Expectations of GIfted and Talented

[Zippidydoda]

My son has recently been invited to some day trips for pupils at his school who are gifted and Talented in some subjects. These needs to be paid for by parents and are quite expensive. We have paid for them but I do wonder about children whose families couldn’t pay!

anyway my query is- if you have a child identified as Gifted and Talented what does your school/class do to meet their needs and stretch them within school?

Other than these day trips I’ve heard nothing about my son being gifted and talented or any other type of stretching for him. He regularly says he finishing his work quickly and easily and helps by being a TA and helping the other children.

I am going to email the school to ask these questions but I am interested to hear what happens at other schools for GAT students.

Yea I think you might be right.
Not sure what I feel about that. At first I felt like it was a nice activity for son to be invited to attend to spend time engaging with engaging activities (it does looks like a fun way to learn, like a whole day project).

Now I feel more like we’ve paid loads for something not really worth it, simply because it was billed as something suited for our sons strengths and interests.

What's the activity?

I don’t want to say exactly so the organisation and therefore area isn’t obvious.

but Basically they run a serious of one day activities. Each activity is linked to a school subject and exploring that subject via a fun activity (for example using math/algebra in practical tasks).

sorry that’s vague 😂 trying to explain without using the exact wording from their website

@Zippidydoda
I think you were flattered Dc was asked to participate. It’s still not an inclusive activity and the school should provide the challenging activities for him. I find it a bit off really. Pp money is another matter.

Anything extra, including school trips are voluntary. Their attendance is voluntary and therefore, paying for it is your responsibility. Only compulsory activities must be funded by the school e.g. 10 hours of swimming lessons, even then it is difficult for schools to provide.

I was really looking for advice on what to expect in terms of support for children working at higher level ability. I mentioned the trip as it is what highlighted the issue to me and being asked to pay for this activity is the only time they have mentioned anything different for his ability level.

It was only as you suggested it should be included. If a company is looking for business and aimed at able, gifted and talented, there is nothing to loose by a school suggesting it. Children should be stretched, where appropriate, so looking at greater depth work. From previous reports, when they report they are working at greater depth, what have they said they have done as examples of work completed. They should give opportunity to challenge e.g more difficult calculations in maths. They may not be aware as teachers often ask pupils to start where they find it comfortable and work towards there challenge.

There is no money in schools for basic resources (one of the reasons for the strikes recently), so most will have limited ability to do much, beyond extra/harder work, differentiated to challenge, which they and you are unlikely to realise. They can make suggestions for opportunity but unlikely to be any funding when they can't fund extra for children who need resources to access the basic curriculum. Be glad you have a child in the top half, find experiences to broaden their knowledge that they might not get at school and try to keep them motivated because boredom or finding work easy can lead to under performance but don't push too hard and cause burn out or push back.

In our town the local primary schools pick out the girfted and talented students and regularly send them to workshop days at private schools. The cost is covered by the private schools.

Selective opportunity for the gifted is definitely still a thing in Kent.

I only have experience of private schools but never any G&T trips (nor really a thing they major on).

They did differentiate work, for example, setting a basic GCSE maths paper for my son in year 2. They also loosely set children from that point so one table had different work - but I suspect that's the same in most schools.

I think it's one of those slightly divisive subjects as no doubt it prompts certain parents to hassle teachers as to why their kids aren't on the programme. Although that might just be the overly competitive parents our schools seemed to attract.

I wouldn't say at parent's evening I give harder work because that's a given (or should be). And harder than what? It depends on the cohort. It also depends on the area of, say, maths. I would say that they are working at GD level which I can't say that unless the work in their book reflects that.

I’ve had kids at 4 primary schools & never heard of anything for specific G&T kids. In fact I thought it was a concept that had ended in around 2010!
Only time it’s come across my radar is in secondary school when one of the local colleges put on a day for ‘g&t’ and my DC was selected by school to attend.

I was right! 2010!

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9065/

What is GD level? (Sorry if it’s obvious)
Why would you not mention at parents eve that you are differentiating work for a child in a particular subject because a child is doing well in that subject? It might not be obvious to a parent. I mean parents know if their child is doing well but if they’re not in education they might not always know that their child is doing exceptionally well in a particular topic. EG I’m not in education, and my son is my first child, so I don’t know what is usual for children his age to be doing in Math in his year.

I guess the organisation involved is just using outdated language then, as are some schools like the one @zelda mentioned.

It seems like provision for pupils with a strength in a particular area varies widely and schools approach it differently.

DD is much older now but for her, all it involved was the teachers regularly complaining to me that she finished her work too quickly (to a v high standard) then sat around bored doing nothing. I just as regularly pointed out that there wasn't a lot I could do about this if their work wasn't challenging her 🤷‍♀️

This is my worry. My son is saying it’s all easy. He gets upset doing the spelling home work and cries in frustration because “I get them all right every week, why do I need to practice things I already know”. I don’t really know how to answer that.

Anyhow the answer seems to be that there isn’t any specific things I should be expecting the school to do because Gifted and talented isn’t a thing anymore. That’s fine and I understand school budgets and time are restricted. I just didn’t want to be slacking on something that I should be addressing if there is an expectation of more input. It’s useful to hear others experiences.

Re things like spellings they find easy and reading books that they whizz through, it's because those words and books are particularly chosen to ensure all the foundations are in place - so like words that are frequently misspelled etc. It's boring but it is important. I just got her more interesting ones to read herself.

I think the answer is schools should be differentiating on several levels - it isn’t (shouldn’t) be the case that all children receive exactly the same work, but that it isn’t specifically conceived of ‘work for G&T children’.

eg my Y6 child the other day told me that her ability group is skipping some of the steps that most of the class is doing & instead taking a different approach to stretch them. She is working at greater depth (GD). This I would say is pretty standard provision in the classroom.

GD is greater depth. Roughly speaking, the levels are usually Working Towards, Expected and Greater Depth. I wouldn't specifically say I was 'differentiating' because it's a bit of an outdated idea really. It suggests there is one class task and then a few children do something different to that. That's just really not how the classroom works. Some days everyone does the same thing, sometimes there might be seven or eight different tasks going on (I do teach 2 year groups at once though). Parents would come away clear though that their child is working at GD level. I don't explicitly tell them though that I give them appropriate level work though as I suppose I expect them to trust my professional judgment - that is such an exceptionally basic part of the job it'd be not far off saying I teach them maths and English every day. Everyone gets appropriate level work. In some cohorts, that might mean no one is at the expected level, everyone could be either WT or GD. It just depends on the class.

The Tories axed all the programmes for gifted and talented children when they got in, in 2010.

This really annoys me. I have a very bright child and I'm not sure if her needs will be met.

Yep, this is what they used to do - no longer

Same as where I was governor - no labelling and definitely no trips for just one academic group. Totally goes against the inclusive for all.

Or, it's cheaper. Bring G&T is actually a type of special need.

If G&T is a special need the same opportunities should be offered to other children with differing but equally important needs.

My daughter wasn't offered anything additional at primary. Now she's at secondary she does additional 'masterclasses' once or twice a term, with children from other state and private schools from across our city. These are free, and I think the children were selected using the CAT tests at the start of y7. They also get opportunity to do a week long summer school and possibly some residentials as they move further up the school.

If G&T is a special need the same opportunities should be offered to other children with differing but equally important needs.

I 100% agree.