Thursday, December 28, 2006

UK news story: Bright pupils to receive vouchers for extra lessons

On today's Guardian newspaper:


A voucher system to provide extra lessons for the brightest 10% of children in England is being introduced in schools, the Department for Education and Skills said today.
The initiative will help an estimated 800,000 pupils who will be able to spend their vouchers on additional courses, "master classes" at university-run summer schools or online evening classes.

The scheme, an extension of the government's National Academy of Gifted and Talented Youth, which has run into passive resistance from a sizeable minority of schools, is being promoted by Lord Adonis, the schools minister and former No 10 adviser
.

To read article click here

This is an interesting proposal, except how would it be administered and are national curriculum tests any real indicator of the gifted population? I find that an unlikely prospect, as we all know standardised testing is intensely flawed and designed to fill up numbers in tables on charts, rather than accurately identify any individual strengths.

Here's another link to another interesting paper called: Investigating the notion of children with multiple exceptionalities which mentions learning disabilities and ADHD and high ability.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi,
Have you read "A Mind at a Time" by Mel Levine.

pumps said...

Thank you for prompting me on Mel Levine, an important resource. I have read "A Mind at a Time" and "The Myth of Laziness" and found lots of helpful insights in his writing and work.

His ideas on multiple types of intelligences make perfect sense and help parents to see the broader canvas with their children.

In the many examples cited in either title I'm sure bells will toll for people and it will help them explore their children's learning differences more specifically.

What did you think of A Mind at a time? Did you find it helpful to your specific situation?

Thanks again.