preferable if they chose themselves where to be?

 Should teachers use traditional books and other educational material or be creative
and think in a whole different way. (We quickly found out that we to a certain extent
had to make our teaching material ourselves – and we still do!)

 Apart from compulsory classes – Danish, English and Mathematics - the question
was which subjects should be offered at the different levels?

 To what degree should teaching be offered across different subjects at the same time
and combining different ages and class levels?
All these questions and many more were the challenge for the first board of the school to work on,
in cooperation with the founder of the school and, of course, the first small group of teachers at the
school.

It is common in Denmark that all members of the staff contribute to the structure, vision and daily
realization of the ideas of the particular school. Of course, the school leader has the final word, but
it is normal to discuss everything considering the relevant expertise and experience of the different
employees, until a mutual agreement takes place. When establishing a new kind of school, it is
obvious that experimenting and evaluating, as things develop, is essential in order to obtain the
highest level of expertise – which means that all theories must be tried to see if they work in real
life. And then again – even after more than ten years, one may be surprised and learn new things.
Although gifted children have many things in common that fit into boxes and categories, they are at
the same time as different from each other as all other children.

Therefore, the theories that you really want to base your school upon – your education, your way of
dealing with this group of children – sometimes and suddenly don’t fit at all!

When the teaching of gifted children is planned, it is natural and essential to start with their interests
and questions. Therefore, it is natural to teach them philosophy since many gifted children worry
and wonder about life and essential questions – however not all of them. Likewise, it appears
obvious that they should be taught astrophysics, as many gifted children find a huge interest in
exploring space – again, however, not all of them. It seems obvious that teaching math at a very
high level must be offered, otherwise the pupils are bored – again, however, not all of them. And
quite often there is a request for learning peculiar and exotic languages – that is really of interest
and challenge for many gifted children – however, not all of them. These are just some of the
examples which illustrate how difficult it is to satisfy and fulfill the needs of this special group of
children.

As mentioned above, the school receives subsidies from the Danish Government, but no more than
other Danish schools and since we must offer a diversity of subjects at different levels and since the
teachers have to be relatively specialized in their topics, it is an act of balance – both financially and
educationally - to run a school for this group of children. Add to that, that the school has to fulfill
defined curriculum in nearly all subjects, since nearly all subjects - by the Ministry of Education –
can be chosen for the final examination at the end of the 9th grade. It is of course essential that the
school provides the necessary skills for each student to be able to pass the final tests – and of course
the tests are national – made by the Ministry of Education.This imposes a considerable limitation on
our freedom to teach as we would like, fitting it to the needs of our pupils, but combining the
official demands with demands of our pupils is, we believe, possible to an acceptable extent.

Our pupils are to be prepared for further education, and we are obviously obliged to ensure that they
are educationally well equipped for the challenges that come after graduation from our school. That
is no problem – they are doing fine in most subjects and we have excellent final results being in the
top five Denmark. However, we lack to find out how – to a higher extent – to prepare our pupils
better for real life outside our school.

Influences and inspiration from international contacts (Søren Skriver Tillisch)

Throughout the years several leading researchers in the field have visited Atheneskolen, among
them Linda Silverman and Monica Leavitt, and given lectures and courses. By far the most
influential international contact, however, has been the interaction with Sir-Karl-Popper-Schule in
Vienna, an interaction which has led to the implementation of KoSo (Kommunikation und Social
Interaktion) in the school’s curriculum.

Therefore this interaction will be the primary focus of this chapter.

The contact to Sir-Karl-Popper-Schulein Vienna was first made in 2009 during a working visit
there. Subsequently Dr. Renate Wustinger led two courses introducing KoSo-principles to the staff,
and after some experimental attempts in 2012-13, KoSo became part of the school’s curriculum in
the school year 2013-14. We teach the subject in the 7th and 8th Grade.

The following is based on questionnaires given to the 8th and 9th Graders on Atheneskolen who have
all participated in KoSo. This gives some indication of the result of the curriculum.

KoSo – introducing an Austrian concept for Danish pupils

KoSo was developed by Renate Wustinger and Roman Braun for Austrian schools, and therefore it
would be natural to expect the concept to be modified in the meeting with Danish students.

Evaluation

The evaluation of 9th grade and 8th grade 2014/15 is seen in Graph 1+2. The principle used was to
ask the students to set a mark on a line between a “sad” smiley and a “happy” smiley. The idea is
based on the Learning Rating Scale.3 Then the marks was correlated to tenths of the line. Further
four different questions were asked to be answered in text (more on this below p.).

It should be noted that for the 9th graders a year had passed since they had KoSo when the
questionnaire was completed, while KoSo was still being experienced by the 8th graders. Further
differences was that the 9th graders were introduced to KoSo before the teachers at the school had
completed the full educational programme, and before it had been implemented as a central subject
in the school. Therefore the 9th graders had 2 lessons of 45 minutes a week in the first year and only
one in the 2nd. The 8th graders have had 2 lessons a week for two years. Further differences were
that 21 out of 22 9th graders answered compared to 17 out of 24 8th graders.

Studying the graphs it is clear that the 9th graders are divided in a small dissatisfied group, a large
middle group and a very satisfied group slightly larger than the dissatisfied group. Contrary to this
the 8th graders show a very high level of satisfaction.

What this indicate is an overall satisfaction, 5.99 and 7.24 respectively, and also an apparent
difference between the first curriculum of KoSo and the second, and in this the indication is that the
structural change from 2+1 lessons a week over two years to 2+2 lessons a week has had a marked
positive influence on the satisfaction score. It is, however, important to note that the material is still
very limited and further evaluations will have to be carried out in the coming years.

Atheneskolen’s impact on the Danish society and on other schools in Denmark (Mette
Christiansen)
Our country has a special unwritten law, that we call ”janteloven”. We have this ”law” in our heads,
hidden, but we all know it is there. It says that it is not ok to be better or tell anyone you are, or that
you are good at something, especially not something of academic importance. Bragging is not
considered a nice behaviour in our country. It is better to be average and to blend in and be like
everybody else. Mainstream is good. It is a special Danish phenomenon, and it imposed a big
problem to overcome for us.

In the beginning we had to call the children: ”children with special prerequisites” and not gifted
children. Gifted children sounded very much like being better than the rest, so for many years we all

3http://edu.au.dk/fileadmin/www.dpu.dk/centerforgrundskoleforskning/artikel/LRS_Learning_Rating_Scale_Vejledni
ngx.pdf
used that odd term. There is a tradition in Denamrk of helping the children in the other end of the
scale, but when Atheneskolen started, it turned attention on the specific group of gifted children and
their needs and well-being problems. It was necessary to evoke its existence and demonstrate
children and families with problems to make public aware. It was provocative in our society to
show the abilities of these children and very difficult to illustrate and explain, given the superficial
treatment in the media, why these children needed a special school and a special curriculum. The
school and the association exclude children with an IQ below 130. The exclusion is always more
provocative than inclusion.

Together with the Gifted Children association in Denmark, our school started a debate and a
discussion of how to teach also the gifted children in the Danish public schools. The school made a
great impact on society over the years. Other schools on Zealand were inspired to start projects for
this group of children. Among examples are Hørsholm primary school that started afternoon
enrichment classes, and Fredensborg primary school that formed a science-talent-class. Especially
schools from the broader Copenhagen area (a part of our country with the highest concentration of
rich and well-educated people) were interested and came to visit our school and get ideas. Most of
the visits happened during the first years of the school's history. TV-programs were made about
some of our students, and teachers and headmaster gave interviews. All this resulted in increased
awareness among school-psychologists and teachers that some of the children with problems in
education might actually be gifted children. We are now in a situation where other schools suggest
our school to parents and students in trouble. We now call them gifted children and not children
with special prerequisites. Over the time, the things have changed. Other schools for gifted children
were founded in the major cities in Denmark by the same founder as our school: Odense, Ålborg
and Århus. Today the two of them still exist, in Ålborg and Copenhagen, and the latter one has just
celebrated the ten years of existence.

It is difficult to explain the major change in our society over the past ten years. Ten years ago, very
few knew what giftedness was about and teachers didn't know that the quiet child or the unruly
child could be gifted. Teachers and politicians are now aware of the group of gifted children and
more and more schools try to make programs for talented children. There is a focus on talent but
primarily in the oldest classes and primarily in sports and science. In the early years of our school
the schools that tried to make similar programs had few resources. In Hørsholm, the enrichment
comprised one to two hours a week – which definitely is not enough. Several children from that
school came to our school to meet peers and get friends. Bullying and loneliness was/is still a
problem in spite of the awareness. For many it is too late to participate in a talent class after 7-8
years of boredom.

The talent-class/gifted-education in Denmark actually began in Lyngby during the years 2001 to
2005 when Ole Kyed (psychologist and host of the conference) made a project for the public
schools in Lyngby. Our school started in a close relation to this project, followed after one year by
Hørsholm and Køge private schools with specific programs for this group of children. Many came
to our school for advice how to incorporate our strategies in typical public schools. However, it is a
difficult task because our children profit from having many friends and peers that can mirror each
other. This is not the situation in an ordinary public school. Many projects lasted only for a year,
were limited to only teenagers, or only supplied advanced science teaching with very little focus on
well-being of pupils and their social interaction.

An example of a successful and promising project was the one inspired and led by the late Kalle
Hansen, the headmaster of the Kroggård primary school in Odense. It was financed by the ministry
of education and extended to all public schools in Odense.

In spite of positive and affirmative tendencies, there are still many schools in Denmark that have no
special offers for this group of children.

The ministry of education made an investigation in 2009 about all the talent-classes they support.
These are primarily project/classes for the oldest classes and high schools, but nevertheless it is a
good start.

We are convinced that the existence and success of Atheneskolen contributed to such development
in the educational system in Denmark. There are indications that especially the awareness of
teachers all over the country was influenced. Supporting this view are several projects and
assignments treating our school done by students from Danish educational faculties– they now
know it is there and they are curious.
Conclusion

Our conclusion is that the idea of gathering gifted children in the same school – and only gifted
children – is a good idea. Our second conclusion is that it is good for the social development of this
group of children to spend the whole school day together, as most of them benefit from each other’s
company and establish groups of mutual interest and friendships that would not have been possible
without the school, since it is the school that creates the forum and space for interaction. The school
practice further shows that a prerequisite of the teaching staff is a high level of engagement and
constant adaptation to the needs of the actual population of pupils.

In our opinion, the results can be used as an inspiration for similar projects or for partial
implementations in the existing public schools in Denmark.

The children at Atheneskolen are very open-minded. No one is excluded from any group. Being a
nerd is a fact of life and is not considered a negative. Even the oddest child is included, bullying
does not take place and special dress codes do not exist. In short: one is allowed to be him/herself.

But a snake lurks in Paradise. We assure that this is how it works during the first ten years of
school. THEN the challenge and possibly the price to pay for having lived a protected life amongst
likeminded come: One has to deal with real life!

After living in a protected world, one has to face the tough facts and competition and evilness of the
real life. Does it make sense? Is it too tough to endure? Will it break down these kids or some of
them? Has it been wrong to protect them so much during 10 years?

Atheneskolen has now existed for 11 years and many former pupils are extremely happy for having
attended the school, but the big challenge – apart from keeping up the high educational level – is
how to help these pupils into real life in a careful and balanced way so that they can interact easier
with other normal young kids.

Some people suggest creating a high school for gifted students – this does not yet exist in Denmark
– but the question is if it wouldn’t just be pushing the problems in front of you? The next demand
would probably then be a university for gifted students…