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DIRECTORATE OF EDUCATION AND LEISURE
CHECK LIST FOR WRITING A SCHOOL POLICY
FOR MORE ABLE AND TALENTED CHILDREN: SECONDARY.
Rationale:
- Equality of opportunity and provision;
- Breadth of curriculum and beyond;
- Whole child.
Aims:
- Early identification;
- Extending opportunities and expectations;
- Recognising and meet the “whole child’s” needs;
- Promoting the child’s self- esteem;
- Addressing specific skills and talents;
- Extending teaching and learning skills;
- Celebrating the further development of the school as a learning community
- Recognising emotional needs
Definitions:
- More Able and Talented is the general term for this concept;
- Children may be more able and/ or talented in diverse fields (academic, creative, sporting, social, leadership);
- More able children would demonstrate a higher ability than average for the class and would often require differentiated tasks and opportunities to learn through challenges;
- Most able children will be working at two levels above the majority of children in the class and would sometimes require additional and different provision. This would be supported by an IAP;
- Talented children demonstrate an innate talent or skill in creative or sporting fields
- More able and talented children may be “high flyers”, coasters or disaffected.
Identification Strategies:
- School adopts a clear, recognised checklist (see toolkit);
- School engages with parents, possibly using the questionnaires in the appendix
- All staff have a clear understanding of the terms, “most able”, “more able” and “talented” (see case studies);
- Judgements will be consistent within and between schools.
Roles and Responsibilities:
- More able and talented Co-ordinator;
- Class teachers;
- Parents;
- Child;
- Governors;
- LEA co- ordinator.
Partnership and Communication:
- School More able and Talented Database and IAP;
- Communication with parents, (possibly via questionnaires in appendix);
- Appropriate internal communication;
- School- cluster group communication;
- School- LEA communication
- LEA register;
- Communication with specialist groups;
- School prospectus;
- Links with higher education;
- Governors’ annual Report to Parents;
- Summer schools/ residential courses;
- Links with the community;
- Links with industry.
Organisation:
- Work reasonably within the school’s curriculum policy;
- Agree expectations;
- Flexible and efficient use of resources;
- Evaluation and consideration of appropriate organisational strategies;
- Differentiation;
- Grouping/ setting;
- Extension and enrichment
Learning and Teaching:
- Planning (complementing existing structures);
- Teaching issues;
- Learning issues:
- Developing enrichment and extension activities (see Toolkit / list of websites).
- Creative;
- ICT.
- Out of school experiences
Monitoring and Evaluation:
- School self- evaluation;
- Monitoring and evaluation policy;
- Register/ IAPs;
- Pupil Profiles/ portfolios;
- Governors’ Reports;
- Annual Report to Parents;
- Children review of their individual targets.