Allerton Grange High School - Gifted & Talented

Allerton Grange School Gifted and Talented Policy

Allerton Grange is fully committed to equality of opportunity for all students. We believe that every student, whatever their ability, has the right to be challenged and encouraged to develop to his or her full potential. We understand the phrase 'gifted and talented' to refer to the top 10% to 15% of our pupils as measured through both actual and potential achievement.

Identification

At Allerton Grange the identification process works at two levels: subject specific and whole school. Each curriculum area is responsible for creating its own subject specific gifted and talented register. Each head of a curriculum area and G&T champion is responsible for identifying and logging G&T students on SIMS.

Curriculum areas may use a variety of strategies in identifying gifted and talented students, including:

Subject assessment data
Continuous assessment (including homework)
Subject specific checklists
Observation of classroom performance

From these lists a whole school gifted and talented register will then be created. This register will be reviewed throughout the year.

These students will be identified in the following ways:

Students on one or more subject specific gifted and talented register
Whole school assessment data
Pastoral nominations
Parent nominations
Discussions with the EAL/DAHIT team and other colleagues around school

Provision for Gifted and Talented students

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Provision for gifted and talented students is provided both in curriculum areas and whole school.
Curriculum areas are responsible for:
Ensuring that 'bright sparks' activities are present in every scheme of learning
Developing 'bright sparks' areas on the VLE
Completing half termly reviews with their gifted and talented students
Using the G&T champions to provide regular feedback on successes failures and good practice in this area.

Whole school the Gifted and Talented coordinator is responsible for:

Creating a whole school vision for gifted and talented provision
Ensuring the gifted and talented program becomes more inclusive and representative of the cohort
Providing assertive mentoring to gifted and talented students failing to reach their potential
Developing parent-teacher links
Creating whole school enrichment opportunities
Acceleration of the curriculum
Working in conjunction with Lorna McDermott to ensure underachieving Gifted and Talented students at KS4 achieve their potential.
Providing training and support to all curriculum areas to improve school wide practice

Monitoring of Progress

The gifted and talented cohort is monitored in the following ways:

Individual progress in terms of assessment data is tracked and compared with other students.
The value added of the gifted and talented cohort is compared with the value added of other groups within the school.
Each gifted and talented pupil has a learning review meeting to discuss targets once per half term.
SEN champions and curriculum leaders monitor and feedback on the progress of gifted and talented students, ensuring that students are making progress in the development of their social and interpersonal skills, as well as the development of their academic abilities.
Classroom provision for gifted and talented is monitored by the coordinator for gifted and talented students as part of the ongoing cycle of lesson observations and work sampling.
Yearly student and parent voice is completed to reflect and evaluate on school wide gifted and talented provision.

Characteristics of G&T student

To have exceptional potential
To be an outstanding reader
To be articulate or verbally fluent for their age
To have quick verbal responses
Have a wide general knowledge
Be interested in topics that might be associated with older students
Be able to communicate effectively with adults often better than their peer group
To show unusual and/or original responses to problem solving
To have an ability to work things out on their own quickly
To have strong opinions and views
To have a lively and original imagination and sense of humour
To focus on their own interests rather than what is taught
To find it difficult to build relationships with their peer group
Be easily bored by a routine task
Show a strong sense of leadership
Not necessarily appear to be well behaved
Not necessarily achieve the highest level on a test.

Gifted & Talented action plan. View here

Added 14th Nov 2011