Gifted & talented should be stopped!

[lijaco]

I think this should be stopped it isn't accurate, it isn't fair and parents become self obsessed with it. Learning then becomes pressure for kids from parents to be top. If you didn't you wouldn't have this section. STOP IT!

[fembear]

Can't understand what, lijaco? kb's comment seems to imply that teachers are so useless that they cannot recognise G&T when it is right in front of their noses. Are you suggeting that G&T should be stopped because teachers are rubbish at spotting the most able kids. Don't you think that a bit of teacher-training might be a better solution?

[kittybrown]

I wasn't implying that teachers are useless at spotting all G&T children. It's more the fact of labelling all high performing children as G&T when using solely attainment as the criteria.

It was found in the study that when the teachers had had better training and used 7 criteria they identified 85%.
So it's obvious that better teacher training would help.

I'm not sure it should be stopped just rejigged a bit. Differentiation should be happening in all lessons anyway for all children not just the top 3 performers in a class of 30.

[juuule]

"Differentiation should be happening in all lessons anyway for all children "

I totally agree with this. I also think that things which are offered to G&T children should also be available for other children if they are interested. It might be the extracurricular things that are offered that could encourage an interest in otherwise disinterested children and bring the best out in them and even put them in the G&T category.

[fembear]

Well a few seconds googling finds that the government issued, a year ago, a guidance leaflet about G&T where it states that exemplary schools are where "multiple criteria and sources of evidence are used to identify gifts and talents, including through the use of a broad range of quantitative and qualitative data." [my italics]

The leaflet also says that "care should be taken to ensure that identification reflects ability rather than achievement ... does not unduly disadvantage any group of learners including those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, children in care, children with SEN and particular ethnic or gender groups."

It also states that the school should "provide CPD for all staff to support rigorous, consistent and transparent processes". This will also mean that all staff should be involved and should not be able to take the cop-out route of saying that it is nothing to do with them.

So it appears that up-to-speed schools and teachers are already aware of potential pitfalls regarding identification and know what to do about it. Here's hoping that the rest catch up soon.

[DadAtLarge]

To add to what fembear has said...

kittybrown, assume that there is a fool proof way of identifying the top 10% in intelligence. Wouldn't that set include all academically gifted children?

So the problem is with the identification?

On the face of it, IQ tests appear to be the more logical solution ...if the only option was achievement based (which it is not).

However, there's are several problems with IQ Tests. Apart from being highly unreliable at lower ages, each test needs to be conducted by a properly trained psychologist. The resources that would drain from the system would be huge. What guarantees would there be that these psychologists are independent? We've seen how the establishment fails brighter kids. The government's own reviews are scathing. Teachers - and G&T coordinators - openly state that they pay the scheme only lip service. Why would new employees in that same establishment work contrary to what their colleagues are trying to achieve? Even if IQ testing is done fairly it's going to spot very, very little of the real geniuses. Everything from photographic memories to exceptional talent in art, sport and music would be missed.

I think the current, multi-pronged guidance is quite good. That it's not successful is in no small part due to those teachers who are happy to take the job (and pay?) of G&T coordinator but lack the conviction or decency to declare that their moral opposition to G&T directs them only to sabotage the whole concept of finding talent and catering/nuturing it. Their resentment and malevolence is directly particularly at catering for the academically gifted.

You've got to be careful with criticism of the G&T. Die hard socialist absolutism motivates some to hijack any criticism as an argument against any specialist provision for the more able. They see it as elitist, as unfair, as entrenching advantage. They clutch at any straw. That there is an occasional pushy parent is seen as just cause for banning completely not just provision for the more able but even the identification of the really gifted. That the initial filtering is a broad 10% is used to argue that no really gifted children exist.

Differentiation should happen across the board, yes, but there are sometimes children so gifted or talented that they are off the scale. For them the normal differentiation is just not enough. A child may have exceptional gifts in music, art, a sport or an academic area that is just beyond the teacher to cater for adequately. I have a 6-7 year old DS who can do stuff with numbers that none of his teachers can. He has a million maths questions that his teacher can't even understand let alone explain. Differentiation in his context is doing a different sheet of work ... not helping him enjoy and explore the subject. It means keeping up an appearance of teaching him instead of actually feeding his appetite for knowledge.

Encouraging such children to meander towards mediocrity may create less work for the teacher/school but is shortsighted, stinks of envy and, to me, is deeply repugnant. Society is all the poorer for it.

[juuule]

Dadatlarge - why don't you home educate your son? If he is so outside the norm? then how can a general system cater for him? If you want him to take advantage of the school system then maybe consider getting other tuition or interests outside of school. If he is so far ahead in his subject then seek support for that subject at the school. But you will probably need to research what would benefit him before approaching the school.

[Piffle]

I still am fascinated by the thought that being on the G+T list changes anything - at least in the UK
It has done sweet FA for my son and his grammar is now apparently a specialist at G+T provision

DAL
Good luck with maths support.
My son was doing GCSE maths at age 8, guess what he's doing at age 15?
Yep GCSE maths with STATS!!!!
Now they have a free standing Maths qualification as well.
I despair
I have a DD aged 6 in yr 1 who is on the G=T list and is also SN but has been turned dow for statementing BECAUSE she is not struggling academically, of course when she starts to struggle, they may step in and offer help.

I'm livid tbh

[kittybrown]

The mutli-pronged approach is good but it's new it'll take a few years to embed. I don't put it's faliure down to resentment on the teachers part it just hasn't filtred through yet. Many schools will only just be taking the guidence on board and seeing as it came out in May 08 the changes will probably take effect somewhere in the next school year (09-10).

The top 10% in ability/intellegence are not always the top 10% academically. The link between intellegence and academic attainment does not always correlate. There are many reasons why; Fear of failure, peer group pressure, switching off, troubles at home the list is endless.
I never championed the sole use of IQ tests. I was just pointing out that identification methods as they are now are flawed as they rely on solely on achievement. It's much more complicated.

Dadatlarge I too have an exceptional son who can do exceptional things. His school lfe has been incredibly hard. He teaches the teacher about logical paradoxes, nebulae and star formation, Bose-Einstein condensates and the effects of absoute zero and million other things. He's YR5 but he hasn't always performed to show his true self. The teacher can't always diferentiate for him but she does supply advance level books on the subject for him to read. He is also very lucky to sit next to an exceptional girl with whom he can talk to and discuss things.
We know that the school can't cater for every aspect of his education and we don't expect them to. It's like Cory said if he was an exceptional runner we'd stiil have to go to an extra-curricular club to advance that talent he wouldn't be catered for in school.

[cory]

DadAtLarge, the way the LEA/school got round it was saying that dd was not being held back as her results were good= proof that her learning was not being held back. Of course the school was breaking the Disability Discrimination Act and we should have sued them, but suing is a big, potentially expensive affair and not necessarily something you can indulge in at the same time as trying to support a disabled and chronically ill child.

What I am trying to point out is, I know very few children even with recognised Special Needs who have actually got all the help they need to give them a level playing field. Special Needs is not a magic key that opens all doors. It is under-resourced and often in the hands of untrained people.

I get very tired of this oh-if-my-dc-were-only-disabled-he'd-get-all-the-help-he-needed. It is not like that with a disabled child.

LEAs will do anything to try to prove that your child can't really have special needs. Paediatricians have a limited understanding of how schools work and what information they need to provide to get anything out of the LEA.

[DadAtLarge]

kittybrown, I don't believe that G&T's official identification methods were ever solely reliant on achievement. In fact, the core principle has always been to suss out talent that is not immediately obvious via achievement.

Is it your position that if talent can be identified - as in the case of your obviously gifted son - it should be encouraged? If talent was in other areas such as art or music outside of what's normally taught in a high school, should the school cater? What if it's it an academic subject like English or Maths? And for the really, really gifted should any extra resources be devoted so they can grow up to make the discoveries, inventions, paintings compositions and olympic records of Great Britain's future?

Put your son and my son together a few years down the road and how the system treats them now will determine whether they plan a burglary together or attempt to warp space-time.

juule, statistically it's been shown that children from affluent homes are more likely to perform better than those on free school meals. It would be perverse for a teacher to assume that because a child does well in class he's obviously from a rich family and can therefore be "ignored" to a certain extent in order to focus on those whom the teacher is being judged on (because the parents can afford to take him out and teach him at home if they want. Personally speaking, I can't)

"If he is so outside the norm? then how can a general system cater for him?"
He's a normal boy, plays football, likes the Wii, has friends in the class, is a bit above average in intelligence but is very good in maths. This is exactly the type of child the G&T is supposed to cater for.

If you read my other thread, I am getting him tuition outside of school. I am very happy with the school in all other areas. I am trying to work with the school to better cater for his maths needs (even if I have to pay an external tutor myself). I have a simple brief for the school: As I said in that thread, they just have to keep him from getting so bored in class that he becomes disruptive and they have to ensure he doesn't end up hating maths by the time he's in high school.

But parents have every right to expect more. The G&T is meant to encourage these children, get them to develop their skill/talent and flourish in their individual areas of excellence. That includes giving them attention/resources that children without the talent would find no use for (something you oppose). Why do you feel this is a bad thing?

[kittybrown]

It's up to the schools how they identify G&T they don't have to follow the guidelines to the letter. Very often it is down to how the children achieve, especially in primary.It might be that the teachers themselves don't believe in the scheme. I know that I have had to push the school to recognise my sons talents. Not to get him onto the G&T list but to get him some appopriate teaching. He didn't fit their criteria of hard working achiever. He would put in no effort in class and still ace the test but every time the teacher would think it a fluke. His teacher in Yr3 told us he had to learn to be board. We were a bit shocked at the time but as time passed I began to agree with her and now see her point entirely. The school have not stretched him academically but they have given him something more valuable in my eyes, methods to cope with bordom and how to enjoy mundane tasks. He's not going to lose his intellegence but he is going to lose his childhood. He's got plenty of time to create his planet saving invention.

Of course if talent can be identified it should be encouraged. Our school has an assembly to celebrate achievements every week Football trophies, Netball trophies, achievements out of school such as cub/brownie badges but never once do they celebrate academic achievement and I do think that is wrong.

I would love my son to get the individual attention he needs at school. Some schools are very good and have retired high school teachers volenteering or groups going for regular lessons in the local high school. These are unfortunately in the minority. I do also agree with Juuule that the extra curricular things my son has been on would inspire the most disinterested pupils. They are always about stretching sideways and improving thinking skills which most pupils could do with a dose of. I can see the impracticalities of giving my son the attention he needs though. Although he's bright he still has huges holes in his knowledge that the primary teachers can fill. Hiring experts is costly and there are many children that need the expertism of others just to help them access the basics of the curriculum. I will always put them before my son.

[GooseyLoosey]

G&T is (IMO) the product of the fallacy underpinning comprehensive eduction - ie all children are accademically equal and can be treated as such in the class room.

Clearly this is not the case - some children need help to understand the basics, other children need help to go further than their peers. This does not make either child better or worse - it is just a straight forward difference in needs.

I wholeheartedly agree that we should drop G&T as a label as it is quite clearly meaningless. However, we should be moving to a system where we get rid of the curriculum time devoted to SATs and other league table type exercises and allow teachers to focus more on the needs of the individual child.

[juuule]

Completely agree with GooseyLoosey's post and think that any funding should be directed at that.

[DadAtLarge]

Oh, good, juuule

So you agree that some children are clever and some aren't? And that provision should be made based on needs even if that means that the really, really gifted get special resources?

Guess we just differ on whether the way the G&T is structured at the moment is the best way to find those that are the top end of the academic scale.

I agree about the SATS - we need a better way to assess how schools and teachers are performing. But we do need a system that assesses them.

[Piffle]

I think and certainly when it comes to maths, if you have a truly gifted maths child then tutoring etc can be a double edged blade.
It extends, maybe widens the childs understanding and desire and achievement.
But for what? To be even further ahead at a school which is already unable to keep that child sufficiently occupied in that subject.
I thought very very long and hard about it for my DS1 (now 15)
I knew private education was impossible financially (I was working single mother) so I thought well I'll just give him travel and books and broaden him in other ways, teach him to cook properly etc
I am utterly relieved I chose this path because although he has always been light years ahead of his peers, he has been able to stay in the classroom within his year (maturity not as accelerated as his mind)

Luckily circs changed and I remarried and we were able to move up north to a very good grammar school catchment.
Phew we thought, at last he'll be stretched
Which he has been a little to be fair

But he ahs had two maths theories - one about prime numbers relating to pythagorean triples and another about the net of a net of a tesseract.
Both of these were referred to Cambridge by his Maths head, both came back with
Who is this boy, send him here now please.
We rejected early entry for all normal reasons.
He is yr10 now and sitting many gcses early.

If you hope to keep your child within the state school system, accelerating them outside school can create its own issues.

The YGT system is dire but you can find excellent courses via cambridge MMP (Millenium Maths project here

We have been to several lectures and found the forums excellent

[GooseyLoosey]

Dadatlarge - of course provision should be based on the needs of the child. Help should be just as accessible to those ahead of the game as those struggling to keep up. We need to drop the idea that one way and one level of teaching fits all when it quite clearly does not.

I could not care a less where my dcs' school came in a SATs based league table if I was happy that their needs were being catered for. Obviously, this does not mean that every child needs lots of one-to-one time but it does mean for eg. that teachers should be able to say "ORT does not suit this child, why don't we let him go to the library and see what he comes back with".

[lijaco]

fembear - nonsense I never said that!??? Read through again maybe would be a good idea!
This inaccurate g &t labelling needs to stop because in my opinion it is taken out of all context. A register isnt needed to stimulate and stretch all children. With parents thinking that they have more rights than other children. when a lot of gifted and talented kids are not actually within the top 10 %. The top 10 % may contain some of them. The top 10% are achievers, not all kids can be measured ACCURATELY this way. Also disadvantaged kids are still being failed!

[DadAtLarge]

"Also disadvantaged kids are still being failed"
So shouldn't the system look at better ways of including gifted children from disadvantaged backgrounds rather your preferred option of excluding every gifted child?

[snorkle]

Piffle, The problem with most of the millenium maths lectures that I've seen is that they've been on weekdays & would need time off school. Is this always the case do you know? Has your school been OK about time off?

[lijaco]

Dadatlarge I never said exclude any children. It is the system of gifted and talented that IS excluding children!!!!!!!!! I posted it should be stopped (this labelling not the recognising)as it is NOT accurate and it isn't fair. Parents become obsessed with it! This is becoming elitist!!!!!!!!!! Get a grip!

The system should include all children! ALL!!

[fembear]

ROFL at lijaco.
Now I know for sure that you are a troll and a wind-up merchant.

[juuule]

Fembear, What makes you think that about lijaco? What's the problem in aiming for an all-inclusive system where each child is catered for according to need which is what Lijaco seems to be advocating to me.

[DadAtLarge]

I'm inclined to call troll as well. Someone who argues fervently that 10% is too wide now wants the 10% widened in include all children?! Maybe I'm understanding this wrong.

lijaco, it seems you and I agree on a lot of things:

• Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to shine in school
• 10% of the children in each class - no matter how chosen - are not all "gifted"
• Some parents may take the label too seriously and harm their children by pushing them
• Children should be provided for based on each one's need
• Children from disadvantaged backgrounds have needs that others don't and these needs should be catered for
• Gifted is not just academically gifted but children could have special talent in everything from music to art to football
• That the children who are really gifted academically account for a very, very small percentage
• This very, very small percentage of really gifted children should be "recognised" (your word, lijaco)
• Labelling doesn't help them but this group has needs different to the others and should similarly be catered for
• G&T is not working

Just so I can better understand your position, would you and juuule care to comment on which of the above you disagree with so I know what I'm not understanding? That would help me more than just repeating "it should be banned, it should be banned".

[DadAtLarge]

correct (3) to read:

• Many parents do take the label too seriously and harm their children by pushing them

(just trying to reach agreement)

[kittybrown]

I don't think lijaco is a troll. i think she's been misunderstood. The 10% is too wide as there is a huge difference of ability between the top 10% and the top 1%/0.1%/0.01 which means there should be differentiation of work even within the the 10%. If you've got to differentiate within the G&T why not differentiate for everyone.

I agree with your points Dadatlarge but I also think that everyone should be recognised not as G&T as it stands now but for the gifts, talents, passions and interests they possess.