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

Withdrawal programmes. The ‘successful’ organisation and delivery of the withdrawal programmesvaried greatly. For example, in one of the case schools enrichment topics can be based around a highquality resource, an up-coming event or competition, school happenings, or a special interest of thegifted education coordinator. Occasionally teachers request that a particular topic be taken when theyidentify a need within their own classrooms. Topics which have been covered over the years in thisschool include: edible garden; worm farming; sports; “selling our school” (a newspaper competition);time capsules; school playground design; a Picasso art project; and a marionette puppet project whichinvolved making the puppets, costumes, a puppet theatre, and writing and performing a play. Each ofthe enrichment topics lasts six weeks. However, groups are not run in the first six weeks of the schoolyear to enable children to settle into their regular classes and for teachers to conduct PATs and runschool camps. Similarly, enrichment groups are also not taken in the last month of the school year toallow children to participate in end of the year activities.Another school reports that fifteen to eighteen children are withdrawn three times a week for a total offour and a half hours enrichment. A small core of children get nominated for most enrichment classes,but otherwise membership is quite fluid. Up to 100 different children can participate in various groupsthroughout the year. This represents approximately one quarter of this school’s roll.In another school, provisions which are not specifically designed for gifted and talented students, butprovide enrichment opportunities for them, are school ‘electives’ and the annual school production.The latter includes group and solo musical performances, kapahaka, and drama. Gifted and talentedmusicians, artists, and leaders are given responsibility for designing props, choreographing sections,and organising practices. Additionally, children in Years 3 to 6 participate in a range of electives for45 minutes once a week. Choices include choir, kapahaka, drama, sports, guitar, line dancing,horticulture, and computers. In addition, a drama teacher comes to school once a week to take lunchtime drama lessons. In Term 3 Spanish lessons are planned if there is sufficient interest and in Term 4lunchtime guitar lessons will be available. Drama, Spanish, and guitar lessons are offered on a userpaybasis. Examples of enrichment provisions cited by other schools include: BP TechnologyChallenge; mathematics problem solving; web challenges and competitions; drama; writers’workshops with authors; silk dying; music workshops; and drumming workshops. Some schools offersecond language learning.The gifted programmes occur on one set day each week in one of the case schools (unless there is aone-off opportunity where students need to attend something usually outside the school). The length oftime that a particular programme runs depends on the content. For example, the Problem Challengestarts in February and runs until September with forty minutes every Thursday whereas a year two artprogramme lasted for four weeks. Membership of the groups for the programmes in this school is notstatic – children can be added once the group has started if it becomes obvious that they have missedinitial identification and similarly if they “have reached their peak” they can be removed. There isjoint planning between teachers taking children at same level as well as class teachers and the teachertaking a gifted programme. Teachers find this useful. Classroom teachers often request that the teachertaking a gifted programme follow-up on something introduced in the classroom. Similarly the teachertaking a gifted programme always consults with classroom teachers and shares what she is doing.One school describes how the programmes are fitted around the needs of the students. Once studentsand their areas of ability have been identified, decisions are made regarding the nature of theprovisions. If there is a teacher at the school with an interest and ability in the area identified, they willbe released by the reliever (0.2 funded by the BOT for gifted education programmes) to take theprogramme. If there is not a teacher within the school, an outside person will be sourced and broughtinto the school. There is more than one programme running at any one time.Cluster and partner schools. In one region a group of schools have combined to form a cluster ofschools offering gifted education programmes to students in targeted curriculum areas. This school’scluster approach has effectively provided for students from Years 3-6 in mathematics, literacy, arts,and science. These provisions are supported by outside experts such as advisers, university specialists,artists, and writers. The ‘experts’ are brought in and their services paid for from a funding pool. The241