Have just been told (despite trying to preserve my PPA afternoon by hiding in the junior library) that I am going to be G&T coordinator next year (the one job I never wanted to have). And yes, I will have to butt into my colleagues classrooms to make a damn list.
G&T is, basically, pointless. 20% of this school go to grammars, so half of a 'selective' group wouldn't make a register here, even though there would be less able children on it at my son's new school (where 6% go to grammars). It raises expectations from parents, proves inflexible (how could he be gifted last year but not now?) and, unless staff are actually willing to do something, is a whole room of paperwork for no educational advantage.
Above all, the problem is that G&T lumps all kids together, as if they had the same need, and my head even wants a club for them! Can you imagine doing that with SEN kids-let's get them all in a room and thus help ASD and ADHD sufferers to become a bit more normal. Absolute crap.
There are, for instance, three kids in my current class I might think of as 'gifted'. One reads at an exceptionally high level but is incapable of independent work, largely because his Mum decided that he should be taught to read everything he could say, so hit him with flashcards at 18 months. One is brilliant at investigative stuff like science and history projects, but can't write neatly or read at anything but slightly above normal levels. The third is simply very mature in her understanding of the world and of people, largely through being the only child of a troubled single Mum, so excellent at literacy and creative work, and above average for Maths. There are perhaps three or four other kids who are by no means gifted but whose reports would show them to be higher achievers than the first two across the board. All these children require different interventions, and I've tried to help them this year. Putting them on a register, and even worse putting them together in a club, would not have helped.
So, yes, it's pointless. But parents like to have a G&T policy in place, parents who have kids who perform well on entry will be more likely to choose the school if it's visible, and probably results may rise over time as a result of active pursuit of register/club etc. But the causality of that is not what my Head will think it is.