(E) Copyright: The NSW Department of School Education, Sydney, 1991
Free for copying by non-profit educational institutions.

Policy for the Education of Gifted and Talented Students

Index

Foreword

The Department of School Education identifies and develops gifts and talents among its students.

This policy and the associated implementation strategies, developed through extensive consultation over the past year, specify responsibilities and provide guidance for teachers, schools, regions and the central executive of the NSW Department of School Education.

The new policy is more comprehensive and flexible than its predecessor. It requires teachers and school communities to extend and enrich the curriculum to challenge gifted and talented students. It encourages the continuing development of appropriate strategies including early entry to school and accelerated progression. There will be ongoing community consultation regarding the implementation of the policy, particularly in relation to strategies such as the provision for early entry into schools.

Programs to realise the full potential of gifted and talented young people must be balanced and implemented in a manner appropriate to the needs of the individual.

The NSW Department of School Education Policy for the Education of Gifted and Talented Students, aims to achieve educational equity and high quality outcomes for all gifted and talented students, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic or sociocultural backgrounds, and to ensure that these students are extended and enriched throughout their schooling.

Denis W Ralph

Acting Director-General of School Education

November, 1991

Rationale

This policy statement complements the NSW Government Strategy for the Education of Gifted and Talented Students. The overall aim of the policy is to maximise the educational outcomes of schooling for gifted and talented students. Government schools have a responsibility to educate all students to their full potential.

The policy adopts the definitions of gifted and talented articulated in the NSW Government Strategy statement.

Gifted students are those with the potential to exhibit superior performance across. a range of different areas of endeavour.

Talented students are those with the potential to exhibit superior performance across in one area of endeavour.

It is critical for gifted and talented students to be given appropriate opportunity, stimulation and the experiences to develop their potential and satisfy their learning needs. Special emphasis will also be given to identifying those students whose gifts and talents may have been previously overlooked.

Gifted and talented students are to be found in all communities regardless of their sociocultural or socioeconomic backgrounds.

It is important for teachers to be sensitive to factors which can help or hinder the recognition and development of special gifts and talents in young people. These factors are:

motivation
self esteem
peer pressure
socioeconomic and sociocultural
cultural and linguistic
disability

Giftedness and talent may occur in many different areas including the creative arts, academic subjects, social and leadership skills and sporting interests.

Opportunities for students to achieve their full potential should be provided as a matter of daily routine. Such opportunities may be created within a class, among groups of classes or schools, or by regionally or centrally-designed programs and initiatives.

Policy Statement

This policy statement recognises that decision making in relation to provisions for gifted and talented students is a complex and interactive process.

School principals, in consultation with parents, teachers, school counsellors and other appropriate personnel, have the prime responsibility for decisions in relation to the education of gifted and talented students.

School communities have a responsibility to identify their gifted and talented students.
School communities have a responsibility to provide a range of opportunities for their gifted and talented students.
1. School Principals have the final responsibility for deciding when the early entry to school of a student who is intellectually gifted and talented is appropriate to meet the student's educational, social and emotional needs.
2. School Principals have the final responsibility for deciding when any form of accelerated progression is appropriate for individual gifted and talented students in Years K-12 to meet the student's educational, social and emotional needs.
Teachers have a responsibility to identify the gifted and talented students in their classes.
Teachers have a responsibility to select a variety of teaching strategies for inclusion in programs for the range of gifted and talented students in their classes.
Regions and schools have a responsibility to coordinate school provisions for gifted and talented students when it is feasible for more than one school to share this responsibility.
Regions and schools have a responsibility to provide staff development opportunities in the education of gifted and talented students for principals, teachers and other appropriate school personnel.
The Director-General and the Central Executive have a responsibility to account for the implementation of Government policy and to report on the outcomes of schooling for gifted and talented students in NSW Government schools.

This policy statement must be read in conjunction with the NSW Government Strategy for the Education of Gifted and Talented Students.

End of policy document.

This page was last updated 19 July 1996