Catering for Higher Ability Students

whiteandlight

These students came up in a recent discussion I was having about our education system and the fact that although these students are really SEN we don't cater for them officially, there is no support available for them.

What techniques or ideas do you use in your classroom to deal with the very intelligent student who may be well ahead of his peers?

I've seen/used differentiated work both additional work and "work ahead". I've tried getting students involved in work outside the classroom (particularly for music students). I've also used peer-to-peer learning but based on my own experience I am careful with it-paired reading drove me mental in primary school!

Any other ideas or what does your school do?

Afroshack

Musicmental85 wrote: »

These students came up in a recent discussion I was having about our education system and the fact that although these students are really SEN we don't cater for them officially, there is no support available for them.

What techniques or ideas do you use in your classroom to deal with the very intelligent student who may be well ahead of his peers?

I've seen/used differentiated work both additional work and "work ahead". I've tried getting students involved in work outside the classroom (particularly for music students). I've also used peer-to-peer learning but based on my own experience I am careful with it-paired reading drove me mental in primary school!

Any other ideas or what does your school do?

I have a question and answer box. On a slip of paper, they try to write a really challenging question on the topic we are doing. The idea is the box becomes filled with great, thought-provoking questions and the students can select one, answer one and add it to a wall display on that particular topic. Example: during Romeo and Juliet the kids wrote questions to a character - Tybalt, do you think you have anger issues? Romeo, do you think you are too superficial and dramatic? Juliet, have you considered that Romeo is a terrible influence on you? When they were finished and wanted a challenge, they select and answer a question at random. It works with pretty much any subject and topic, although you would need maybe 5/6 high ability students in a class of 30 to be using it consistently for it to work.

whiteandlight

Thats a really nice one! Something I have done in the past but not specifically for Higher Ability or even regularly. One to add to the arsenal I think

byhookorbycrook

We withdraw groups in our school. Criteria is that they have passed the CTYI assessment. (Not perfect, but objective at least).
Sadly there is no time officially allocated for children with exceptional ability under DES rules. The NCCA guidelines are worth a look, but as always, it all comes down to resources.
http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/publications/Except%20Able_Glines.pdf

Have a look at giftedkids.ie too.

poolsandles

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

We withdraw groups in our school. .

Have you had any hassle from the DES for doing this? I know of a school where they had an incidental. Inspector was not happy with exceptionally able children receiving learning support, they only wanted children on the opposite end of the scale receiving it.

It's fantastic to be able to give exceptionally able children that support! If the DES supported it in every school it would be wonderful but as you mentioned, it comes down to resources at the end of the day.

byhookorbycrook

No hassle at all, in fact if you view some of the latest WSE reports such work is commended. Once the learning support policy outlines support criteria and those on the tenth percentile or lower are accommodated, I don't see how there could be a problem.

whiteandlight

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

We withdraw groups in our school. Criteria is that they have passed the CTYI assessment. (Not perfect, but objective at least).
Sadly there is no time officially allocated for children with exceptional ability under DES rules. The NCCA guidelines are worth a look, but as always, it all comes down to resources.
http://www.ncca.ie/uploadedfiles/publications/Except%20Able_Glines.pdf

Have a look at giftedkids.ie too.

Yes I knew there was no official time allocated, it really isn't very fair to these students! I'll have a read of those thanks

poolsandles

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

No hassle at all, in fact if you view some of the latest WSE reports such work is commended. Once the learning support policy outlines support criteria and those on the tenth percentile or lower are accommodated, I don't see how there could be a problem.

Very interesting. I must look at some of the more recent reports. Maybe it was just the opinion of that particular inspector!

Mr Pseudonym

I think there's a distinction between, "How should students of a higher ability be catered for?", and, "How should High Ability students be catered for?"

I had a guy in my class who was on the Irish Maths Olympiad team (High Ability). And all that was done was that he was allowed to engage and disengage as he chose. Someone a few years ahead of me wrote a novel while in school that was published a few months after she graduated. For those types of student, there's really not much a teacher can do - either because they are not expert enough, or because it's simply infeasible to dedicate time to preparing material for such a small number (it's also likely that, as with for the least able, doing so would require more time than average).

CTYI has its Summer Courses, there are the Enrichment Classes which are effectively Maths Olympiad preparation, and the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies did some weekend maths classes, but nothing else I'm aware of. Perhaps the department could subsidise various academic bodies who would be willing to put on courses targeted at the High Ability students.

However, for those merely of a higher ability (for whatever reason - natural aptitude, extra application, etc) there are probably ways of accommodating them.

A lot depends on the subject, as well. Two subjects which are often presented as being diametrically opposed are Maths and English.

Regarding the former, in my Applied Maths classes, our teacher would display a list of questions related to that day's topic. He would generally spend the first 10-20 mins doing demonstrations on the board, before then moving around the class. At any point, a student could disengage from the demonstration and start into the questions. Generally, if not completed, the first half would be required for homework. I think AM lends itself to such a method because the questions tend to be long and somewhat diverse; with standard maths, a question is likely to be comparatively short, and one is probably more likely to reach a point beyond which they can't go. Also, there are only so many variants of a question one can do without becoming bored. However, that method, which I'm sure is not unique, doesn't limit higher-ability students. Problems arise when the development of topics moves too slow, though: it's very frustrating having understood the topic and perfected it in homework to return the next day to the same topic!

I was lucky that I went to a large school with small class-sizes, which meant that the standard (at lease of the higher ones) was relatively uniform, and any deviation would have been upwards.

For English, it's probably more complicated. I repeated my LC in a grind school which splits-up the course into four components: Paper 1; Single Text; Comparative; and Poetry. As a result, across my three LC years, I experienced eight teachers!

The styles were surprisingly similar: some gave notes, and some required that content be copied "from the board". But, if ever there was class discussion, it was conducted near the beginning of the topic and, as the topic developed, the teacher would merely present the interpretation of the text/poem. This means of teaching ought to cater for all, as the class doesn't impose its collective ability on the material. As suggested above, the killer for the higher-performing is excessive repetition or slow pace.

One advantage of the essay as a form of assessment is that one size fits all. A question/task as mundane as, "Analyse the poetry of X", can lead to wildly differing standards of answer.

I think, more than any other subject, English is the one that is taught least effectively. Whereas with maths, a teacher will analyse a student's answer line-by-line and identify mistakes, in English, I rarely received particularly effective feedback on how an assignment could be improved; even if I did get specific advice, it wasn't always apparent how I should apply it. I'm conscious that it's just not possible for a teacher to correct 20+ essays (from just one of their classes) and to give detailed feedback. But, I think there are achievable ways of directly improving writing ability (as opposed to indirectly - through practise or osmosis): were I a teacher, I would spend time with my class analysing essay samples which contained oft-made mistakes, with the homework task being to rewrite the piece in light of the flaws identified in class. For these types of writing class, the assignment ought to be 150-200 words, which allows the student to fully focus on task, and the teacher to give adequate feedback. Ironically, this method would likely to be to the detriment of the most able because they would not make those mistakes! Having had at least twelve English teachers over the course of my secondary-schooling, I can say to someone that, if they teach in this way, they are in the minority.


^^On rereading, the above paragraph doesn't address the question of the thread, at all!! Disappointingly, the rest of the post isn't particularly insightful either, and doesn't really develop the argument. But, it took me ages to write, so I'm posting it!

Mr Pseudonym

Forgot to say, in the States, there are "magnet schools" which cater for High Performing students, and draw students from a wide radius. The best known is probably Thomas Jefferson High School (for Science and Technology). This is a link to their course catalogue. For those unfamiliar, much like their universities, good American schools modulise their subjects and students have significantly more choice when designing their curriculum.

Perhaps, the same could happen here - though, there are probably many reasons why it couldn't!