About Bright & Beyond
Bright and Beyond is dedicated to empowering gifted children, their families, and educators with expert guidance and innovative solutions. Established in 2008, Bright and Beyond provides experienced and specialist education consultancy through consultations, mentoring, tutoring and professional development. Learn more about our mission to help gifted learners thrive academically and emotionally.
Bright and Beyond strives for
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Understanding
Our clients often need a space to share their needs and concerns in a world that frequently misunderstands the journey of the gifted.
* We assist you to develop goals and positive pathways, whether it be for students, parents, families, or schools by ensuring people's needs and all elements of context are clearly understood by us.
* We also work alongside and collaborate with schools and other services, such as psychologists, paediatricians, GPs, occupational therapists, speech language therapists, to ensure students' holistic needs remain central throughout.
* We provide an understanding, nurturing, and confidential space, because we know from first-hand experience that the gifted journey can be very lonely and tough.
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Education
Our clients often need education to develop a deeper understanding of giftedness and what it means to ‘be gifted’.
* We create bespoke professional learning opportunities to suit teachers and support schools' specific needs,
* We provide individual consultancy and group learning opportunities for parents, carers, and other family members to enable everyone to better understand the gifted children in their care.
* We provide short-term goal-specific academic tuition and ongoing affective mentoring for highly, exceptionally and profoundly gifted students to assist them to understand themselves.
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Advocacy
Giftedness is surrounded by myths and misconceptions. Parents of gifted and high potential students can require support through advocacy when discussing their child’s needs with their school. We are highly experienced in working with schools and across services to collaboratively develop individual pathways through clear, direct and respectful communication focussed on student needs.
​Often our role is as 'case manager', bringing together the many stakeholders, services and specialists in more complex cases ie twice- and multi-exceptional children, is a substantial amount of our work.
Our values
We are committed to champion:
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Education
– all gifted students have the right to education matched to their learning needs.
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Excellence
– all gifted students have the right to have their gifts nurtured in order for them to develop to their potential.
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Equality
- all gifted students have the right to achieve their potential regardless of age, race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, cultural background, or physical location, and without bias.
Advocacy
– all people have the right to have their needs heard.
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Relationships
– all people have the right to have their feelings validated and be encouraged and empowered.
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Collaboration
– raising and educating gifted children takes a village. You don’t have to do it alone.
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Authenticity
– all gifted students have a right to be themselves and not have to hide their true selves. We encourage unmasking when it's safe to do so.
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Transformation
– change can be a positive, rewarding and exciting process when supported by understanding mentors.
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About our Principal Consultant
Helen Baber BEd, PGDipEd (G&T), MEd (Gifted) with Excellence
Helen deeply understands the joys and challenges of parent and educator journeys to effectively support gifted children and students
having navigated them for herself.
Her three-tiered approach is highly effective, evidenced by
the hundreds of highly satisfied clients
over Helen's many years specialising in gifted education.
Helen's Story, Qualifications & Experience
Helen's educator journey began in Canberra in 1985, where she completed a Bachelor of Education at the University of Canberra. Upon graduation she taught in several public schools in the ACT, teaching gifted cluster programs and accelerated students piquing further interest in 'giftedness'. In 1997 relocated with her family to New Zealand. During the following few years she taught in several public and independent schools, enjoyed time as a museum educator, and worked in the NZ Ministry of Education as a project manager in High and Complex Needs.
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Helen's teaching journey changed direction in 2002 when she studied Gifted Education at Massey University. Soon after, she began in her first gifted education specialist teaching role in an inner-city high school, became the inaugural President of Wellington Explorers, and enjoyed contributing as a NZ Association for Gifted Children (NZAGC) National Council Member.
More about Helen...
Upon returning to Australia in 2008, Helen established Bright and Beyond as a resource for parents of gifted children. Soon after she was employed at a large regional independent school and became their gifted education specialist. Helen lead the development of an extensive Gifted Education Program that provided the opportunity for gifted students from Years K-12 to participate in advanced academic learning, including an accelerated pathway in Mathematics. The program also included dedicated affective programs, competitions and external opportunities to foster optimal talent development, teacher professional learning, strong home-school partnerships, and strong collaboration between the Gifted Education team and the Learning Support team to cater for the specific needs of twice exceptional (2e) students.
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Helen has also been awarded a Master of Education in Gifted Education from UNSW, with Excellence. She is currently employed by UNSW as a Presenter of the Mini-Certificate of Gifted Education (Mini-COGE) at GERRIC - an inservice course for teachers. Helen was awarded a World Teacher's Recognition Award for 'Services to Gifted Education' by the Teachers' Guild of NSW in 2019, and was also a nominee for the 2020 Commonwealth Bank Teaching Awards. She enjoys a broad international network within the field of gifted education and regularly speaks at state and national conferences.
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Helen is a life-long learner, currently completing a Master of Educational Leadership at UNSW and a Diploma of Counselling through the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. She is also a suicide first-aider through ASIST - Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training.
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Helen's life goal is see a mandate for all teachers to be adequately and effectively trained in gifted education. Clear evidence shows that strong teacher knowledge, understanding, and skills in gifted education enables gifted students to enjoy their learning and childhoods without limit setting them up for more fulfilling adult lives. She also believes such a shift in education will also help combat the pervasive and damaging myths about giftedness in society.​
Read MoreFree consultation to see if we are aligned and determine if I'm the right person to help you.
15 min
