Trainee Teacher needing your opinions on Gifted & Talented

[EducationEd]

Hi everyone, I am a 2nd year trainee Primary School teacher at the University of Hertfordshire and I am currently undertaking a research project on gifted and talented children. Basically I would just like to find out your opinions on first whether a child should be made aware that they are gifted or talented. Second, what implications could this label have on their work, social relationships, wellbeing etc both positive and negative. If you have a child who is considered gifted or talented what changes have you seen in their work levels, behaviour, relationships with other children? Does your son or daughter know someone who is gifted or talented? What is their opinion on these children? All this information is 100% confidential and no names or anything should be disclosed in your information. I will be really greatful for any information you can give me and thanks very much!

my daughter has been in the G&T group at her school since reception (now yr3). She loves the small group lesson they have 1 x week for about half of the year. That motivates her to keep doing her best, she wants to stay in the group. Apart from that i don't think she thinks anything much. She is self assured and would describe herself as "clever". Her relationships with other kids is good, no social issues though she does favour boys (club penguin, harry potter, computer games etc is her thing) and gets on well with other "bright" children. She can find girls of her age quite girly and lacks things in common with them.

I can't see how it helps to tell the kids or label them as such. Our school call the group the Explorers, which seems to work well. I certainly wouldn't tell my son he's in it because he's 'Gifted & Talented'. I wouldn't term him as such anyway - he's bright, but I think to be truly 'G&T' you need to be extraordinary and most schools would probably only see such a child very rarely, rather than 10% of the whole intake.

For me it's unfair that those kids selected get to go off and do lots of creative treats. Other kids across the spectrum need that input as much as the bright ones. Am not at all saying children don't need to be stretched, but I can't see why some are more deserving than others. If I had a vote I'd say all children should get a chance to be in the group - after all they're all good at something!

We don't have it at our school. If we did then dd2 would be in top 10 percent, dd1 probably not, but the average in her class is v high. In yr 6 50 percent passed 11+, how do you explain to them that 3 are good enough for G+T group, but other 12 'only' good enough to go to grammar school. Think would dent self esteem based on arbitary line compared to their immediate peers.

I can see the value of encouraging a G+T child from a socially deprived background to aspire high and give them extra support if possible, but for the ave MC child the parents will probably be doing 'enrichment' anyway. I wouldn't take dd2 to the museum because she was really into something and leave dd1 at home because she isn't as obsessed with history. I don't see why a school should either.

I think that more able than average children are often forgotten in a classroom when there is heavy focus on helping the least able. So, any scheme which helps these children is a positive (after all these children are equally deserving of being given opportunities to achieve their potential).
In practice, "differentiation" of work is not always sufficiently differentiated to take into account the needs of the more able children, and therefore a focus on their needs once in a while is no bad thing.
However, I would agree with others who says gifted and talented is a misnomer, and therefore its not helpful to call these children something that they are not. Explorers sounds like a good name to give the G&T lessons.

I don't see any purpose in letting a child (or indeed their peers) know that they are 'gifted and talented'. We tell DD that everyone has a special thing that they are good at, and hers just happens to be reading.

We also worry about the effect on her relationship with her peers, and in fact we are starting to think about asking school to hold back on showing her achievements to the rest of the class, for this very reason.

But I do agree with meredeux that the label is very useful when used between consenting adults, because getting adequate differentiation from the school is fairly hard work. And it's better used in doing that than in 'awarding' these children enrichment which should be given to all children in an ideal world.

Thanks for all your comments so far, very helpful and interesting to hear all your views

I should clarify I have no problem with differentiation when they are moving faster than their peers, but a cut off of 10 percent is just arbitary. I also would rather that funded trips were directed to a slightly less able child whose parents couldn't/wouldn't bother. As for funding myself, we already pay loads (having just parted with almost #50 for lunch once a week and half a term swimming lessons for dd1 on top of her private ones). Mine will have to be G+T on the weekend when I can go and have some fun with them too.

The old "G&T" chestnut - the very name riles a lot of people because most children aren't gifted, simply in the top 10% of their years' cohort, mine included. I think a new name needs to be thought of, I even feel embarrassed saying the term to a very small handful of friends because it implies that these kids are mini Einsteins or whatever.

I have posted myself about "Enrichment" days that so-called G&T kids are offerred and the rights and wrongs thereof. In fact, a 'select group' of year 6's (ie. the usual suspects) went off for a day at our feeder High school recently; I asked DD1 how she felt about it - she wasn't going - and she said, and a lot of her friends had the same opinion, that it wasn't fair, it was always the same children and why not choose other children who are interested in the subject but are not at the top academically or maybe don't have parents who support them a lot at home ie it's currently a case of "Well done for being clever, X, Y and Z, have a day out learning new things as a reward and to make you even cleverer!" on DD's and her friends behalf.

I personally feel these enrichment days should be scrapped because of the bad feelings generated and the money and time spent benefitting all children within school.

If the child could imagine complicated number series, spot factors and do things of that sort, what else could you call him or her? And supposing that the teachers even knew what the child was talking about, how would they treat it? How many schools would bring in a specialist mathematician to relate to that one child? (none?) (I think they're the ones who get home ed and get maths A level at twelve.)

My dcs' school does not lable children as G & T, but I actually think that if a child is truly G & T, then they are probably aware of it anyway. DS1 is bright, in the top 10% in a bright class, and can tell me in detail who is in which group, what his group got in tests etc. He just chats about it, like he chats about football. A girl in his class is amazingly bright, and the class are obviously aware of it. The children don't mind, they just treat her as any other classmate, but just acknowledge that she is clever.

DD was G&T at primary school, and the school didn't tell us until the term before she left. This I felt was a great shame, particularly when they were being particularly pushy over SATs results in Yr6. I think it would have boosted DD's confidence to have known this.

My answer was a bit long so I have sent you a PM.

Don't talk about G&T without mentioning that many G&T children also have SEN.

learnandsay - my child could do those things from year 2 e.g he spotted fibonacci series and geometric patterns age 7 , but I wouldn't call him gifted. He's just bright when it comes to maths, that's all.

Once again thanks for your replies. I didnt think this before but as a couple have done so for confidentiality reasons please feel free to pm me if you don't want the info you reveal to be in the public domain. Again thanks very much to all that have responded so far.

I agree with the comments above. DD1 doesn't know she is in the "G&T" group, or that it is called that. She just knows that once a week every now and again she goes off for an hour with a special teacher to do "thinking skills" or word games or whatever it is she does. She loves it. It truly motivates her. She knows that if she doesn't try her best in class that someone else will go. The school do rotate the kids quite a lot, of the 6 that went in reception, 5 new ones have been added and 4 have left. DD2 isn't in the group (yr1) and has only recently realised it is happening. She would like to be in it and again it is motivating her to try harder. There are not any trips or special events funded for this group. I understand the govt stopped the additional funding a couple of years ago. I don't have a problem with this, they don't need the trips, but the small group work is nice.

In our school children are not labelled as AGT but all children (AGT + SEN) are labelled as being with 'additional needs' as we find it much more friendly towards them - they are not called special or gifted. We distinguish between the 2 as AGT = AN(Extended) and SEN = AN(Support) with regards to IEPs and planning etc. This way, we felt it is a much more child friendly term to use.