“You’d think we would have gone,‘Oh’,but we didn’t realise that was quite unusual,” she said.
Griff Brondum,a maths whiz,is the state’s youngest HSC studentEdwina Pickles
She knows now. Her 13-year-old son is preparing to sit his HSC in extension 1 and 2 maths as the youngest candidate in the state. He will head back to school on Monday with year 12. Other high school students will head back on October 25.
It wasn’t until Mrs Brondum went to the school attended by Griff’s older brother and saw a brochure explaining the difference between a bright child and a gifted learner that she realised Griff might have a special gift.
The bright child,it said,has a fine imagination,clever ideas and gets the joke. The gifted learner has original ideas,uses their imagination to experiment with those ideas,and knows why the joke works. “It was an ‘a-ha’ moment,” she said. “He matched 90 per cent of those characteristics,things like he grasps concepts easily.”
Griff didn’t take well to kindergarten,and became highly anxious. He was homeschooled for several years. “Unfortunately at the time the school hadn’t really had anybody like Griff before,catering to his unique set of abilities wasn’t a strong suit,” said Mrs Brondum.
He agrees. “I feel like I did stand out quite a bit,” he said.
At age nine,he went to Mona Vale Public School and took year 9 and 10 maths via distance education. “Mona Vale was very good about helping to set that up,” said Mrs Brondum. “The teacher was experienced with kids like Griff. She was fantastic at helping to facilitate that.”
But,even then,his unusual gifts caused problems. “It was hard for me to make friends,” Griff said,“and I think I got bullied as well in year 5.”
It wasn’t until Griff began at Barrenjoey High that he found his people. “They’re very supportive of him,the school has been wonderful,” said Mrs Brondum. “They’ve really catered for him and looked after him.”
Griff - who hopes to study maths at university - is a year above his age cohort in most subjects. At first,his HSC peers thought the younger student was in the classroom because he was doing detention.
“Then they realised I was actually in their class,and I got to know them and I feel like I’m part of the class,” he said. “Nobody makes a big deal out of it.”
Under the original HSC timetable,exams would have already been well underway. They will now begin on November 9. Griff said he was happy with the extra few weeks of preparation.
“It gives me more time to study and with a lot of other assignments I have to do,but I don’t think it’s as good for the other[year 12] students because they probably just want to get it over and done with,” he said.
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