In August 2023, Dr Inderbir Kaur Sandhu was named a recipient of the SUSS Excellence in Teaching Award, presented by the Singapore University of Social Sciences. On 24 July 2026, the university presented the same award again.
Dr Inderbir would prefer this article to be short. She feels the recognition belongs less to her and more to the field — to gifted children, to the parents who have trusted her with their questions, and to the colleagues and mentors who shaped her work over more than two decades.
This piece exists not to celebrate the awards but to note them briefly, and to say something about why institutional acknowledgment of gifted education — however quiet — is worth recording.
SUSS Excellence in Teaching Award · 2023
Presented at the Faculty Appreciation Event, 19 August 2023, Singapore.
SUSS Excellence in Teaching Award · 2026
Presented at the Faculty Appreciation Event, July 2026. Certificate dated 24 July 2026.
Who Is Dr Inderbir Kaur Sandhu?
Dr Inderbir Kaur Sandhu holds a doctorate and has spent over two and a half decades working at the intersection of psychology and education — specifically with children whose intellectual profiles do not fit neatly into standard classroom expectations. She is a psychologist, a cognitive assessment specialist, the author of The Secret to Raising a Smarter Child, and the Co-Founder of GiftedKids.in.
Her work begins where most educational conversations stop. Parents come to her not because their child is failing, but because their child is different — brighter than the curriculum allows for, more intense than teachers have language for, and often deeply misunderstood by the very systems meant to support them. Dr Inderbir's role is to translate that difference into something parents and educators can act on.
She has done this work quietly, in assessment rooms and parent consultations, in workshops and training sessions, for more than twenty-five years.
A Note on the Second Award
The 2026 award was unexpected, and Dr Inderbir has been characteristically reluctant to make much of it. Her view is straightforward: the recognition is welcome insofar as it helps parents advocate for their gifted children with a little more institutional weight behind the conversation.
Gifted education is a field where formal acknowledgment is uncommon. When an institution recognises work in this area more than once, it quietly affirms that the work is worth doing — and worth continuing. That is the part Dr Inderbir would want emphasised, if she had to choose.
Why This Award Matters
When work with gifted and twice-exceptional children is formally recognised, the practical effect is mostly for families — a little more weight in conversations that already ask a great deal of parents and teachers.
Institutional Credibility
Peer-reviewed recognition can help schools and clinics take a child's learning profile more seriously in placement and support conversations.
A Voice Parents Can Trust
Parents advocating for their child often need the conversation to be heard. Institutional acknowledgment can make those discussions a little easier.
Elevating the Field
Gifted education is rarely formally acknowledged. Quiet institutional notice of the field helps keep the work visible.
Validation of a Different Pedagogy
Child-centred, assessment-led teaching — meeting the individual profile rather than a standard outcome — is worth protecting.
The Gap This Work Fills
Gifted children are among the most misunderstood learners in any education system. They are frequently mistaken for disruptive, for overambitious, for socially immature, or for simply difficult. Their needs are invisible precisely because their intelligence can mask the depth of their struggle. A bright child who is bored is too often described as lazy. A gifted child with sensory sensitivities is too often labelled as behavioural.
"A gifted child who is bored is described as lazy. A gifted child with sensory sensitivities is labelled as behavioural. The problem is never the child. The problem is the absence of an adult who knows how to look."— Dr Inderbir Kaur Sandhu, GiftedKids.in
This is the gap Dr Inderbir has spent her career filling. Her assessment work goes beyond IQ scores. She looks at cognitive profiles — at the relationship between verbal reasoning, working memory, processing speed, and spatial ability. She looks at asynchronous development: the eight-year-old who reads at sixteen but still cannot regulate their emotions at eight. She looks at twice-exceptionality — the child who is both gifted and dyslexic, or gifted and autistic, or gifted and anxious.
These are children the standard system rarely serves well. The work remains finding adults who know how to look — and staying with that work for as long as families need it.
The Evening It Was Presented
The award was presented at the SUSS Faculty Appreciation Event, held on 19 August 2023 at Swissôtel The Stamford — one of Singapore's landmark venues. The evening brought together educators from across SUSS's faculties and professional centres, celebrating a year of teaching that had made a difference to students' lives.
The SUSS Faculty Appreciation Event, Swissôtel The Stamford, 19 August 2023.
Read the official SUSS campus update →
Dr Inderbir was recognised alongside colleagues from the School of Business, the School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences — making her recognition from the Centre for Continuing and Professional Education particularly notable. Continuing education is the area where gifted adult learners, parents seeking professional development, and specialist educators intersect — exactly the audience her work serves.
Dr Inderbir at the SUSS Faculty Appreciation Event — a community that celebrates educators who go beyond the standard.
View the full list of SUSS Teaching Award Recipients →
The Certificates
The physical certificates from 2023 and 2026 are held in Dr Inderbir's office. What they represent, quietly, is that the work with gifted children has been observed and considered worth acknowledging — twice.
SUSS Excellence in Teaching Award, 2023.
SUSS Excellence in Teaching Award, 2026.
Award Recipients
Dr Inderbir was one of five educators honoured with the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023. The selection process at SUSS involves peer nomination and institutional review — it is not a self-applied award.
| Recipient | Faculty / Centre |
|---|---|
| Dr Inderbir Kaur Sandhu | Centre for Continuing & Professional Education |
| Assoc. Prof. Lim Hwee Seng | School of Business |
| Dr Lim Wee Kiak | School of Business |
| Dr Ow Yong Jit Liang | School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences |
| Dr Siti Hajar Ali | School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences |
Source: SUSS Teaching Award Recipients (official) →
The full 2026 recipient list will be published on the SUSS official page in due course. SUSS Teaching Award Recipients →
What This Means for GiftedKids.in
Dr Inderbir co-founded GiftedKids.in as a resource for parents, teachers, and professionals trying to understand giftedness as a lived reality — with its intensities, its asynchronies, and its very specific needs. The SUSS recognition, given twice, is a small institutional footnote to that work. What matters is the work itself, and the children it serves.
Why Credentialled Gifted Educators Are Rare — and Why That Matters
There are very few psychologists and educators who combine deep clinical expertise in gifted assessment with formal recognition for teaching excellence. Most gifted education advocates are strong practitioners or strong communicators — rarely both, and rarely with institutional backing at the level SUSS represents.
Dr Inderbir bridges that gap. She brings the rigour of a psychologist, the warmth of a teacher, the clarity of an author, and now the standing of an award-winning educator. That combination is what makes her work at GiftedKids.in more than a resource — it makes it a reference point.
"Gifted children deserve adults who are not just caring but credentialled — who can walk into any room and be taken seriously. That is what this award helps make possible."— On the significance of the SUSS Excellence in Teaching Award 2023
A Note to Parents and Educators
If you have found GiftedKids.in because you have a child who confuses you — brilliant and struggling, advanced and asynchronous, intense and misunderstood — you are in the right place.
The awards are not the point. The children are. That is the standard Dr Inderbir has held throughout her career, and it is the standard this platform will continue to hold.
Dr Inderbir Kaur Sandhu is a psychologist, gifted education specialist, and Co-Founder of GiftedKids.in. She holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge and has spent over two decades working with gifted and twice-exceptional children. She is the author of The Secret to Raising a Smarter Child and a recipient of the SUSS Excellence in Teaching Award in 2023 and 2026.