Global Gifted Children’s Summer School Starts a Year Early

Warwick University launches a new international summer school for the world’s gifted young people this week. The International Gateway for Gifted Youth Summer University (IGGY Summer-U) kicks off a year earlier than first planned with 110 children from across the globe attending the two-week residential course.

The students, including 37 from overseas, are aged from 11-16 and will study either: Creative Writing & Comparative Culture; Mathematics (solving global issues through maths); Medical Sciences or Enterprise.

Demand for the Summer U has been so great that the University of Warwick have now also brought forward by a year its plans for a Winter U – with three countries competing to host it this December. The successful host country will be announced by Warwick over the next few weeks.

Included in the 110 students are 12 young people, aged 11- 18, who have been specially selected as panellists for the Warwick Junior Commission. They will work alongside adult experts to research and consider the area of ‘Education and Human Rights’. After compiling evidence on the issue, they will prepare a final report, which will be launched in Spring 2009.

This is the first face-to-face event run by the University since announcing they would run IGGY earlier this year. The University has already demonstrated its experience and ability in this area when it hosted the highly regarded ‘National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth’ which included a Student Academy. Since announcing its intention to launch IGGY, Warwick has received in excess of 2,000 enquiries from over 30 countries.

Over the coming year Warwick will also launch a set of online services to meet the needs of a growing population of the brightest young people around the world, enabling them to communicate with each other and enabling them to collaborate on challenging and creative projects wherever they are located.

Warwick’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Thrift said:

“We are thrilled with the level of interest that IGGY has generated and I am delighted that we have been able to accelerate our plans in order to respond to this demand. We are keen to work with partners to increase the range of opportunities that can be made available through IGGY and to ensure that access to IGGY is possible for students from all social backgrounds.”

Note for Editors: The 37 non UK students attending the IGGY Summer include young people aged 11-18 from: Pakistan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Brunei, Taiwan, Israel, Malaysia, India, South Africa, Bulgaria and Lithuania.