The Extent, Nature and Effectiveness of Planned Approaches in ...

• Liaison with parents and the community;• Initiation and maintenance of management systems; and• Regular monitoring and follow-up of progressions and developments in schoolwide giftededucation programmes.Moon and Rosselli (2000) add to this other responsibilities, such as managing the budget, teaching,and providing professional development. The role and responsibilities of the coordinator will, ofcourse, be dependent upon each school’s programme and plans for gifted and talented education, aswell as management structure.However, this person should not necessarily be acting in solitude. Moon and Rosselli (2000) describetwo ‘types’ of leadership: ‘champions’ and ‘broad-based advisory groups.’ In New Zealand, the latterseem to be preferred for the reasons previously outlined. The purpose for the committee (or advisorygroup) should be to establish a working plan for programme development and implementation. Thisplan should set the parameters around the tasks to be undertaken – the goals and objectives for theprogramme (Ministry of Education, 2000). Additionally it should specify who is responsible for whattasks. A time line may be established, as well. Riley (2000c) adds to this that school’s approaches toprogramme development and implementation should be seen as long-term commitments, rather thanquick fixes. She recommends a two to three year implementation plan with realistic, prioritised goalsand objectives. Within the development of a plan, schools might consider the following steps:1. Needs or gap analysis;2. Programme development;3. Programme implementation; and4 Evaluation and revision (Riley, 2000c).The final step, evaluation and revision, is an important aspect of programme development and must beconsidered in the early stages. As the Ministry of Education (2000) states in relation to developing aprogramme plan, “This part of the process is very important because it not only sets the direction for aschool’s efforts but also provides criteria against which these efforts can be evaluated” (p. 8).McCulloch (2001) advises that during the planning or development stage, schools should ‘make room’for how evaluation findings will be utilised.Taylor (2001), the Ministry of Education (2000), and Riley (2000c) consistently identify the first stepin a school’s planning for gifted education should be to analyse the school’s current provisions andpractices. In a sense this is an audit of the school’s provisions, policies, and provisions (Quality andCurriculum Authority, 2003). Taylor (2001) poses two key questions which schools can reflect upon:“What are we doing? What else do we need to do?” (p. 5). The Ministry of Education (2000) suggeststhat an analysis of this nature will also assist schools in planning programmes of professionaldevelopment. Riley (2000c) warns that without a close examination of current practices and futuredirections gifted programmes may quickly become fragmented, one-off additions to the total schoolpicture. The purpose in a needs assessment is to gather as much information as possible within theschool’s context so that programmes can be tailored to that context (Moon & Rosselli, 2000).Riley (2000c) outlines the various aspects a school might consider in its analysis:• Student needs: Definition and identification of learning needs;• Student opportunities: Current provisions and future directions;• Professional strengths and interests: Contributions and development;• Resources: Human, physical, and financial;148