Gifted and Talented students within our school may be gifted high attaining students across the curriculum or talented in a specific area or areas.
Identification of gifted and talented students may come through a number of sources:
- Testing and tracking of progress
- Diagnostic assessment based on student work and performance in class
- Staff observations and discussions
- Records from previous schools
The School believes in a curriculum of opportunity to answer the needs of all students including the gifted and talented. Teacher’s planning must reflect differentiation and suitably challenging work with enrichment and extension activities. These must take account of individual needs. We will enable gifted and talented students to achieve their potential by:
- Giving close attention to the needs of individual students through differentiation and careful monitoring of progress.
- Recognising the rights of all students to develop their individual skills and abilities by celebrating their achievements.
- Enrichment and extension work and/or an accelerated programme going further with each topic and a more investigative approach.
- Having high expectations of what students can achieve.
- Creating a rich and stimulating learning environment with many opportunities for enrichment.
- Engendering depth of understanding and a “thirst for learning.”
- Using variations in pace, learning styles, classroom organisation and student activities to create interest and motivation.
- Use of questioning and explanation with a choice of activities and tasks.
- Developing higher order thinking skills.
- Encouraging students to reflect on the process of their own learning and to understand the factors that help them make progress.
- Encouraging all students to think for themselves, developing independence and autonomy and supporting students in using their initiative.
- Encouraging students to set high targets and evaluate their learning providing homework activities which are open-ended and challenging.