CHAPTER 7

Working with Gifted and Talented pupils

A s part of your role as a teaching assistant, you may be asked to work with Gifted and Talented (G&T) pupils, whether this is through the support you give to individuals within the class or through work with groups from different year groups. You will need to work with others to develop learning programmes for these pupils to increase their opportunities and ensure that they are challenged within the class through strategies such as Assessment for Learning (AfL). Professionals both within and outside the school will be able to help with the identification and support you provide for these pupils.

What is a Gifted and Talented pupil?

In 2006, the then DFES defined Gifted and Talented pupils as ‘Children and young people with one or more abilities developed to a level significantly ahead of their year group (or with the potential to develop these abilities).’ According to the Standards Site (www.standards.dfes.gov.uk), the term has been further refined:

• •Gifted: pupils who have or show the potential for exceptional academic abilities.
• •Talented: pupils who have exceptional abilities or potential in art and design, PE or sports, music or performing arts such as dance and drama.

Gifted and Talented pupils will be those who are showing or have the potential for exceptional ability in the areas described above. An OFSTED report ‘Providing for Gifted and Talented Pupils,’ which evaluated provision for Gifted and Talented pupils in 2001, said at the time that many of these pupils had not been adequately challenged as part of curriculum provision in schools and was examining the progress which had been made in providing for them. Since then, progress has continued to be made in the support and provision which is available, including the introduction of the Gifted and Talented programme and the 2005 White Paper, ‘Better Schools for All’, which also stated that all pupils should be given opportunities to reach their potential. It aims to reach the top five to ten per cent of pupils in schools and to encourage the development of their skills and talents.

If you have been asked to work with Gifted and Talented pupils, you may have a particular talent yourself: you might, for example, be a talented artist, sportsperson or musician who is able to work with pupils to nurture their talent. Your role when supporting such pupils will be to work alongside teachers to use strategies which will enable pupils to develop the skills or talents they have. You may carry out work with pupils alongside others in class; alternatively you may work with small groups from different classes or year groups outside the class. In both of these situations, you should be given support and activities to carry out with pupils and should not have to devise these yourself. You may also have the input of the school’s Gifted and Talented co-ordinator who will be able to give you additional support and strategies.

enable pupils to develop the skills or talents they have

Recognising Gifted and Talented pupils

You may sometimes feel that you are working with pupils who are Gifted and Talented but that this has not yet been recognised by the school. This is possible because it may not always be apparent from the earliest stages. The characteristics in Figure 7.1 may be some of the indicators which you could look out for, although even one or two of these may mean that a pupil is particularly able.

Figure 7.1 Characteristics of Gifted and Talented pupils

Pupils who may be Gifted and Talented will show some of these characteristics and you will need to discuss your observations with teachers as well as your school’s Gifted and Talented Co-ordinator. You will then need to work with them to devise a plan for these pupils. Your school’s equal opportunities or inclusion policy will give details of the school’s expectations when supporting these pupils, or you may have a Gifted and Talented policy. Equal opportunities are the right of every child and it is important that schools make effective provision for those pupils who have particular talents and abilities. If you think that a pupil with whom you are working may be Gifted or Talented, observe them over time and write down some of the examples which you have noticed, then either speak to the school’s co-ordinator or to the pupil’s teacher.

Motivating and challenging Gifted and Talented pupils

Once a pupil has been recognised as being Gifted or Talented, you may be asked to work with them on a regular basis following advice and guidelines from teachers. You should have a working knowledge of the current curriculum within which the pupil or pupils is working as well as knowing how it develops, so that along with teachers you can extend their learning. However, Gifted and Talented pupils should also be challenged by enriching and broadening their learning experience in as many ways as possible before taking them to the next level. Your school may have a Gifted and Talented register of pupils which should be updated regularly.

You will need to be very clear on your role so that you know how much and how often support should be in place, and whether you are working on specific targets that will be monitored. You should clarify, either through teachers or through the G & T co-ordinator, how your work with pupils will meet their needs most effectively. You should also know how often you can speak to others in order to check on pupil progress and to seek additional help if needed. If you are an experienced practitioner and know the pupil, you will be able to put forward your own suggestions about the planned activities and how these may best be carried out. If you are involved with planning yourself with teachers you may be able to make suggestions about how you can use your own knowledge at the planning stage and how pupils may benefit. Your school may also seek advice from outside professionals. If a pupil has a particular talent in art, sport or music and does not have any outside encouragement, it is important that the school both investigates and suggests to parents how this may be accessed. It is particularly important that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are given additional support to encourage them to participate in activities outside school. Some schools may have extended provision outside school hours which gives pupils opportunities to develop their particular skills, whilst others might have access through local cluster groups. Increasingly, schools may work with local authorities to develop summer schools and you may be involved with the development and provision of either of these, although they may tend to be with older pupils. Your co-ordinator should also be able to help and advise you about the kinds of resources and equipment which may be available.

be very clear on your role

The main strategies which you should use with Gifted and Talented pupils should enable them to extend their thinking whilst working on the same kinds of activities which are being carried out by other pupils. They should also be able to work on open-ended tasks, which will give them opportunities to:

• •Work in more depth: Pupils with whom you work should have learning experiences which encourage them to think in depth and question why things happen; for example ‘Why do you think that the Romans needed to build aqueducts?’
• •Work in a broader range of contexts: Pupils should be encouraged to apply what they have learned to different contexts; for example, if they are learning about materials and their properties they should consider what would happen if different materials were used to make everyday objects.
• •Work at their own pace: As Gifted and Talented pupils will often have a greater understanding of new concepts and ideas than their peers, they should be able to work in an environment where they can achieve at their own pace without standing out from others. In order to be able to extend pupil thinking, you should also think about how you work with pupils and the expectations you have, as well as the way in which you approach learning.
• •Have high expectations: It is important that within the school there is a climate of high expectation, not just for pupils who are Gifted and Talented but for everyone. Staff should encourage and challenge all pupils to develop their thinking skills as much as possible so that they are able to achieve to the best of their ability. Research has shown that where children are encouraged and told that they will be able to achieve, they are more likely to do so. This is known as the Pygmalion effect – if a person thinks that we are clever, they treat us this way, and we learn to think that we are. Positive expectations will lead to a more positive attitude to learning in the same way that negative self-expectation also leads to negative behaviour.
• •Act as a co-learner rather than a teacher: Sometimes when working with pupils who are very able you may feel that they are more knowledgeable than you. This should not be a problem and pupils should not always be made to feel that adults know everything! Your role in this situation is to tell the pupil that you are going to find out together and use questions to support their thinking. It is more appropriate to use language such as ‘What are we trying to find out?’ or ‘What can we do to help us?’ rather than using the term ‘you’, as the learning is then seen as a shared experience. Pupils will also benefit from the feeling of learning as being seen as a process of discovery, rather than something that adults know already and that they have to find out.
• •Use challenging questioning to deepen thinking: The way in which you question pupils will make a difference to the way in which they approach tasks. After speaking with teachers, you may like to use the different levels of thinking explored in Bloom’s Taxonomy (see Figure 7.2 overleaf) as a starting point, as this is a good way of thinking about how questioning can do this. Benjamin Bloom, an educational psychologist working in the 1950s, devised this classification for measuring depth of learning. Since this was published, subsequent educational thinking has put the three higher levels of the pyramid as parallel, while some have swapped synthesis and evaluation over.

Figure 7.2 Bloom’s taxonomy

Using Assessment for Learning

Pupils who are academically gifted should be given plenty of opportunities to think about how they can apply what they know in different situations and what it means to be active learners. Assessment for Learning is a way in which pupils are asked to take more responsibility for their own learning. Through it, pupils are able to understand the aim of what they are doing, what they need to do to reach that aim and where they are in relation to it through measuring their own progress. You may be asked to support them in doing this by clarifying pupils’ understanding of learning objectives and making sure that they are on track with their learning. They can also be encouraged to peer-assess and to build up their techniques through working with adults and their peers so that they will be able to look more objectively at their own achievements. Assessment for Learning also supports the encouragement of high expectation by emphasising the achievement of pupils rather than focusing on what they can’t do. Many schools are adopting Assessment for Learning for use in all age groups so that pupils can develop self-assessment skills and can reflect on and recognise their own achievements. Although it is used with all pupils, Gifted and Talented pupils can be encouraged to develop these skills further so that they can take on more responsibility for their own learning, become more active learners and support others.

pupils are able to understand the aim of what they are doing

When supporting Assessment for Learning, you will need to use different techniques and be aware of how they can enhance what pupils are doing, as well as knowing when you should refer to others (see Figure 7.3).

At the start of any activity, pupils need to be clear about what they are going to learn and how they will be assessed. For Assessment for Learning to be effective, pupils need to know what they are learning, why they are learning it and how the assessment will take place. If you are able to work on this with pupils they should be able to think about their learning after each activity and consider how their learning in the future may be affected.

Figure 7.3 Strategies for supporting Assessment for Learning

Further reading

• •www.Gifted-and-Talented.net
• •www.nagc.org – National Association for Gifted Children.
• •www.nagcbritain.org.uk – National Association of Gifted and Talented Youth.
• •www.teachers.tv – this site has plenty of information, suggestions, links and videos to support a range of topics.