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Case study 5: Involving every department

This case study shows how a school involved every department in tightly targeted work for gifted and talented students.

Background

inner-city Fresh Start school for 11- to 16-year-olds

Implementation

asking all departments to bid for resources for a project designed to meet the needs of gifted and talented students

monitoring the projects through self-review

setting up a database about teaching and learning for gifted and talented students

Impact

new projects for gifted and talented students in every department

greater awareness of gifted and talented teaching and learning across the school

Background

The school is an inner-city Fresh Start school for 11- to 16-year-olds, with 700 students on roll. Half of the students are entitled to free school meals, and 80 percent have English as an additional language (including a substantial number of 'early stage learners').

The school's post-Ofsted action plan included the aim of raising the literacy levels of more able students. It planned to achieve this by encouraging greater attention to detail in independent learning and raising awareness of the importance of reading, with particular emphasis on using books for research.

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Implementation

The school decided to involve every department by asking them to bid for money for a project that was designed to meet both their departmental gifted and talented aims and those of the whole school. Each department was asked to fill in a straightforward form summarising:

• the objective of their project;
• the activities they were planning;
• the target group;
• personnel involved;
• success criteria;
• the timescale;
• resource costs;
• evaluation.

Departments returned the forms, the resourcing was agreed, and implementation began. Projects in each subject area included:

• English -- giving gifted students the opportunity to work with a professional publisher to produce an anthology of students' work;
• geography -- buying subject-specific dictionaries and producing high-level homework booklets;
• ICT -- buying a digital video camera and digital camera to enable students to create more effective web pages for different audiences;
• mathematics -- providing twilight sessions for GCSE Statistics;
• MFL -- planning and implementing a one-day 'immersion course' at a local university, to develop gifted students' ability to talk spontaneously in modern European languages;
• music -- providing catch-up twilight sessions for year 9 students;
• religious education -- buying challenging texts to support work begun with a visiting tutor;
• science -- buying scientific journals and higher-level books, with time funded for producing linked schemes of work;
• technology -- buying a digital camera, colour printer and scanner, to help students produce annotated pictures of a product throughout its development.

All of these projects were carefully monitored through the school's self-review cycle. This involves discussion with students and lesson observation (each teacher is observed once a term by a head of department or a member of the senior management team). In this case, the cycle of self-review focused on differentiation at all levels, but in particular how teaching and learning strategies support gifted and talented students.

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Impact

As a result of getting the active involvement of all departments in targeting work for gifted and talented students, the school now has an action plan for gifted and talented which features projects from across departments.

The school is using the findings of its self-review cycle to put together a large database of evidence about the teaching and curriculum that its gifted and talented students are being offered throughout the school.

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