Planning quality Gifted and Talented provision

Innovative learning has been a focus of our Cluster work for the last 5 years. In November 2004, we moved into a brand new environmentally sustainable, iconic Classroom of the Future (one of 12 nationally) called the CPR Learning Space. Our team challenge has been to create a futuristic learning environment, today - where barriers to learning for everyone are minimised. Our attitudes have been key to the successful realisation of our dream! Funded by a network of 28 schools, our real strength is derived from our partnership work, where numerous shared experiences enable us to take risks together, which can then be taken back for use in schools, children centres and the wider community.

Brain Wave plc (personalised learning challenge) is an emerging framework that incorporates all our principles and experiences about effective learning into a single, simple planning tool. Brain Wave plc is a simple and transferable challenge framework that encourages adults to work outside of their comfort zone and places students as leaders of themselves, each other and their own learning in a cross curricular context within which the principles of learning to learn are applied. G&T students thrive with the openness and exploratory elements of this approach, enabling them to start from their own level of prior experience and to develop this to accelerate and broaden their knowledge, skills and attitudes, without being held back by the unintentional limits that are inherent in staff led approaches.

The Brain Wave plc framework includes:-

• A scenario or story that provides a reason for doing, and a big picture for, the challenge. It includes an outcome and deadline, the product is left wide open.

• Roles and responsibilities for all the students and adults (the latter are encouraged to take a ‘hands off’ approach and act as ‘generic unstickers’.)

• Input of content, skills and attitudes using whatever is available. (For us, in our Learning Space, this includes plasma screens, shared network files, artefacts, experts live or via video conferencing and a huge selection of physical resources, many of which we get from the local Scrap Store.)

• Success criteria set up by the students themselves are self or peer assessed at the end of the challenge.

• Action planning by teams of students to decide who will do what, how & by when

• Challenge time, where teams put their action plan into practice, including self monitoring by the team  

• A show and tell presentation to an internal or external audience, asappropriate, although we encourage parents to come. Rehearsal time is provided.

• Feedback sessions using simple thinking tools, such as PMI, and a review by the students of their own success criteria

• A whole group celebration of everyone’s successes. This may include CDs for use in school, newsletters to go home to parents and certificates for students.

This framework is supremely flexible and has been applied to fit the planning of hour long sessions, collapsed timetables for half, whole or multiple days for single classes, whole year groups or even whole schools that takes place annually, several times a year or every day for children, school staff, governors, parents or the wider community!