Gifted and More Able Students
Gifted and More Able Students are those who are achieving or who have the potential to achieve, at a level substantially beyond the rest of their peer group inside the school. This may be in one or more of the following areas:
- General intellectual ability or talent
- Specific academic aptitude or talent
- Visual and performing arts and sports
- Leadership ability
- Creative and productive thinking
- Problem solving ability
- Mechanical ingenuity
- Special abilities in empathy, understanding and negotiation
In comparison with their peers, when engaged in their area of expertise, gifted and talented students will tend to:
- Show a passion for particular subjects or areas of interest and seek to pursue them
- Master the rules of a domain easily and transfer their insights to new problems
- Analyse their own behaviour and hence use a greater range of learning strategies than others (self-regulation)
- Make connections between past and present learning
- Demonstrate intellectual curiosity
- Show intellectual maturity and enjoy engaging in depth with subject material
- Actively and enthusiastically engage in debate and discussion on a particular subject
- Produce original and creative responses to common problems.
Before identifying any student as gifted or talented in a particular area, we aim to ensure all students have had the opportunity to learn and succeed in that area. A gifted or talented student can be identified using a variety of methods. The specific procedure will vary according to the subject area but may include elements of the following:
- Teacher nomination
- Year Head nomination
- Coach nomination
- Assessment results within school
- Assessment results outside school
- CAT4 and DATS testing
- Reports carried out by Educational Psychologists
- Identification by a previous teacher or school
- Identification by a primary school
- Identification by an external agency or organisation, such as the State Examinations Commission
- Primary school reports
Templeogue College works to support gifted and more able students by aiming to:
- Ensure that all students are suitably challenged in all lessons so that gifted, and more able students make appropriate levels of progress
- Provide the opportunities for differentiated work/resources and opportunities for open-ended homework
- Develop and provide opportunities for extension work/projects and provide appropriate pastoral care
- Provide opportunities for professional development of teachers when available to inform teaching strategies e.g. make contact with experts external to the school
- Provide a wide range of extra-curricular opportunities to encourage talent to flourish
- Provide mentoring and additional provision for students of exceptional ability where deemed appropriate
- Promote the development of independent learning by allowing students to organise their own work, to carry out tasks unaided, evaluate their work and become self-critical.
The college will continue to cater for these students through the curriculum on offer and also through the extra-curricular activities which students are encouraged to participate in.