NACE Challenge Award, G&T provision in Wales

NACE Challenge in Wales

Val Scott brings us up to date with developments in Wales and describes the important role played by NACE in introducing Quality Standards to schools

In common with much of the UK and elsewhere, provision for G&T pupils in Wales has historically consisted of masterclasses, competitions, residential courses, etc which were separate from classroom provision, and mostly centred on mathematics, sport and music. The Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales 2000/2001 noted that about half the schools in Wales made provision at that time for ‘gifted and talented’ pupils, but that much of this related to extra-curricular activities during lunchtimes or out of school hours.

In 2002, the Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales (ACCAC) contracted NACE to produce a bilingual guidance document for schools on provision for more able and talented pupils, A Curriculum of Opportunity: Developing Potential into Performance, with a steering group that included teachers, advisers and ACCAC officers. In this document, the term ‘more able and talented’ was used to describe pupils who require opportunities for enrichment and extension that go beyond those provided for the general cohort of pupils. It encompasses pupils who are more able across the curriculum as well as those who show talent in one or more specific areas. The document goes on to say that in every school there will be a group of pupils who require extended educational opportunities, regardless of how they compare to more able and talented pupils in other schools. The document includes guidance for schools on a range of issues including:

the identification of more able and talented pupils
organisation and grouping
extending and enriching learning
providing opportunities beyond the classroom
developing effective whole-school practice.

Throughout this document it is recognised that making provision to meet the needs of more able and talented pupils will benefit all pupils, and this fits in well with the Welsh Assembly Government’s ‘inclusion agenda’.

Inclusion agenda
Copies of A Curriculum of Opportunity were distributed free to all schools in Wales in 2003, and many used it to begin to address the needs of more able and talented pupils. In August 2003, a task group set up by the Welsh Assembly Government produced a consultation guidance document for local education authorities, Educating Pupils Who Are More Able and Talented. The consultation comments at that time, however, suggested that the document needed some amendment to become a useful working document for LEAs and schools.

In February 2005, following requests from members of NACE, an inaugural meeting of NACE Cymru was held in Cardiff, and an interim committee formed. The committee organised a series of open meetings in Cardiff for NACE Cymru members involving presentations on a variety of subjects related to provision for more able and talented pupils. These included presentations from the General Teaching Council for Wales (GTCW) giving practical advice on funding for CPD; the National Grid for Learning Cymru (NGfLCymru); a representative of the education section of the National Museum and Galleries of Wales; an infant teacher talking about parental involvement initiatives in her school, and a group of students talking about ‘pupil voice’ in their secondary school. (The open meetings have been discontinued for the time being, in favour of smaller meetings held in a local college where video conferencing facilitates wider consultation with representatives from across the whole of Wales.)

Soon after the inaugural meeting, groups of schools from two neighbouring LEAs, Caerphilly and Rhondda-Cynon-Taff, began a pilot of the NACE Challenge Award, jointly funded by the GTCW and the two LEAs, to determine whether or not the CA Framework would be appropriate for schools in Wales, despite the differences between England and Wales initiatives.

Meeting the challenge
The NACE Cymru committee is particularly pleased about the close liaison that has developed with the Additional Needs and Inclusion Division within the Welsh Assembly Government. As a result, NACE was contracted to produce Quality Standards in education for more able and talented pupils, based on the 10 elements of the NACE Challenge Award but adapted to relate specifically to education provision in Wales. The resulting publication, Meeting the Challenge: Quality Standards in Education for More Able and Talented Pupils, included an updated version of the guidance for LEAs produced as a consultation document in 2003. Meeting the Challenge was launched as a consultation document at a joint Welsh Assembly Government/NACE Cymru conference in October 2006, attended by officers and teachers from most of the LEAs in Wales. The minister for education, Jane Davidson, announced additional funding to support schools that wished to apply for the NACE Challenge Award, which, in Wales, will be based on Meeting the Challenge, and to train assessors to work in Wales and in the Welsh language. Already, eight assessors have been trained, of whom four can assess Welsh medium provision.

As part of the package of funding, NACE has also been able to provide free training on the 10 elements of the Quality Standards to eight LEAs, involving a total of over 300 primary and secondary teachers.

In the meantime, two schools have achieved the Challenge Award: Tir-y-Berth Primary School, Caerphilly, was the first school in Wales to achieve the award, in November 2006; Treorchy Comprehensive School, Rhondda-Cynon-Taff, achieved their award in November 2007, becoming the first secondary school to do so. Both schools are based in relatively deprived areas, and so have proved conclusively that the Challenge Award is achievable whatever the social background of the majority of its pupils. Both schools commented that Curriculum of Opportunity was the catalyst that started them looking closely at, and developing their provision for more able and talented pupils.

The future
Following the circulation of Meeting the Challenge to all LEAs and schools in Wales, a set of six guidance documents focusing on different standards will also be sent free to schools over the course of the year. There is already increasing interest in the standards and in working towards the NACE Cymru Challenge Award and a general consensus among the schools beginning to get involved, that though the focus is on the needs of more able and talented pupils, the breadth of the award will ensure improved provision and standards across the board.

The NACE Cymru committee is encouraging regional meetings of members and there is likely to be a second joint Welsh Assembly Government/ NACE Cymru conference this autumn, to showcase and share good practice in using the Quality Standards and aiming for the Challenge Award.

The NACE Challenge Award, written for NACE by Heather Clements and Elaine Ricks, www.nace.co.uk/cymru

This article first appeared in Gifted & Talented Update - Feb 2008

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