GATE

GATE MISSION STATEMENT

The Buena Park School District GATE program is designed to meet the needs of those children who demonstrate the capacity for high levels of thinking and/or scholastic achievement. The goal is to nurture their unique talents, abilities, and interests, and to extend their educational experiences so that they may reach their fullest potential.

GATE PROGRAM GOALS

1. Encourage deep inquiry skills to stimulate and encourage creative problem solving.
2. Build awareness of choices and develop realistic understanding about personal abilities.
3. Acceleration and enrichment built into learning beyond the core curriculum.

GATE INSTRUCTION

Provides an integration of literature, math, social studies, and science in GATE-designated and GATE-cluster classrooms that integrates depth and complexity principles.

GATE MODELS

• Self-Contained GATE classes for students grades 3-5. 
• GATE clusters where students grades 3-5 receive differentiated small group enrichment and instruction.
• Middle School Honors Program: Students have the opportunity to take honors classes in all subject areas.

GATE IDENTIFICATION PROCESS

CHARACTERISTICS OF GIFTED CHILDREN

• They commonly learn basic skills better, more quickly, and with less practice.
• They are fluent thinkers who are able to produce a large quantity of possibilities and consequences of related ideas.
• They are flexible thinkers, able to use many different alternatives and approaches to problem solving.
• They are often skeptical, critical, and evaluative. They are quick to spot inconsistencies.
• They are original thinkers, seeking new, unusual, or unconventional associations and combinations among items of information.