What is gifted and talented?

[rosepetal]

My dd's primary school says it's going to start a gifted and talented programme. What does this involve? Does anyone have any direct experience?

no idea sorry, BUMP

The geovernment directive is that 5-10% of all children in schools should be identified as gifted or talented. Gifted if where the child is advanved in lots of different subjects, talented is when they are advanced in one subject. The idea is that when these children have been identified that should be given work to stretch their capabilities and enritch their learning experience.

This can involve setting them different/extra work, taking them out of classes or even extra trips etc.

5-10% of each school will mean that not every child on the G & T regester will be at the same level. For example in secondary school g&T in a grammer school will often be at a higher level than in a comprehensive as there has already been selection based on ability IYSWIM.

HTH

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And may also do the same to the staff!

Yet another initiative wwith no money to fund it

Cod - are you just trying to wind me up? I'm not biting

Hmb, there is some money around especially in EiC zones.

Rosepetal, it's a huge area, and what the school means by a G&T programme could be anything. Our school has many initiatives which actually affect the kind of teaching the whole class gets; individual and small group projects and challenges; as well as loads of extra curricular activities and opportunities including a fabulous Saturday explorers club.

This is a fascinating article on the subject

Wish that we could get some of it!

I'm still fed up with teaching sixth formers with no text books! None of our children have text books to take home, we don't even have a book for each child, they have to share one between two, sometimes one between three.

I have no ict provision in my lab, other than my laptop. We do have one computer projector (that is between 16 labs). All the ict I use is my own. Stuff I have bought. So far I estimate that I have spent about £200 on books, software and consumables. Last week I spent £3 on glue for my classes. We don't have any in the department.

I know that £3 isn't much but ffs! No books, no ICT and no glue even! (as you can tell I'm a bit miffed at the moment!)

hmb - what happened to books - we had them coming out of ears when I was at school could hardly carry my satchel! (satchel?! jeez!) my kids didn't seem to suffer from of a lack of books either.

Can you bring me up to date?

TBH it depends on the school.

I teach in a school that has stayed in budget. The head believes in fiscal responsibility.

Across the road is another comp. All the kids have a book. The head believes that all kids shold have a book for each subject. they are £500,000 in debt.

FWIW both schools have comperable exam results.. we are marginaly better on some measures. Make is flipping hard work for us tho!

I had books for home use at A level and another copy in school, as they were so heavy. That as because the books were generaly well looked after and no-one had wrecked them or knicked them. But that is another thread!

Our primary school seems exceptionally well-resourced, but we are in a deprived area, and the Head is very on the ball as far as applying for any extra funding that's going.

I don't know anything about secondary school funding - we've got that joy to come
I try not to think about it. The KS3 SATs results were published this week, and 2 out of the 4 secondary schools in town are in the bottom 5% of the country for 'value added' and actual results, and the other 2 aren't much better ... EEK!

hmm yes - first job of the term - back your books! (text and exercise)

is Barrow deprived?

Helping out in my ds1's infant school last summer they had no glue apart from the copydex stuff. I was hepling the kids stick paper into books and the mess they made was unbelievable. They should have been using pritt stick, but had run out weeks ago.

We do have some pritt sticks, or at least we did we sold the last two weeks ago. We sell them at cost to the kids. Not all the kids can afford them.

As we don't have text books for the kids to revise from we use a lot of work sheets (cuts down on the writing that the kids have to do, don't get me started on this one either!). If they don't stick them in they get lost, or stick in out of context which makes them useless as a revision tool. So I buy glue. I used to buy pritt but this was costing me about £12 a month. now I buy runny clear glue in big pens, not idea but a compromise. The kids will insist on covering the whole sheet to stick it, so one pritt stick would last less than one lesson

Its a terrible situation isn't it?

We (me and TA)were also sharpening all the pencils - of which there were many - using pathetic, blunt plasic sharpeners. I remember having a heavy duty sharpener on the teachers desk when we were at school.

These little things just seem to make it harder than it shoukd be

roisin, I just looked at your link - "STRUCTURED TINKERING"????? What are these people on?

hmb - doesn't this lead to a huge photocopying bill? I went to a large comp many moons ago and I remember not having biol text books then. We used to make our own "books" with treasury tags and a hole punch. I had hoped that things would have improved in the sciences by now.

I actually like that article Janh (I liked FlatJan as well, though I didn't realise it was you )

Joolstoo - I presume that was tongue-in-cheek?! You have been, haven't you? I love it here though, and SureStart are doing great things here with the pre-schoolers. (4 of the council wards in the town have over 33% [up to 46% ] of households below the poverty line, and unemployment is scary. We moved here from Oxfordshire, it was a bit of a shock I can tell you!)

Roisin - I really didn't know that.

To be fair I have only driven in on the A590 and only really know Tesco and have a vague idea of the town centre

but you have shocked me!

Ha! Most people it's the only thing they know! Actually, because there's a lot of urban regeneration money sloshing around, the town is starting to look pretty smart, and the schools are very well resourced.
But there's still no jobs But people don't want to move away because they have these huge extended families, and it's a great place to live.

Property prices are a bit different to Oxfordshire though: You can pick up a 2 bed terrace for £22k
and a nice one for £40k! (They are tiny though and no gardens, but there's thousands of them.)

Barrow's main problem now is its position, isn't it? There is nowhere people can commute to so if they're going to get a job elsewhere they really have to move away.

Accrington is v similar in many ways - all the huge companies that used to employ 100s of people have gone - but at least there are other towns and a motorway nearby.

Roisin - apologies for getting off the point but did you apply for the dream job in the end?

Yoyo, thanks for asking, yes I got the application in. The closing date was Thursday last week. I don't know whether they want to appoint for Sep start or earlier. If earlier and they're in a rush then they may get their act together and shortlist next week before they break up. Fingers crossed!

I've got a few other applications in the pipeline too, and one on my desk that I ought to be doing now, instead of being on here

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sorry, off topic, good luck with the applications, roisin.

I didn't realise Barrow was as you describe - hope the regeneration money helps those secondary schools asap!