National developments in Gifted and Talented

As you may be aware, Norfolk is influential in developing practice in the Eastern Region G&T Partnership, which includes all local authorities, universities, education trusts and charities in the Government Office East area. The vision of the partnership is to support and promote the National Programme by providing local training for staff, and enrichment provision for students.

In order to ensure effective provision for gifted and talented pupils, which is an important component of the personalisation agenda, the DCSF is working with the National Strategies to take this forward. The Institutional Quality Standards for Gifted and Talented education have been introduced as a self-assessment tool for schools to audit and develop their provision, and the National Register will be developed to support identification and tracking. These initiatives will form the basis of the National Programme for Gifted and Talented Education (NPGATE), which will be strategically managed and directed by CfBT.

A key proposal within the new National Programme is for every primary cluster (typically 5/6 schools) to identify a Leading Teacher responsible for Gifted and Talented education. This teacher will work closely with Leadership Teams in schools or in the cluster to advise and lead on teaching and learning, and provide advocacy for G&T students. The DCSF is keen to promote this collaborative model of working and the Local Authority recommends that schools give this serious consideration while maintaining the current G&T co-ordinator's role. The Leading Teacher would then be in a position to work with these co-ordinators to develop the work in a cluster of schools.

We know there is already some well-developed provision throughout the county, but this initiative gives us an opportunity to look again at our structures and to focus on improving classroom provision for pupils. Both Ofsted and School Improvement Partners will be trained to take account of the progress of gifted and talented pupils and will, therefore, explore how schools have addressed this improvement initiative.

During the Spring Term 2008, Leading Teachers and G&T co-ordinators will be able to access training, based on the Institutional Quality Standards, to update their knowledge of issues related to providing for Gifted and Talented pupils. The funding to enable this currently sits within school budgets as part of the personalisation grant.

Further information about the Leading Teachers' role, provided by the DCSF, is available on the Teachernet website. We suggest that the next step is to discuss this issue at the Heads' Cluster meeting in the Autumn Term. For the beginning of September, Cluster Heads will be provided with a prompt sheet to help you with the process of identifying your cluster Leading Teacher. In the meantime, if you have any questions, please contact Jan Utting.