Governing body questions re gifted and talented

[Effjay]

I'm a parent governor for our local (state) school and was nominated as lead governor for gifted and talented at the last full governing body. I'm meeting with the Deputy Head in a few days time to understand more about how this works in the school. There are a few key things I'll ask questions about, including how they identify and support G&T children. Does anyone have other good questions? My role is to understand and monitor, and to challenge constructively if need be, not to 'inspect' or criticise.

You could enquire about how they manage dual exceptionality - those children who may have special educational needs as well as being gifted/talented? Do they feel that their identification process adequately supports this group?

Yes! Good one!

How do you spend the pp money on children who are FSM and more able

Have you identified 'hidden' more able children ie EAL, FSM,

What genders are the more able? Is it equal? If not, why is this?

What money is being spent on resources for them? How can you evidence this is a good use of resources?

Are the pupils and parents happy with provision? How do you know this?

Etc, etc

If you google your school and 'data dashboard' there's a link to 'questions for governors' they're generic, but give a starting point and you can then tailor to G+T

My dd was asked to speak to one of the governors recently about the support that she gets as a "G&T" pupil at her primary school. Perhaps you could ask for an opportunity to talk to some of the children as well as to the deputy head?

DD's school is absolutely brilliant in terms of supporting children who are academically able, and they do a lot to ensure that the children are challenged and stretched. However, I was impressed that the governor didn't just ask dd about what support they were given and whether they were being stimulated sufficiently, she also asked about the social and emotional aspects of being identified and "labelled" as G&T - she was keen to know whether the children felt under pressure to achieve because of the G&T label, whether their friends were aware of them doing different activities sometimes, how "cleverness" was generally perceived in the school, and how it affected their friendships etc. I think it's very easy for schools to neglect these aspects, and being different in any way can be difficult for children sometimes.

If I were you, I'd do a detailed study of two pupils - one from year 5 and one from year 6. Preferably both will have been in the school since reception. One should be really good at something and one should be just generally clever - top 10%.

Look at their NC levels year by year and their reports. What G&T provision have they had each year. Have they been bored? Have their parents been asking for more challenging work at any point. If possible, interview the children and their parents with the usual what was good/ even better if questions.

What i think you will learn is that their experiences will very much depend upon who was teaching them each year. There will have been years when the children were not being challenged and then other years where they were. I think you will also find a marked difference between the top 10% child's experience and the one who might be more like top 3%.

I think that sort of study will highlight where the issues lie and give you some ideas for how to join up the year by year experiences into a more unified approach.

These are all excellent ideas and I'll be condensing it into a list of questions for Monday. I really like the idea of talking to a couple of the children too about the support they have received and the emotional aspects of G&T; it's such a delicate balance between challenging them effectively, but not putting them under undue (and potentially damaging) pressure to continually achieve.

Yes indeed. I think another important thing that very able children need to learn is how to fail. If they are used to doing well and finding things easy, then they don't necessarily experience this much and so they don't learn how to cope with it. This can lead to a crippling fear of failure when they're older, as I know from bitter personal experience.

I have worked really hard to ensure that my dd has had opportunities to do things which haven't come easily to her, as I want her to learn that sometimes you just have to persevere with stuff, but I think schools could potentially do more in this respect.

What would have made dd's time at primary school lessons better would have been to allow her to take an independent test to establish what level she was in maths, rather than trying to convince the parent and child they were not that far ahead. No parent should be in the position of telling their child they will never be learning anything new in maths at school and so would they like to leave school?

I think you have a two fold problem: How to stretch those in the top 10% and how to deal with the occasional child who is very advanced in a subject. From reading other threads, some of the later group are being catered for well in schools and for some the school system is failing them.

I may be making assumptions, but it would be interesting to know how many of the parents of truly gifted children are parents of boys and how many of the parents who are confused about their child's ability have girls.

I've just been on another thread about maths in primary. (In the primary education section). If you would like to know how bad dd's experience was with G&T provision, do take a look. Basically, as to the question of how primary schools try to identify G&T, the answer is some try not to, presumably so they don't have to provide support.

There is a real issue of schools playing for time with assessing DC and then putting something in place to support them. The annoying thing is it seems to reset every September too.

Every single one of Ds's teachers has said he is exceptionally able at maths and every single one has waited six weeks to acknowledge it (apart form the one who volunteered it in week 2 but added that she had too many struggling chidlren to have time to teach DS).

It isn't nice that G&T parents are made to feel "pushy" but I think its a deliberate tactic to put us off.

how do they know they have reached the limit of a child's ability if they do not test for it? As far as I am aware no-one has tested dd to see how far she can go in science. one teacher did get her, one taught them more than they needed to know in that year group (a couple/small grp of pupils I think)

Thank you folks for your very helpful comments and feedback

I think it's essential for schools to better informed about identification of gifted children, not just high achievers. Schools identify the top x% in performance, that is NC levels, and they are put in the register but they are not necessarily aware of how much more complex it is. Children who are 2D, dual exceptionality slip through this net, so are some highly gifted children.

What is the difference between a truly gifted and a high achiever? How should a school measure giftedness?

In my son's case, Richmal, we know he's gifted because he was assessed last year as the school's suspected aspergers. No aspergers but very high IQ so gifted by definition. Not a high achiever though, average levels and probably dyslexic. He's not getting what he needs at school - I started a thread today about as I'm looking for suggestions.