This article is devoted to the study of specifics of participation of students in contests and
olympiads as a way of developing giftedness. The authors substantiate the relevance of the issue
under consideration and the significance of contest-olympiad movement in educational process.
The article considers theoretic-methodological approaches to the definition of “giftedness”, quality
features of revealing the presence of giftedness in a student. The authors study the specifics of
student participation in contests and olympiads as a special type of development, formation and
implementation of creative talent. Special attention is paid to the description of the experience
of the organizing competitive and olympiad activity among the students at ISEDT RAS Researchand-
Education Center for Economics and Information Technology (Vologda). For 12 years of
functioning of the school extracurricular course at the Research-and-Education Center, particular
emphasis has been placed on providing students with opportunities for developing their ability to
study core subjects through the presentation of results of participation in contests and olympiads
at local and regional, national and international levels. The main purpose of the contest-olympiad
activity at the Research-and-Education Center is to identify the students that have special
inclination to study economics at the profile level, and develop their abilities by engaging them in
active cognitive, research and creative activity. To achieve this goal, the Research-and-Education
Center developed a special system, the main component of which is the strengthening of training
in the framework of classes in economics and the elective course “fundamentals of research” and
organization of participation of students first in contests and olympiads at the Research-and-
Education Center and then – their participation in external events. The article analyzes the activity
of the Research-and-Education Center on the organization of students’ participation in contests
and olympiads, reveals existing problems in this sphere and proposes ways of their solution. In
general, it can be concluded that the work of the Center contributes to the deepening of students’
knowledge, helps develop their creative abilities and personalities and is productive in nature,
which is proved by high performance results of competitive-olympiad activities of students of the
Research-and-Education Center for the entire period of its existence
Keywords
gifted children, giftedness, competitions and olympiads for schoolchildren, isedt ras researchand- education center