Roles and Responsibilities
Role of the Local Authority [LA]
Bedford Borough Local Authority works in
partnership with parents, schools, the community and other agencies
to provide opportunities for individual learners to demonstrate
their full potential and develop individual aptitudes, abilities
and talents. It acknowledges that learning is ongoing and takes
place both within and beyond schools. The LA supports schools
through:
- facilitating courses, conferences and
professional development activities to raise awareness;
- providing opportunities for sharing
successful practice across the LEA and more widely; and
- monitoring the quality of provision for
pupil access.
Role of the school
It is the school's responsibility to identify
gifted and talented learners in consultation with parents, pupils
and other agencies, to maintain a register of these pupils and to
establish an ethos and provision through which exceptional ability
in all its forms is recognised, valued and celebrated. The school
should ensure that higher level targets are set at each stage
[including exceptional performance targets] to ensure that the
needs of gifted and talented pupils are met.
Role of the governors
Governors, in their role as 'critical
friends', have a special responsibility for ensuring that the needs
of all pupils and students are met. They set the strategy within
which policy is shaped and ensure that its implementation is
monitored and evaluated. Schools and colleges can help them to do
this by providing data on the progress of gifted and talented
learners and involving them fully in policy-making and review. The
governing body should appoint a named governor for gifted and
talented who will work closely with the coordinator to develop an
oversight of this area practice.
Role of the headteacher, principal and senior
leaders
The commitment of the headteacher is almost
invariably the most influential factor that determines
effectiveness in any area of school provision. Gifted and talented
pupils are most likely to do well in schools where senior leaders
are committed to a culture of high achievement for all pupils,
where they appoint a coordinator for gifted and talented and
provide good support for that colleague. In larger schools the
appointment of a member of the senior team with line management
responsibility for the coordinator is recommended. Headteachers and
senior leaders are responsibility for ensuring that:
- the curriculum meets the needs of
individual learners, including those who are gifted and
talented;
- sufficient resources, support, training
and status are provided to the gifted and talented
coordinator;
- there is a whole school commitment to, and
support for, gifted and talented learners;
- there is a school policy for gifted and
talented that provides a clear framework for subject policies or
guidelines:
- that the register of gifted and talented
pupils is updated termly in line with the requirements of the PLASC
form.
Role of the Gifted and Talented coordinator
Every school should have a named teacher with
the oversight and responsibility for gifted and talented provision.
The role of the co-ordinator is to support and challenge his/her
colleagues to meet these needs within particular classes, subjects
and departments and to promote good practice within the school. It
is also crucial that the coordinator is well supported by the
school's senior leaders, has the authority to move things forward
throughout the school and is given time for their work as gifted
and talented coordinator. A sample job description is attached to
this policy as ANNEX 1.
Role of Curriculum/Year Leader
Subject and year leaders are well placed to ensure that good
provision is made for gifted and talented pupils through their
support and monitoring of teachers' planning, schemes of work and
the performance of pupils
Role of Class/Subject Teacher
The teacher in the classroom is at the heart of the schools
provision for gifted and talented pupils. Teachers need to
cultivate effective learning environments by;
- providing suitably challenging activities
and questions to extend the core learning tasks;
- encouraging pupils to take risks, to play
with ideas and to regard all answers, whether right or wrong, as
productive opportunities for learning;
- consulting with gifted and talented pupils
on their preferred learning styles and planning for
these;
- providing rigorous and constructive
feedback to pupils on their work;
- looking for opportunities to widen the
scope of learning activities beyond the school and the
classroom
Role of the Pupil
Pupils should be involved in articulating what helps them to be
effective learners. They should be given opportunities to:
- develop the language to discuss the
process of their learning;
- raise their awareness of their own
preferred learning styles;
- participate in setting targets for
learning including how they will evaluate the outcomes.
This will enable pupils to develop strategies
for working successfully within a range of contexts so that they
become more diverse and effective learners.
Liasion with Parents/Carers
Parents and carers are entitled to know that
their child has been identified as gifted and/or talented. They
will also need to know what provision is made for their child's
educational needs. Many parents find it helpful to meet with other
parents who have gifted and/or talented children. Schools can
facilitate this by offering meeting space.
It may arise that a child is identified in the top 5–10% in a
school but, on transfer to a different school, no longer falls into
that band of ability and is therefore no longer on the school's
gifted and talented register. However, differentiated classroom
experiences are part of every-day teaching and extra-curricular
activities are rarely restricted to members of a gifted and
talented register.
Monitoring and Evaluation
The school policy for gifted and talented
should be reviewed regularly to ensure that these pupils are
realising their abilities. Essential components of the school's
monitoring should include:
- The use being made of assessment data to
provide appropriate learning for G&T pupils
- Regular review of the progress of the
gifted and talented cohort
- The effectiveness of pupil tracking and
interviews.