Research-Informed Schools SIG Webinar: If Only He’d Apply Himself: The Research Behind 2e Underachievement: 14 October

If only he’d apply himself” is what teachers wrote about Marijn Bergsma for years. This session traces that story through to the research that explains it: why twice-exceptional students look “fine enough” to overlook, and what the Achievement Orientation Model reveals about the specific, addressable factors behind their underachievement. Attendees leave with a concrete way to spot the gap in their own classrooms, and open the conversation.

Facilitator: Marijn Bergsma is a giftedness and twice-exceptionality specialist and the founder of BrightPath. He works with international schools to identify where gifted and 2e students fall through the gaps, and to build practical, actionable steps schools can put in place to close them. He is a NOBCO/EMCC-certified coach for gifted behavior, working directly with students as an enrichment educator in the Netherlands while advising school leaders and teachers on building support that lasts beyond any one person. That professional grounding is sharpened by his own experience as a twice-exceptional student, and now as a father of three high-ability children. He has written for International Teacher Magazine and appeared on The International Schools Podcast and The International Teacher Podcast. He works alongside, not in place of, school professionals, bringing a systemic understanding of what surrounds a gifted child rather than a fixed program schools have to adopt wholesale.