Like all learners, the gifted and talented need frequent opportunities to apply their skills and understanding, and to develop their knowledge, within a secure and flexible learning environment. The learning culture should:

• value learners' own interests and learning styles;
• encourage independence and autonomy, and support learners in using their initiative;
• encourage learners to be open to ideas and initiatives presented by others;
• encourage connections across subjects or aspects of the learning programme;
• link learning to wider applications;
• encourage the use of a variety of resources, ideas, methods and tasks;
• involve learners in working in a range of settings and contexts -- as individuals, in pairs, in groups, as a class, cross-year, cross-institution and inter-institution;
• encourage learners to reflect on the process of their own learning and to understand the factors that help them to make progress (see Assessment).

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Teachers can use the following checklists to help them consider the effectiveness of the learning environment for the gifted and talented.

Talking about learning

How have you established a culture in which wrong answers are productive opportunities for learning (happy accidents), and in which creative thinking is actively encouraged?

How are you modelling the process of talking about how learning takes place, rather than just what is learned?

How have you helped learners with the language needed to discuss the process of their learning?

Have you asked gifted and talented learners what helps them to learn effectively? What have you done to ensure you respond to what you have learnt from them?

How have you helped learners become more aware of their preferred learning styles?

Do you provide significant opportunities for them to practise learning styles that they find more difficult?

How are you developing and maintaining a classroom or school code of achievement?

Questions and challenge

How often do you encourage creative thinking by asking open-ended questions to which there are no right answers?

How often are learners encouraged to consider the nature of a question and its possible answers? For example, do they consider when answers can be absolute whilst learning to appreciate the provisional nature of much knowledge?

How often do you encourage learners to ask questions of themselves, each other and other adults in the classroom?

How are learners involved in self-assessment and/or peer assessment?

How effectively are the processes of formative assessment developed? (For more information on this, see Assessment)

How do you ensure that examples of gifted and talented work are on display or readily available, to raise the expectations of both learners and teachers?

How effectively are you engaging learners in recognising and responding to challenge and taking initiative in their learning?

Planning and resources

How thoroughly have you checked learning activities to make sure that they offer challenges that match:
- higher level descriptions than expected for the key stage and/or the exceptional performance criteria of the national curriculum?
- the higher tier requirements of GCSE specifications?
- the specifications for advanced level qualifications, including the advanced extension award? (See Curriculum 2000 in action for more information.)

How effectively are you involving teaching assistants, supply teachers, trainers or workplace supervisors in the identification of, and provision for, the gifted and talented?

How effectively are you liaising with the schools' library service or other local resource support services?

How are you developing a resource collection, including lists of web resources for young people and staff in classrooms, departments, the staff room, library or resource centre? How are you making sure that resources are being used?

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