Teachers need to consider not only the levels of support and challenge they provide for gifted and talented learners, but also the kinds of learning that are most suitable. Investigative approaches, opportunities to make comparisons, and encouragement to make evaluative and critical comments are particularly important. In shared sessions, the gifted and talented should have opportunities to set their own questions, offer opinions and views, interpret information, and reflect and speculate on the topic. They can then apply these skills to independent work.

Teachers can match tasks to the needs of gifted and talented learners by providing:

• common tasks that involve different responses and outcomes;
• tasks that have an incline of difficulty or a range of steps, as in graded exercises (the gifted and talented may then enter at a higher level and take the task further);
• separate tasks linked to a common theme.

Having provided appropriate tasks for the gifted and talented, teachers should:

• negotiate challenging targets with individual pupils, which they can work to over a set period of time;
• encourage learners to set their own targets;
• take care not to leave learners to get on with work unsupported and undirected;
• avoid overloading them with extra work;
• set higher-order demands of the work already undertaken;
• emphasise investigative, problem-solving and exploratory approaches, which can be sustained over a number of lessons (including homework).

Developing department planning

Members of a humanities (history, geography, RE) department identified a need to ensure that activities in their schemes of work were meeting the needs of their most able learners.

They have now added additional sections (tick boxes) to the schemes of work, so that for each unit or group of lessons staff must indicate which 'intelligence' (following Howard Gardner's categorisation) of 'learning style' is being accessed, and whether the plan includes opportunities to use higher-order thinking skills.

The tick boxes enable the department to ensure that the full range of learning styles and thinking skills are covered within a unit of work. (When they are not, the scheme needs to be revised).

The department has found that the straightforward tick box reinforces established good practice. It helps all members of the department to focus on the needs of more able learners and ensure that each lesson challenges and motivates.

Top of page

Questioning

Effective questioning in lessons ( based on good planning and careful listening to responses), can challenge the gifted and talented to develop their thinking skills.

In Progress in key stage 3 science (Ofsted, 1999), noted:

'In the good lessons observed by HMI, questions such as Why? and What if? were used to challenge pupils to offer their own explanations or use their knowledge to predict effects. The use of such questions enabled the teachers to establish how well pupils were gaining knowledge and understanding, encouraged them to articulate their developing scientific ideas and promoted discussion. Teachers who made good use of this style of questioning were often less occupied with the management of practical activity and made interaction with pupils a priority.'

One inspection report noted:

'Questioning which probes pupils' understanding is a feature of all lessons, not just those in which the whole class is taught together. When pupils are engaged in practical activity they are involved in discussions with their teacher about what they are doing. This might relate to the details of their planning, their prediction or what they can tell from the emerging pattern of results obtained.'

Learners' desire to ask questions should be a feature of all classrooms. If their contributions are valued, it promotes a spirit of enquiry and a culture in which they feel supported.

The use of key questions in curriculum planning is a powerful tool in:

• focusing teaching;
• helping learners to organise their thoughts and learning;
• helping learners to understand for themselves the significance of asking questions.

Top of page