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

To improve this situation, listening, thinking and study skills were taught as part of the special classfor academically talented students in one secondary school.One primary school discussed student dissatisfaction with the regular classroom programme uponreturn from community-based one-day-a-week programmes. As one teacher commented:Some of the kids were coming back and they were real stroppy, like everything we are doinghere is boring, this is too easy and all that sort of stuff and teachers were having a realproblem with kids coming back with a really arrogant attitude and this school actuallywasn’t good enough any more.This school is working to alleviate the problem by talking to the children concerned, reminding themof the privilege they have in attending these classes, and challenging them to take the initiative and gothe extra mile in their own classrooms.Funding. Inadequate funding was viewed as a barrier in five of the ten case study schools. There is aresource cost involved in differentiating the curriculum (individual programmes, enrolments inuniversity courses, preparing resources, as well as the costs associated with the coordination of giftededucation). As one secondary teacher explained:Yeah, it does cost to enter things … my able students in Year 10 enter a competition for theYoung Designers’ Competition and it will cost them about $60 to enter. My Year 12/13 haveanother competition they can enter. It will cost them similar but I put them in anothercompetition where it costs them nothing so they all go for that one because it is a financialburden on the parents all the time. It costs them big dollars. It’s supposed to be freeeducation. And it’s not, it’s not.Lack of funds was also viewed by the other secondary school as a barrier to making provisions, for anumber of reasons. First the feeling was that in order to run an effective programme it needs to beadequately resourced. For example, teaching and learning material, such as textbooks and otherresources, for senior work needs to be resourced over and above what is currently provided.Adequately resourcing the coordinator’s position was viewed as being critical to the success of theprogramme. Teachers were concerned about the costs incurred in coordinating the programme; forexample, running meetings once a term for the parents was labour and cost intensive. Staff feltstrongly that any extra resourcing should be funded by the Government. They were pleased that therole of the coordinator was recognised with a ‘position of responsibility,’ but that was another cost thathad to be absorbed by the school. This school also needed more funding for professional development.For example, if teachers decided they would like to learn more about providing for gifted and talentedstudents within their particular subject area, they wanted to know that funding would be available forthem to do so. (However, the unavailability of such courses was also perceived to be a barrier.)One low decile school has to be mindful of the cost of some provisions, so external sources of fundingare constantly being sought. The principal shared that he applied for anything that came available, andwas reliant upon community grants, Ministry of Education opportunities, and so on. Another schoolbemoaned the lack and uncertainty of funding. At this school, future planning is difficult as provisionis tied to roll numbers. Provisions have fluctuated over the years because the breadth and depth ofwhat has been offered in the school has been dependent on funding. As stated by one teacher,“uncertainty of provision is tied to available funding from year to year, and if funding is tight thegifted programme was seen as the first thing to drop.”Resource issues. A lack of human and physical resources was identified as a barrier to providingprogrammes for gifted and talented students. For example, one primary school discussed difficultiesfinding suitable people to facilitate programmes (particularly in the area of music) and findingteaching and learning resources to support leadership programmes. Another primary school was facedwith similar problems in providing a science programme. Many students wanted to participate, andstaff perceived this eagerness to be driven by the chance to use microscopes. With limited resources,262