North West Gifted and Talented

Had a very enjoyable and productive afternoon at the Last Drop Mercure Inn near Bolton.

The sessions were expertly led by Jacqui Price and Christina Brettle, of the National Strategies.

The main purpose of the meeting was to examine the latest National Strategies materials for Gifted and Talented children.

The focus was the impact of the 'Narrowing the Gaps' agenda for Gifted and Talented education.

Of the 10% of pupils on the average school G+T register, children on free school meals (which is a key indicator of being disadvantaged) are significantly under-represented. In fact, secondary school children on FSM are only half as likely to be identified as eligible for inclusion in the register. We need to identify this 'invisible' group and then implement action.

Once the pupils are identified, one way to begin to ensure their needs are met is to pursue 'mainstreaming' of G+T education.


Far too many schools still see 'gifted and talented' education as an optional add on. The temptation is to consider that running an event for G+T pupils once or twice a year is meeting their needs. Some parents, too, need to understand what should be happening if their child is in the register. Many parents contact G+T coordinators asking what trips or clubs are being arranged for the G+T pupils.

What we have to do is to change the mindset of teachers (and parents) so that they see that G+T children need to be provided for in every lesson on a daily basis. Planning for the G+T pupil in your class should just be a normal, accepted part of planning, just as it would be for a child, say, who had additional needs to help them with their reading.

Gifted and Talented in the North West

Had a fantastic afternoon at Altrincham Girls' Grammar School, where they were hosting a Gifted and Talented day for children in the North West. I ran a poetry workshop.

We started by establishing my ground rules for poetry workshops:

1. No rhyming

2. You have to keep writing. If you can’t think what to write then just write, ‘I don’t know what to write.’

After a few warm up activities where the children had a great deal of freedom over the form they chose, we switched to more controlled form using first diamond poems and then I introduced them to cinquains. That section finished with the pupils writing cycles of cinquains based on the perspectives of characters from a story they liked (e.g. The Wolf, Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma, The Woodcutter).

The final stage of the afternoon was spent using the old Dadaist cutup technique. The pupils wrote a piece of descriptive writing, cut up the words individually and then reformed them into poems. A low tech version of fridge magnets.

As usual, the children were the star of the show. However, they were run a close second by the staffroom at AGS. This looked like a suite from an expensive hotel and even had its own baby grand piano.