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

School D’s JourneyWhile it is difficult to pinpoint the beginning of the journey for this school, this story begins in 1993when the present coordinator of the gifted and talented programmes was appointed to the school. Notlong after taking up the position, she attended two courses at an educational resource centre. She hadalways had an interest in meeting the needs of gifted and talented students, however, these two courseswere the impetus for her desire to organise gifted and talented policy and practice at this school. Priorto this there was no formal structure for providing for gifted and talented students and many teacherswere struggling on their own to make provisions within their classrooms.The Board of Trustees at the school had set up a scholarship where, every two years, teachers couldapply for five weeks paid leave to follow something of their professional interest. The teacher incharge of gifted and talented provisions in this school was awarded this scholarship to look at whatwas happening for children with special abilities in schools around New Zealand. She began bymeeting with a university lecturer in gifted and talented education, who provided a range of readingmaterial and suggestions for schools to visit. Visits were made to schools in Wellington, Tauranga andAuckland where she was able to observe practices in action and talk to teachers and principals abouttheir provisions for gifted and talented learners. To be able to go into schools while teachers wereworking and observe and discuss their practices was considered the very best professionaldevelopment.It was the most wonderful professional development to actually be able to go into a schoolwhile they were working, sit and see what they were doing, look at their identificationpractices and it was just amazing.At the conclusion of the scholarship period, a report was written for the staff and the Board ofTrustees. They were very enthusiastic and the Board of Trustees decided to fund a .2 release per week(one day per week) for a teacher to coordinate gifted and talented programmes within the school. Theyalso funded a budget of $1000.00 per year.Identification is considered one of the hardest aspects of meeting the needs of gifted and talentedstudents. Initially, the school looked at a number of different identification methods but decided onteacher identification as the most valid. Near the end of the school year, staff are given a questionnairewhich asks them to consider all the children in their class. This is in relation to Gardner’s multipleintelligences as well as a range of other questions including affective qualities (such as motivation,social skills), behaviours (both positive and negative) originality and leadership. Staff identify thenames of children who ‘spring to mind’ when thinking about each area of ability. Once children areidentified, the information is given to their new teacher the next year. This is done again in March andagain at the end of the next term, it is not just done once a year, it rolls over.Identification needs to be on-going as they may react differently to different teachers –someone who “shines” with one teacher may not with another. There is also flexibility toadd children who missed identification or who are late bloomers to existing groups.There is a high level of consultation and discussion between teachers and this is seen as crucial in theidentification process.As well as teacher identification, when parents enrol their children, they are asked to fill in a form.One question asks if their child has any special talents, unusual accomplishments, special interests orhobbies and special opportunities that they may have had. The teacher in charge of gifted and talentedprogramme gets a copy of this. If anything significant is identified the student is put on the gifted andtalented register.There is also a range of assessment and testing done throughout the school which contributes toidentification for example, class tests and the PATs.213