Gifted and Talented Education

The school’s rationale is to provide learning programmes for all pupils at Hadlow to meet their specific needs, to encourage personal excellence, and enable them to develop to their full potential, including those children with special abilities.
 
The guidelines for gifted and talented education are:

  •  identification of children with special abilities should occur as early as possible, using a multi-faceted identification process.
  • all pupils will be monitored to identify any emerging special abilities
  • programmes of work will be differentiated through enrichment, acceleration by all teachers to ensure all children are challenged
  • different learning styles will be identified and catered for through the teaching and learning programmes
  • co-operative learning strategies will be promoted
  • metacognition and higher-level thinking skills will be incorporated into the teaching and learning programmes through planning-formats
  • specialist curriculum delivery from Year 2 will be implemented to maximise differentiation opportunities
  • school-wide timetable will ensure a broad, innovative curriculum catering for the needs of all pupils
  • gifted and talented pupils will be involved in school, national and international competitions

 
As part of the self-review process, and as a result of a recommendation in the school’s last ERO report, community consultation last year focused on the delivery of gifted and talented education at the school. The conclusion to this consultation highlighted the following:

  • the school should offer extension programmes in all areas of the curriculum and extra-curricular, but with a focus on the academic and creative elements;
  • there should be a variety of identification mechanisms for gifted & talented pupils, but formal assessment should be a significant component of the identification process.
  • generally, the gifted and talented learners should be catered for within the classroom programmes.
  • teaching and learning programmes should be delivered through individual learning plans and flexible ability grouping.
  • there are a lot of things that parents currently value in the teaching & learning programme, and should be maintained – flexible ability grouping, independent and small group learning using the inquiry process, the specialist curriculum delivery format, the sport programme, the competitions the school participates in, and the opportunities for leadership roles for the children.

 
The board of trustees’ strategic plan (2010-2014) has as one strategic goal to develop and implement systems and programmes to improve pupil achievement, with emphasis on numeracy & literacy, and a focus on gifted and talented education has been scheduled for 2011.