Gifted and Talented - English

Identifying students
The English department's policy for gifted and talented pupils has been developed within the context of the whole-school policy for the provision of gifted and talented pupils.

The department recognises the need to provide for the whole ability range. Developing the provision for the particular needs of gifted and talented pupils is an important part of our provision for the needs of all our pupils.

We aim to ensure the gifted and talented pupils in our care have :

· access to a range of learning opportunities appropriate to their needs
· opportunities to work at higher cognitive levels
· opportunities to develop their skills, talents or intellectual abilities
· opportunities to develop scocially, morally and spiritually as well as intellectually

Teachers will identify the gifted and talented pupils in their care using the following strategies:

· considering previous schools' comments/judgements on pupils' work
· considering Key Stage 2 test results
· considering parental comments
· checking these possible sources against teacher observations of the pupil's work in class and behaviour at this school and using the agreed departmental ID card setting out the qualities /characteristics G&T pupils might present to assist in verifying judgements
· internal assessments
· external assessments

Extension Activities

• Creative role play/drama focused activities: have students devise a script in character and present to class

• Critical analysis Questions of any texts

• Debono's 6 Thinking hats: students present varied arguments from the 6 perspectives

• Introduce GCSE students to A Level AO's (e.g AO5 Socio-historical context and AO4 Interpretations of text/ Criticisms)

• Creating student friendly criteria (translation of Teacher's copy of AQA guidelines)

• G&T students shadowing weaker students (buddy system/ paired learning

• SWOT analysis once completed an activity (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

• Carnegie Shadowing for eager readers

Critical Questions

1. What is this text about?

2. Why is this topic being written about?
What social function might the text serve?
• What larger context is this text part of?

3. How is this topic being written about?
• How is language being used in this text?

4. Who is writing to whom?
• Who has written the text? What do people know about them, if anything?
• Are they writing on behalf of other people or an organization?
• Are they authorized to write on behalf of others?
• What qualifications do they have to write about the topic?
• Who appears to be the ideal reader?
• What relationship is established between the writer and reader?

5. Is this the "truth", the whole "truth" and nothing but the "truth"?
• What are the readers NOT being told? How do you know?
• Who might challenge the world view/s expressed and how?
• Which world view is the most desirable? Why?

6. What are the (good and bad) consequences of going along with the view/s expressed in this text?
• What impact could this have on you and/or other members of the community?
•Who wins? Who loses?
• If you think the views expressed in this text are undesirable, what could you and others do?

Debono's Six Thinking Hats

How to Use the Tool:
You can use the Six Thinking Hats technique in meetings or on your own. In meetings it has the benefit of blocking the confrontations that happen when people with different thinking styles discuss the same problem.

Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different style of thinking. These are explained below:
•White Hat:
With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.
This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.
•Red Hat:
'Wearing' the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally. Try to understand the responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.
•Black Hat:
Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them.
Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties.
• Yellow Hat:
The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.
• Green Hat:
The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here.
• Blue Hat:
The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc.
A variant of this technique is to look at problems from the point of view of different professionals (e.g. doctors, architects, sales directors, etc.) or different customers.

Extra- curricular activities

School Visits

After school clubs and enrichment activities

Useful resources

www.ckg.org.uk/shadowing
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_TMC.htm
ygt.dcsf.gov.uk/

Staff contact details