The identification of Able, Most Able and Talented students is a process which the whole teaching and support staff participate in, as well as parents, carers and the children themselves.

The identification begins when a child joins the Academy. The Academy is keen to understand their achievements and interests in particular areas as they join the school. Discussions with parents and carers will enable us to create the best possible picture of the child, and records of awards and achievements in academic, sporting, musical, artistic and any extra-curricular activities will be helpful in this respect.

Both qualitative and quantitative information is used for identification purposes.

Able

Students who achieve, or have the ability to achieve, above average in one or more academic areas, including areas outside the main school curriculum. This also includes children who are leaders or role models and who display outstanding leadership and/or social skills.

Most Able

Students with an innate ability, who present a natural, outstanding aptitude or competence for exceptional performance. Most Able students have the potential to achieve at the highest level across a wide range of academic areas.

Talented

Students who excel in one or more specific fields or subjects, such as: Creative and Performing Arts – Art, Design & Technology, Drama, Music; Physical Education/sporting ability; and/or Extra-curricular pastimes – e.g. Chess.

Extension, acceleration and enrichment

Opportunities to broaden students’ learning experiences may include:

• Differentiation, where students may be grouped according to ability, and differentiated work is built into schemes of work and lesson plans to provide activities requiring extended higher order thinking skills;
• Working on subject matter which would typically be for older students to access broader knowledge and develop more sophisticated thinking and reasoning skills. This will occur through our early A-Level development programme, where students will be given a chance to work with current A-Level students and teachers on developing higher level challenge tasks that will stretch and develop their academic thinking and aspirations.
• Enabling a pupil to study aspects of a topic that there would not normally be time to study, or adding extra subjects or specialised calendar events to the curriculum or extra-curricular activities programme; and
• Partnership with other schools or external organisations, for example workshop events, specialised holiday camps, and local, regional and national schemes/competitions.