GIFTED AND TALENTED PUPILS POLICY

Rationale

St. Mary’s aims to provide a stimulating and secure teaching and learning environment in which all children:

  • want to learn;
  • are enabled to develop skills and abilities (mental, physical, emotional and social) in the achievement of their potential;
  • experience success, thereby boosting self esteem so that challenges and new situations are met readily;
  • support and celebrate the achievements of peers, providing a positive atmosphere within the classroom;
  • have good relationships with staff where strengths, preferences and prior experiences are known so that optimum learning can take place.

Aims

This policy should be viewed within the context of our wider commitment to:

  • enabling all children to aspire to individual goals;
  • high expectations for the achievement of all pupils;
  • promoting ‘learning skills’ which enable all children to become increasingly confident, independent learners.

Defining ‘Gifted’ and ‘Talented’

The DCSF AND OFSTED define ‘gifted pupils’ as those with academic ability which ‘places them significantly above the average for their year group’. Talented pupils are those with artistic, musical, sporting or dance abilities which are ‘significantly above average’. Schools are required by the DCSF to identify 5-10% of pupils as ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ within each year group. Due to the size of the school, some caution is used when being guided by this figure. Teacher assessments, (rather than the need to pinpoint a specific number of children) will inform identification within a particular class, where the number of individuals may, on occasion, be smaller, for example:

Areas of Ability

  • specific academic aptitude in literacy, language, reading and writing or maths/science/logic.
  • creative or productive thinking; curiosity about the world
  • leadership qualities/personal and social skills
  • artistic ability
  • expressive arts
  • physical ability

Identification

We recognise that ‘gifted’ and ‘talented’ may describe a pupil:

  • adept in many areas of the curriculum
  • particularly skilled in one subject
  • with a flair for one aspect of a subject e.g. poetry, line drawing
  • for their entire school career
  • for a particular stage within their school life (others may develop relatively faster, for example)

Ways We Identify our Gifted and Talented Pupils

We use the following methods to identify and compile the ‘Gifted and Talented’ register. The register, with supporting evidence is made available to all staff.

  • teacher assessment/classroom observations/work scrutiny
  • test data (SATs, Optional SATs, NVR at Y4)
  • parental information
  • information provided by external agency e.g. music tutor, PE Coach
  • discussion with pupils or peers

Conditions Which Support Effective Identification of Higher Ability

  • Provision of challenging classroom activities to enable the pupils to show aptitudes, quality of thinking and unusual conjectures
  • Teachers’ recognition of ability without being patronising
  • Use of checklists which are carefully monitored and supplemented by other mechanisms
  • Awareness of subject-based criteria of excellence
  • A teaching style which fosters discussion and open-ended enquiry
  • Careful recording of observed evidence of special abilities
  • Opportunities for pupils to be engaged in self assessment, reflection and target-setting.

Conditions Which Support Monitoring

Once identified, the progress of our Gifted and Talented children is monitored and reviewed regularly. It is not assumed that the register will remain static. Records of individual children are kept by the class teacher so that Gifted and Talented pupils form part of the dialogue upon transition to a new year group (including secondary transfer).

Approaches and Activities

It is widely recognised that high expectations raise the achievement of all pupils. Provision for gifted and talented pupils therefore takes place, in the main, in the context of whole class teaching. Where a child has been identified as gifted or talented, appropriate provision is agreed, planned and implemented, with subsequent review.

Provision

We place significant emphasis on a hierarchy of thinking skills and would expect to use strategies skills which promote these, especially use of higher order skills which we might expect from our gifted and talented pupils.

  • differentiation within planning
  • use of TA where appropriate
  • teaching of ‘thinking skills’ especially ‘PMI’ and ‘thinking hats’
  • questioning including stepped questions directed at a particular child
  • open ended investigations
  • problem solving/enquiry tasks
  • the promotion of creativity across the curriculum
  • flexibility in the method of recording
  • themed week/days
  • visits: off site or from external agencies e.g. poet, soccer academy, theatre group
  • opportunities for independent research
  • opportunity to devise own questions
  • discussion with pupils re ways of learning which suit them in particular situation
  • specific discussion of targets
  • opportunities to evaluate own progress against targets

Acceleration is only considered under exceptional circumstances, after full consultation between staff, parents and the pupil concerned.

Wider provision

  • school clubs
  • support beyond school community-sports coach, music tutor etc
  • liaison with other schools within family – shared provision/activities as appropriate
  • LEA initiatives

The progress made by gifted and talented pupils should be monitored carefully to ensure that the above provision is impacting on their learning.

Parental Involvement

Partnership with parents is vital in the education of all children. A dialogue is encouraged whereby parents can inform staff of extra-curricular interests and achievements, whilst teachers may relate areas in which pupils exhibit a particular ‘skill’, ‘interest’ or ‘ability’, enabling suggestions as to how this may be developed out of school. Whilst it is important to celebrate a child’s achievements, the use of the terms ‘talent’ and ‘gift’ are to be used cautiously, since, without qualification, a certain ‘genius’ may be inferred.

APPENDIX 1

FURTHER INFORMATION

A ‘Gifted’ or ‘Talented’ pupil may:

  • be an enthusiastic learner
  • be well behaved and compliant
  • perform well in tests
  • be a confident speaker
  • be eloquent
  • present written work neatly and in full
  • respond well to challenge
  • concentrate for long periods
  • persist to overcome difficulties
  • be mature in outlook or socialise well with both peers and/or adults
  • be confident
  • have good spatial awareness
  • have good general knowledge
  • be born Sept-December
  • be disinterested
  • be disruptive and confrontational
  • fail to show full understanding in test conditions
  • be a hesitant speaker
  • have limited vocabulary
  • write illegibly with minimal detail
  • prefer tasks which require little effort
  • have limited concentration span
  • be easily defeated or react negatively to perceived failure
  • have under developed social skills or an immature outlook
  • lack confidence
  • have poor spatial awareness
  • have knowledge limited to a specific area
  • be born during the summer

APPENDIX 2

LEVELS / EXAMPLES
Knowledge / Know
Comprehension / Understand
Application / Use
Analysis / Compare,
talk about connection
and patterns
Synthesis / Put it together and use in a different way.
Create – using what you know.
Making links with things in a different way
What if
Evaluation / Objectivity and judgement

Knowledge

This level is concerned with the acquisition of knowledge – learning facts, for example. This is the basic level which asks the learner to identify, list and describe newly-acquired knowledge. This may involve some repetition for some pupils. Higher ability pupils may already have a good knowledge base. If not, they must acquire the skills to find out facts when they need them. Facts may be remembered quite easily, even though the remembering is not always accompanied by understanding of concepts related to them. Spelling of words, mathematical symbols, terminology and names of scientific equipment can be classified under this category.

Comprehension

This level is concerned with showing what knowledge has been acquired and trying to explain what has been learnt. Paraphrasing what has been learnt, answering questions based on a passage which has been read, or summarising what is read may be the type of suitable activity at this level. In a normal classroom situation, comprehension exercises which ask direct questions or mathematics word-problems based on a suggested algorithm or number operation are examples of work at this level.

Application

At this level pupils can be asked to make use of what they have learnt and apply their knowledge in practical and problem-solving situations. This level requires a higher level of demand on their cognitive processing and higher ability pupils are often capable of taking problem tasks to complex levels. Children involved in problem-solving activities in technology, mathematics or science need to apply concepts in order to solve problems.

The next three levels are often referred to as the higher levels of thinking:

Analysis

Analysis is a more complex skill, which involves looking at situations and breaking them down into component parts and perceiving relationships between them. Categorising information and seeing patterns and themes emerge are analytical processes. Analysis is very useful for understanding new ideas and making strong connections between ideas. It is a more ‘active’ process than the first three levels and can result in both discoveries and generalisations.

Synthesis

We often refer to this level as the most ’creative’ level . It involves looking at things in a different way, asking the question ‘what if…’, ‘hypothesise’ or ‘recreate’. This level fosters a thinking style which is more original or unexpected, and encourages taking risks and creating new ideas. Our experience suggests that higher ability pupils often take up the challenge of designing something unusual and new very positively. Examples of some ‘creative’ products were presented earlier in this chapter. A ‘would you rather be a bird or a butterfly?’ type question, or being asked to design a new animal, may lead to this level of thinking. Planning activities at this level may take a bit more effort on the teacher’s part because they are not easily transportable from textbooks. But when teachers have made the effort they have found the experience and the products of their children’s work extremely rewarding.

Evaluation

It is not surprising that this is classified as the highest level of thinking, as it involves many processes – personal reflection, assessment skills, making decisions and appraising the effects of something. Evaluating the effectiveness of personal and others’ products of thinking require this type of mental activity. Presentation of projects to others, reviewing one’s own and other people’s ideas, keeping reflective diaries of events are examples of this type of thinking being encouraged in the classroom.