How do i know if a DC is G & T?

[aristoBLACKcat]

Please help, how can you tell if a child is Gifted & Talented?

Silly question, i know.

[billynomatesmum]

Apologies for the spelling error. LABEL, LABEL, LABEL

[billynomatesmum]

Your school usually inform you in a letter, like the one we've just had about ds.

Ds is bright, he's not G or T and this lable won't help him fit in any better in the playground, particularly if other children were to be influenced by any possible parental scorn/jealousy about the lable.

I will be ignoring the letter and hoping to god it isn't common knowledge, just in case.

[shellye]

Does it matter if a child is G&T? I don't get it. I have a five year old in year 1 at a private school. There are some parents who consistently push and force their kids into everything. They are asking for extra work and challenging the teachers about how there little darlings are taught.I would say most of these kids come from homes where their parents are degree educated. Most of these kids seem bright to me. Why do we need to label them? What real difference is it going to make to their futures? The label is for the parents only, so they can puff their chests out and boast to the other parents.

I have a bright child. At parents evening I was told my DD was the happiest in the class. I puffed my chest out. At 5 I couldn't give a monkey's about anything else. Parents should take a chill pill, these kids are in education for a long time. They don't need the pressure of how to be the best all the time. It will keep the therapists very busy in the future. Rant over with.

[GooseyLoosey]

I wish, I wish, I wish there could be slightly less focus on a child's ability to meet certain targets and more focus on the overall child and what each child needs to make them a happy, fulfilled individual.

Educational nirvana I know, but I can but hope.

[juliemacc]

It seems to me that it is the parents who enjoy the kudos rather than the children, who dont give a monkeys about it - they are just their friends at the end of the day.ju

[juliemacc]

As long as a child is happy and enjoys learning then I dont give a monkeys about whether my child is labelled.

[LilyBolero]

There are so many factors. For example, a boy will statistically do better in a group with a lower proportion of girls in English. But a boy who is 'G&T' in literacy will typically be in a group which is all girls plus him (as boys tend to be 'slower' at literacy than girls - this is certainly the case in ds1's case - he is the only boy in the top literacy group, whereas the top maths group, which he is not in, is a 50-50 split). So what do you do? Do you teach the 'G&T' boy with the 'G&T girls' or do you teach him in a boys' group because this improves boys' performance?

I'm sure the answer is for teachers to be able to do their own assessments of situations, and teach accordingly. One size does not fit all, and what works in one school re 'G&T' will not work in another.

That's why I don't really put much weight on govt publications/press releases.

[trickerg]

Exactly, mrz. Your 'average' may be our 'gifted' and vice versa. If that can happen, how, empirically, can we have a MEASURE of giftedness? It's just ridiculous. A measure of something must have clear parameters and this doesn't. We had a boy excluded from our school who made G+T in the school down the road. He didn't pass his 11+, like most of the children in his new school.....

.... but that gets into another discussion - you only have to look at the social structure of local grammar schools and the affluent locations of their main feeder schools, to realise there is something more than 'giftedness' at work in our local selective eduction.

[LilyBolero]

Feenie - I understand what you're saying about teacher assessment, but certainly in ds1's class, several children 'bumped up' a grade or 2 by going to things like Kumon for the year. Particularly evident in maths I think! But those children don't necessarily sustain the 'improvement' in KS2, because the grade given doesn't reflect their inherent ability, it reflects a lot of hard work by both the child and the parents (not to mention money spent!).

[mrz]

Because of our area of intake our G&T children (using the top 10% rule) would barely be "average" in another school
G&T won't work until there is a better way of identifying those children who will benefit.

"140,000 kids who are L3 at KS1 do not achieve L5 at KS2 (top maths pupils who go up from a 3 to only a 4 in all of four years!) 140 f-ing thousand." Shows a complete lack of understanding of how the tests are shall we say "varied" to produce the figures that suit the political climate and btw ALL our level 3s reach level 5 by KS2 and a high percentage of level 2 achieve the same

Could you tell me where the average class teacher finds the extra help you are advocating? Government ratios (by which schools are funded) 1 teacher to 30 children in KS1 - 1 teacher to no limit of pupils in KS2. You can hardly lay the blame on teachers can you?

[Feenie]

Sorry, Lily, a bit of your otherwise pertinent information is misleading - KS1 scores are based on sound teacher assessment these days, so where a child could 'squeak' a level 3 with some tutoring 5 years or so ago, it is more difficult now since children would have to be working at a sustained level to achieve it, and the teacher would have to provide plenty of evidence to back up their judgement.

A level 3 at KS1 tests used to be easier to achieve than a level 3 at KS2, but the assessment criteria that teachers use to arrive at their teacher assessment should now be the same across both key stages.

[LilyBolero]

Targets are almost always a bad plan I think. And putting 10% on a list can make schools feel they are fulfilling needs when in fact they aren't.

In the NHS there was a target to have a maximum waiting time for cancer patients between seeing the GP and seeing the consultant. This target was met. But the time between 1st consultation with the GP and starting treatment (which is what really matters) increased. But the target was met, so boxes were ticked, lists were made and the NHS was 'succeeding'.

[LilyBolero]

And the worry about children 'only' going from a L3 to a L4 at the end of KS2 is open to all kinds of misinterpretation. For example, many parents, unbelievably, get tutoring for their child in Y2, because they know they are going to be 'graded' at the end of Y2. This could well bump them up to a level 3c, artificially. KS2 levels are different to KS1 levels, and it is very common for children in Y3 to be working at a supposedly 'lower' level than in KS1 - so a level 3c in Y3 is not the same as in Y2. Additionally, at the end of Y2, in KS1 SATS, the only level 3 available is 3, it's not divided into a,b,c, so it is not clear how far 'into' a level 3 the child is.

Alternatively, the child could have had a real development spurt in Y2, rather than in Y3, which would bump up their score in the KS1 SATS, but not necessarily translate to a level 5 at KS2 - you could have 2 children, within a month of each other in age, having a development spurt at the same time. One would gain a level 2b/2a because they were an August birthday, and therefore in Y3 when the spurt happened, one would gain level 3, because they were in Y2 when it happened. It doesn't follow that 4 years later there should be a difference in KS2 attainment, and I would suggest that among the 140 thousand children you cite, there are a lot who have either been coached for KS1 Sats, and gained artificial results, or who have September birthdays - remember this can give 364 days advantage in age, which is significant at age 7, and does not reflect ability.

[Feenie]

Agree with trickerg - any good teacher will do their utmost to ensure that every single child in their class is given every opportunity to excel and reach the very best of their potential - not merely the children who are on the G and T list. To me, that's just part of doing the job.
I acknowledge your statistic of 140,000 KS2 children who achieved level 3 at KS1 and fail to achieve level 5 at the end of KS2, but I certainly don't recognise this happening in my school. And the fact that it just does not happen has absolutely nothing to do with putting 21 children out of 210 on any kind of list. All of our children make good progress, and if they don't, we try to identify why immediately and put something in place to address it.
Nor, unfortunately, do I expect it not to happen in any of the schools which educate those 140,000 children simply because the most gifted of those children are on any kind of list.
Your axe to grind, imo, should be with inadequate teaching in those schools which fail many children, not just G and T kids, because they will be doing just that. Don't misdirect your anger at decent schools/teachers who may just be too busy actually doing their job to carry out a pen and paper exercise - which in itself only pays lip service to the problem in hand.

[trickerg]

'Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said it was "absolutely scandalous" that some primary school teachers were damaging the prospects of intelligent children by refusing to lay on additional help. '

I am puzzled by this. WHO is laying on the additional help exactly?

I'd also like to make a comment regarding my experience of Y2 children this year and last. About 14/24 children in my top set last year were working well within L3, with about 8 of the remainder working at 3C. There were children who worked out how to do grid multiplication by themselves (a Y4 objective to be taught). Lots of 'gifted' children there, eh? My teaching in this group recognised that I had children who were exceeding national expectations.

At the end of this year I expect to have about 10 children to be working at 3C, with a couple at 3B. A different cohort; a vastly different percentage of children above the national average. However, my planning will still recognise that some children are exceeding national expectations, and they will be given the opportunity to explore maths in different ways.

In Year 3 the mathematicians from both cohorts still perceived as 'gifted' will be put on the register.

You see, I am, actually recognising the children's abilities as above the national average, AND I am planning accordingly to include them. The only thing I'm not doing in KS1 is putting them on a school register and telling the parents.

In Year 2, children are moving from concrete to abstract thought - I believe Piaget and others were right about this. Children's powers of inference and deduction develop over the year, at different rates. It is not fair to label a child (who just happens to be more cognitively advanced) as 'gifted'. Many of these will NOT be seen as 'gifted' in Y3 because some of the others will have caught up. You see it all the time - particularly in reading.

[LilyBolero]

G&T aims to get teachers to give the top 10% the same opportunities to excel / to reach their full potential that they are giving others in the class.

DaL - you are missing the point - where is your evidence that the rest of the class are being given the opportunity to fulfil their potential? There is none. What's more, you seem to have an assumption that having a G&T program suddenly benefits all these children - how? Children on the G&T register are not all the same - they still require differentiated teaching, as any good teacher would have given them without the program.

I suggest instead of reading Govt papers you go into some primary schools, and look at how some of the fantastic teachers are managing to teach classes of 30 individuals, rather than meeting particular Govt targets.

[DadAtLarge]

...our original solution of differentiation and extension within the classroom
What a novel idea! You should submit to the DCSF as a replacement for G&T.

[trickerg]

I'm not mouthing off.

Now you say that it aims to 'give the top 10% the same opportunities to excel' and 'imposing fairness on teachers who were failing the most intelligent'.

Your quote says that we are:
'damaging the prospects of intelligent children by refusing to lay on additional help.'

Which is it DaL? I'm losing the thread of your argument. Who is meant to be giving these 'opportunites to excel'? We seem to be coming back to our original solution of differentiation and extension within the classroom.

[DadAtLarge]

we have identified 10% KS2 children
Which is better than some. All you've got to do now identify KS1 too as you are meant to do. No, wait, you sound like you've taken an individual decision that it's "difficult" so you won't do it

After school classes and w/e tuition is not a requirement of the program.

G&T aims to get teachers to give the top 10% the same opportunities to excel / to reach their full potential that they are giving others in the class. It's about imposing fairness on teachers who were failing the most intelligent children. It's about a top down system of encouraging excellence which benefits not just the top 10% but all children in the class. There's a lot of ignorant comment around about G&T - here and elsewhere - and it's a shame people don't take the trouble to learn a bit more about it before mouthing off.

[trickerg]

Also, we have to remember that many of these children on the 'register' are not gifted, just brighter than the average in their schools. I wonder how many of these would WANT to be doing extra classes after school and at weekends .

[trickerg]

OK then - so how many after-school classes and how much weekend tuition is going on around you? I know there's none around here, and as I've mentioned before, we have identified 10% KS2 children as gifted and talented.

We've had the PE and art people in for the talented, but I haven't seen any sign of extra gifted classes.

[DadAtLarge]

Wrong end of the stick, I'm afraid. G&T makes no demands on teachers for additional after school work. Teacher unions that against G&T and are clear that their objection is on ideological grounds rather than workload.

[trickerg]

From the article:
'Nominated pupils should be given access to after-school classes and weekend tuition, to ensure they are challenged.

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said it was "absolutely scandalous" that some primary school teachers were damaging the prospects of intelligent children by refusing to lay on additional help.'

Ummm... I wonder why there is opposition to this? Who do they think is going to do the extra tuition?

I think the implication that teachers should be teaching over the weekend is absolutely scandalous! Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

[DadAtLarge]

those articles weren't saying that schools were actually failing gifted children, they were saying that they were FAILING TO SPOT THEM...They don't say that those children are then being failed educationally. That is an assumption.

Extracts:

• govt research has found that teachers "do not stretch them enough"
• "They are set targets that are too low"
• "majority of children said they would have liked more opportunities to work in ability groups" (instead of doing what I call an unpaid TA job of having to help less able pupils)
• 140,000 kids who are L3 at KS1 do not achieve L5 at KS2 (top maths pupils who go up from a 3 to only a 4 in all of four years!) 140 f-ing thousand.

Throw in a proper measure for underperformance and the number'll be even higher.

Those are just from the first article. And you believe that none of those comments suggest any failing? Well, then I won't bother giving you other links to government stats, to other government reviews etc. that detail just how badly we have been failing our best pupils. I appreciate some people are just stubborn and will stick to their guns no matter what the facts or the evidence show. That the DCSF's official position (of their own performance!) is that they are failing these children may not make the blindest bit of different to you. But...

It's a legal requirement to identify children for the register.

Teachers are breaking the law by not doing so, the DCSF says today.

Whatever their ideological or political objections, teachers need to leave them at the door and get on with their jobs. There are several good reasons their superiors have set the 10% identification in place even if teachers don't understand the intricacies of national level employee performance evaluation or the complexities of comparing productivity across non-homogenous service units. It's not the teacher's job to make her own policy decisions - whether it's on number of working days, to adminster or not administer the SATs, whether to impose corporal punishment or whether to identify children for G&T. Without trying to sound like Sir Humphrey Appleby, we'd have mayhem if teachers were allowed to use their political or religious ideologies to determine policy individually.

Whether G&T is fair or not is a different argument. But there's no question that there's a legal requirement for teachers to put children on the register. There is no argument that thousands of them are not following even this most basic G&T rule (and breaking the law by "FAILING TO SPOT THEM")

[Feenie]

Your Estelle Morris link is from 2000, not 2008, DadatLarge.

Thought I's stepped into a time warp for a second...