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A POLICY FOR PUPILS WITH ABILITIES

 Adopted by Education Committee July 1999

Rationale

It is becoming increasingly important for Local Education Authorities to develop policy, provision and support for schools in relation to the education of pupils with abilities.  Ofsted reports for schools all over the country, including in Bath and North East Somerset, frequently mention the lack of challenge in the curriculum for the most able.   The Government has raised the issue of ‘coasting schools’ that have apparently high results where better should be expected in terms of their intake characteristics.  Ofsted inspections of LEAs are also identifying ‘coasting LEAs’ where schools are not sufficiently challenged to aspire to higher levels of achievement.

The Bath and North East Somerset Education Development Plan has threaded through it the importance of supporting and challenging schools to meet the needs of their more able pupils, notably in literacy and numeracy.  There is also a complete activity that commits the LEA to raise the standards of the quality of teaching throughout the authority by addressing the needs of more able pupils in Bath and North East Somerset schools.

The Government is exhorting those in education to promote a culture where excellence is expected, applauded, and thrives.  Local Education Authorities are seen as central in supporting and challenging schools in order to raise standards.  The following is taken from the Education and Employment Committee Third Report on Highly Able Children:

The LEA’s responsibility to promote high standards must include ensuring that highly able children’s needs are met.  We recommend that LEAs take the following steps to discharge that obligation.  LEAs must put in place a policy in the education of the highly able .  Details of how the LEA intends to secure the right provision for them should be included in its Educational Development Plan.  The LEA must ensure that the needs of all pupils are identified, including the needs of the highly able – children of generally high ability and those with an ability in a particular subject or skill…… This responsibility can be seen as part and parcel of raising standards generally.’

Raising standards for more able pupils is likely to have an impact on quality of provision and standards throughout the ability range.

Policy

It is not appropriate to consider the education of pupils with abilities within a Special Educational Needs policy framework.  Recent Education Acts (1981, 1993, 1996) have defined Special Educational Needs clearly in terms of learning difficulties, which excludes more able children unless they have a disability causing problems of access to the curriculum.

Bath and North East Somerset LEA is committed to a partnership with schools, challenging and supporting them in improving standards and ensuring that all pupils have their abilities identified and promoted.

Bath and North East Somerset LEA is committed to a partnership with parents and the wider community.

It is recognised that many pupils have particular strengths in one or more areas of ability, endeavour or talent.  Areas that have been identified include:

·        Academic and Intellectual

·        Expressive and Performing Arts

·        Sports and Physical

·        Social, Leadership and Organisation

·        Visual, Spatial and Mechanical

·        Design, Technology and ICT

Bath and North East Somerset LEA aims to increase the opportunities for individual pupils to explore and develop areas of ability to their own and society’s benefit by:

·        Increasing awareness of pupils with abilities and promoting a positive view of their needs by all those involved with children and young people including schools, colleges, the community, and parents;

·        Supporting schools in extending and developing a variety of responses to meeting the needs of pupils with abilities, improving standards and promoting a culture which seeks, applauds and promotes achievement;

·        Encouraging and facilitating communication and co-operation between personnel in all areas of the Council and beyond;

·        Establishing links and forming partnerships with parents, community groups, colleges and universities, businesses, other LEAs and national associations such as NACE (National Association for Able Children in Education).

·        Promoting research, development and dissemination of information in the area of meeting the needs of pupils with abilities.