retired_steevo93

My mum's a head teacher at a private school, and they've refused to cooperate with the 'gifted and talented' programme being implemented in state schools. I've got to say, based on my experiences, I think she's absolutely right, as it's going to f**k up a lot of kids horribly.

Firstly, the criteria for being 'gifted and talented' are ridiculously modest. Huge swathes of the young population with better-than-average, not exceptional, skills are going to be given this label. Many of them will embrace it wholeheartedly and start to feel superior, though most will have a fair idea, by the time they're a little bit older, that the label is almost meaningless. They'll certainly feel under more pressure to do better, which is terrible as many of them simply won't, through no fault of their own. They're just not gifted or talented.

Kids who are tend to know it anyway. If you're that exceptional and clearly developing at an unusually fast rate, teachers will notice and children, who are quite competitive and aware of their abilities relative to their peers, certainly will. The genuinely gifted, or merely extremely able kids often feel under enough pressure as it is with all the fuss that surrounds them, without having the 'gifted and talented' label officially slapped on them.

Then there's the effect on the others. If even moderately able kids, simply by being quite conscientious, are able to earn this tag, you've created a sizeable intellectual underclass, who are told by implication that they are NOT gifted or talented, whereas many of their friends are. How they react is anyone's guess, but I firmly expect it to be the cause of quite a lot of resentment and bullying.

False expectations, falsely inflated egos, needlessly setting kids up for a nasty surprise when they realise they are neither gifted nor talented, resentment among the rest... All reasons why my mum's school will absolutely not be implementing this destructive, idiotic scheme. At the risk of a BG moment, discuss.

retired_steevo93

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/educati...2789092.ece?EMC-Bltn

While I'm at it, an example of how arbitrary and politically-motivated the scheme is (who's baby?), and how little it has to do with any honest assessment of kids....

"Mr Stannard’s appointment, made under the personal direction of Gordon Brown, is part of a drive to extend massively the reach of the G&T programme by raising the proportion of children selected in each school from 5 to about 10 per cent."

Discovered a few more gifted and talented kids have we?

retired_steevo93

whose

dammit

retired_bball3378

I assume this is all from 1st hand experience, oh gifted and talented one.

caught anyone else stealing your name recently?

retired_hvporter

To be fair, that's always going to be less of an issue in an independent school anyway, as the majority of the kids will fall under the Government 'guidelines' for G&T.

That's a very sweeping generalisation. The genuinely G&T kids I have taught have been a mixed bunch of know-it-alls and meek and mild types.

No more than the norm, I suspect. Streaming and setting has been the vogue in upper primary schools and secondary/grammar schools for many a year.

You're very right in that the criteria are set rather low, but some of the generalisations you've made are a bit odd. I personally feel that the tag is given to kids all too easily, when a genuinely G&T child will have qualities in a broad range of subjects.

retired_hvporter

Well this is it. Schools are being told that the top 5-10% of their population are G&T, yet your mother's school will have a stack more than the local primary school, or a primary in Forest Gate. It is too generalised.

retired_kylakras

When I was at school we had a gifted and talented 'Set of pupils' - Most of them were just your normal kids who really were not any more intelligent than kids not in G&T - But of course there was one or two, well one child in my year who was awfully intelligent, but also a teachers pet and all the other generalisations you can think of for somebody with a Gifted and Talented 'Tag'.

I don't think it put them under any pressure as by the time they had grown up the tag was meaningless and practically ignored by the school also.

retired_miki57

I went to an academic selective high school. Standardised tests which you had to score high to get into, basically the people who graduated are mostly Asian/Indian migrants whose parents push really hard to study, with a few Caucasian people mixed in (admittedly most middle class or higher, otherwise they send them to private schools). The kids are pretty much a carbon copy of each other in personality, tastes, social skills, and go on to do the same type of courses at the same uni (Commerce, Law, Medicine).

retired_steevo93

Chip on your shoulder there?

retired_balldog

tl; dr