Gifted and Talented

John Heeley gives a practical demonstration of Pi to G&amp;T pupils

Teaching Award winner Jonny Heeley inspires a group of gifted and talented KS2 pupils with an active lesson about decimals. This lesson provides maths teachers with some concrete and accessible ways to teach students about decimals and introduce them to Pi. Jonny explores the differences between recurring and terminating decimals before looking at the relevance of these decimals in the real world. In the guise of a shop keeper who owns a 'round shop', he helps the pupils calculate Pi and entertains them with his explanation of this magical number. To demonstrate the brilliance of Pi, the lesson culminates in an exercise involving a giant tyre and a box of eggs. Will the eggs get crushed or will they correct calculation save them?

Decimals Forever

Three primary schools show how they include all pupils in PE

Three very different primary schools demonstrate how they set about including all their pupils in PE and school sport. Kings Avenue Primary School in Clapham, south London, has a diverse intake of pupils with widely differing needs. The school makes provision for its pupils through thoughtful implementation of its inclusion ethos. Amongst the success stories at Kings Avenue is the "Russian Workout" dance class, offered by a Russian dance tutor who trained in classical ballet. Elsewhere, we take a look at an innovative web-based scheme - the Virtual Athletics League - used by pupils at Stoke St Gregory CE Primary School and Halcon Community Primary School in Taunton. The scheme enables gifted and talented students to be identified and challenged, whilst pupils of all abilities can compete against their own past performances and see proof of their progress.

Everyone's Included

A review of the provision for gifted and talented pupils

Staff at Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School in Hastings and the nearby Helenswood Performing Arts College are followed as they go about identifying their gifted and talented pupils. Ten per cent of pupils at every primary and secondary school are identified as gifted or talented and placed on a register. This programme looks at the provision in places for these children and at the role governors have played in implementing and monitoring the G&amp;T programme. Higher order thinking skills, open ended investigations, lunchtime and after school clubs are among the approaches addressing the needs of the G&amp;T students. At both schools, the G&amp;T coordinators are currently undergoing lead teacher training and governors at both schools play a crucial monitoring role.

A management and governor focus on Gifted and Talented

A focus on the Gifted and Talented programme from a management and governors perspective, focusing on the fundamental questions of identification and provision This includes a look at how proper support and structure can evolve into a sound whole-school policy. Taking an inclusive approach to identification, including pupils from all backgrounds, languages and learning styles, different schools provide a range of learning opportunities as well as monitoring methods. The message is clear: good provision for the most able has a positive impact on the whole school.

Gifted and Talented - A Whole School

Two primary schools embed the Gifted and Talented programme

This programme shows how two inner city primary schools have implemented the Gifted and Talented programme, using the core principles of provision, identification and monitoring, and looks at the benefits they've reaped. Teachers at Christchurch Primary School believe in embedding techniques in the classroom, creating opportunities to show talents, embracing different learning styles and using different forms of identification. At Hampden Gurney Primary School children use imagination and creativity to think beyond the paper and use higher level thinking skills. These skills can be employed across all subjects, whether they?re writing play scripts, classifying animals, solving problems in science or working on space and shape in art.

Gifted and Talented - Primary Teaching and Learning

A guide for parents about the Gifted and Talented programme

A focus on how the Gifted and Talented programme works, including a look at some excellent provisions in a range of schools, as well as some ideas of ways that parents can support their children. Increasingly, schools provide stretching and fulfilling education to more able pupils both in and out of the classroom. Taking an inclusive approach to identification, including pupils from all backgrounds, languages and learning styles, different schools provide a range of learning opportunities as well as monitoring methods.

Gifted and Talented - What Does It Mean For Parents?

Peter Curran takes a look at the gifted and talented programme

This episode of Careerwise looks at the gifted and talented programme, exploring what the role of the gifted and talented coordinator is and what it can bring to a career. Presenter Peter Curran chats to two leading experts about the programme, finding out when it began and discovering how to get that valuable CPD to help teach this group of children. There's also a visit to a primary school that looks at how the G&amp;T programme works in the earlier years, and reveals exactly what we should look for in gifted children.

Gifted and Talented Coordinator

A primary school runs a gifted and talented pupil voice project

Meet Lucy, a Year 6 pupil who has helped implement her school's pupil voice project on how to improve gifted and talented provisions. Lucy is part of a small group of pupils from all years who make up the research group at Tipton St John Primary school in Exeter. They conduct research into learning across the whole school and analyse responses to their questionnaires. Lucy talks through the findings and discusses how the research work itself has challenged them. She shows how the school has taken on board their views and some of the changes they have made, from more pair work in class to whole school 'think days'. Tipton St John Primary is one of several schools that took part in a South West Gifted and Talented Education pupil voice action research project.

Gifted and Talented Pupil Voice - Lucy

Pupils use images of India to discuss community

Returning from a trip to India, Joanna Gilbert uses images to explore community cohesion with her gifted and talented pupils, and records her findings on her own video. Joanna and her pupils at Brough Primary School in Yorkshire start by focussing on their own identity. Then they look at images and video footage brought back from India, and discuss what community means when the extremes of rich and poor live side by side. They ask what makes a successful community and what happens when communities don't work, using images from India and from the UK media. In the discussion that follows, Rittika Chanda Parruck from the British Council in Delhi is joined by Joanna and her colleague in the India project, Rachel Lloyd, plus headteacher Isabel Peirson. Joanna feels that her pupils have made significant discoveries in the course of their Indian journey. The next step is to see how her gifted and talented pupils can spread their discovery across the school.

Indian Journey

A look at the techniques used to collect and utilise pupil data

This programme looks at the various techniques used to collect pupil data and explores the importance of how staff evaluate and use the data to help pupils on a whole school, class and individual level. At Hexthorpe Primary School in Doncaster, pupil data is seen as an essential component of the personalised learning programme. In the classroom, Year 2 teacher Liz Denton demonstrates how pupils use their targets to self-assess themselves, stressing the importance of this informal data during her lesson planning. On an individual level, the school stresses the importance of focusing on all levels of ability, especially the gifted and talented. This is emphasised when Emily, a gifted and talented Year 6 pupil meets with her teacher to discuss her personal targets, which they later share with her mother.

Professional Development for Quality Teaching

Whole school

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