Towards an Inclusive ‘Entitlement’ Agenda through ICT for Gifted Students ian.warwick@londongt

1. Towards an Inclusive ‘Entitlement’ Agenda through ICT for Gifted Students ian.warwick@londongt.org

2. Personalising Education ‘We believe that people should be able to rise by their talents, not by their birth or advantages of privilege. We understand that people are not all born into equal circumstances, so one role of state education is to open up opportunities for all, regardless of their background. This means we need to provide high standards of basics for all, but also recognise the different abilities of different children, and tailor education to meet their needs and develop their potential.’ Tony Blair

3. Urban change through ICT G&T education • accessible and transferable ideas • flexible and adaptable tools and resources • active voice – leader, teacher, learner, parent • focus on developing skills and behaviours • students as active researchers and independent learners • choice and flexibility • whole-class provision, group and independent learning

4. LGT core principles • We work on the principles • that all students are entitled to be stretched and challenged; • that the most effective gifted and talented provision is rooted in good teaching and learning within the daily classroom; • that a focus on more able student groups can be a driver for whole school improvement.

5. LGT delivery goals • to improve the attainment, skills and motivation of London’s gifted and talented students • to improve the capacity of London’s educators to provide effectively for London’s gifted and talented students • to develop models of effective partnership working across all sectors of the city • to build a portfolio of challenging and effective e-learning resources • whilst prioritising the needs of key communities especially underachieving and disadvantaged students

6. ICT Vision • Personalising learning is about tailoring education to individual need, interest and aptitude so as to ensure every learner achieves and reaches the highest standards possible. • The advantage of ICT is that it can be available to ALL students who can be offered the challenge they need to even be recognised as very able,

7. ICT Strategy for Children and Learners • Personalising learning is about tailoring education to ensure that every pupil reaches their full potential. • It is not individualised learning, where children simply work alone, nor is it pupils being left to their own devices. • It is shaping ICT teaching and strategies around the different ways children learn.

8. Effective Inclusive ICT Teaching & Learning • Personalising learning demands ICT teaching and learning strategies that develop the competence and confidence of every learner by actively engaging and stretching them. • For teachers, it means developing their repertoire of teaching skills through online exemplars, their subject specialism and management of the learning experience.

9. Effective Inclusive ICT Teaching & Learning • It requires a range of whole class, group and individual teaching, learning and ICT strategies to transmit knowledge, to instil key learning skills and to accommodate different paces of learning. • For pupils, this means a focus on their learning skills and their capability to take forward their own learning.

10. The inclusive agenda for GT students • Discovering what makes for meaningful difference • Utilising different approaches to suit different needs • Opportunities to try out skills that might not otherwise be recognised

11. What do the most able want and need? • To make choices about their learning. This can be achieved by offering them a choice of routes through material; by providing a range of starting and finishing points; by allowing them choice in the way they demonstrate that learning has been achieved or latitude in the ways in which they present their learning.

12. What do the most able want and need? • To see the big picture - knowing the context and purpose of the learning, and locking it onto what has gone before and what will follow. • To be given enquiry-based approaches and genuinely investigative tasks where outcomes are not fixed or limited. They enjoy asking questions as much as answering them.

13. What do the most able want and need? • To move from the concrete to the abstract, moving from the specific to the general and testing the validity what they have generalised in a range of environments. • To work with stimulating learning materials, like all learners.

14. Students online pathways for classrooms

15. Effective online resources - structure • Introduction • How can we think about the core ideas? • Big questions – e.g. how can we think like scientists? • Main learning activity • Making the connections by: • Interactive engagement with ideas and concepts • Applying and challenging subject knowledge • Testing hypotheses • Plenary • Learning about the learning that has taken place • Applying understanding in different contexts • Setting new challenges Breadth, depth and pace is designed into the resources at all stages.

16. high challenge choice and flexibility focus on developing skills students as active researchers, independent learners whole-class provision, group and independent learning delivery through interactive whiteboards, multiple media Smart tools for smart students

17. Compacting Objectives • The resources developed in our partnership enrich the curriculum by extending learning beyond the objectives outlined • The result embeds provision for gifted pupils within classroom practice

18. Teaching and learning rationale • If you help pupils to see key ideas in science they are better placed to make the connections between them and be able to apply their scientific knowledge and understanding • The resources use a questioning process that takes students through from comprehension of facts, to analysis of facts and ideas, and up to synthesising and evaluating their knowledge by developing hypotheses.

19. Deep Cells Students take a journey into the human body, where there are trillions of living cells far removed from the outside world. The key question addressed is, how do they survive?

20. Innovative approaches to science: Interdependence • promotes scientific thinking skills and encourages students to make links between ideas – to think like scientists rather than just learning scientific facts • contains challenging activities with instructive animations, high level questions and links to relevant sources of information.

21. In Between The Lines • promotes critical and creative thinking • enables students to improve analytical skills independently • high challenge activities based on real world issues • explores viewpoint, argument and the potential of presentational devices through interactive online tasks • also relates to critical thinking, religious studies and citizenship

22. Expanding the teaching repertoire: Teacher Tools • offers a ‘starter kit’ for teachers new to gifted and talented provision and extension for the more experienced • focuses on the key areas of ID, provision and monitoring • synthesises the best practice nationally and internationally • provides PowerPoint presentations with audio commentary to improve professional practice.

23. The REAL toolkit • A bank of web-based guidance, commentary, tools, resources and multi-media training materials • All externally quality assured for feasibility, practicability and transferability • All based on the voices and experiences of teachers, students and administrators

24. Academic language – accessing challenge • New arrivals: • 1,000 most frequently used words give access to 74% of texts • Word level tests available in REAL toolkit • Less than 80% score requires a focused intervention to support acquisition • Advanced learners of English • 2,000 words offer another access to 78% of texts • 570 additional ‘headwords’ deliver access to 90% of texts • Word-level proficiency provides access to challenge in learning and also improves question-level responses

25. Small fires in the darkness “We need to prepare ourselves for the possibility that sometimes big changes follow from small events, and that sometimes these changes can happen very quickly!” (Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point) “Change comes from small initiatives which work, initiatives which become the fashion. We cannot wait for great visions from great people, for they are in short supply at the end of history. It is up to us to light our own small fires in the darkness.” (Charles Handy, The Empty Raincoat)

26. Butterflies for urban improvement ‘we believe that small interventions can have a disproportionate effect. We call them ‘butterflies’ after the chaos or complexity theorist’s story that if sufficient butterflies were to beat their wings in the Amazonian forest they could trigger a hurricane thousands of miles away.’ (Brighouse & Wood)