Mellis Church of England Primary School - 'To Be Our Best'

Here at Mellis we believe in the full inclusion of all our pupils. We recognise the needs of the less able pupils and do all that we can do to ensure all children progress in their learning and development and reach their full potential. We also recognise that we need to identify and support those children whose needs are at the other end of the educational spectrum. The exceptionally highly attaining children in our school still need appropriate help and guidance, encouragement and support to also maximise their full potential. 

We aim to identify and provide provision for all children. Exceptionally highly attaining children will be entitled to an appropriately differentiated curriculum and the opportunity to work at a higher cognitive level. We will aim to identify and develop specific skills and talents. A recognition of the emotional and social development of these specific children will also be taken into consideration. 

A child’s specific talents may lie in many areas and this must be re cognised by the school and catered for accordingly. These talents may well be musical, artistic or physical (sports and dance etc).

Identification of the exceptionally high attaining child will usually be by the class teacher or subject leader. They could be identified by

• the pace at which they learn
• their depth of understanding
• the interests they hold
• working significantly above the age related expectations of that year group
• it may be a gift or talent which cannot actually be measured against National Curriculum levels
• their attitude and aptitude toward a specific subject in which they thrive
• the level of commitment held to their particular talent

They may also be identified by parental observations, peer-group nominations or particularly high test scores.

The needs of these specific children will be met through teachers planning and lesson preparation. The planning will adhere to the needs of these specific children and work will be provided in order to extend and meet the needs of these children. This could take the form of;

• a faster pace of work
• special projects which will allow for independent research
• extended problem solving activities
• open ended tasks and puzzles
• a cross-curricular link to another curriculum area
• higher order questioning, questions with no clear cut answers
• opportunities for  x1 weekly small group work sessions on a termly basis

Each child with special talents is unique, therefore different approaches will be appropriate for them all. With the support of parents the school will endeavour to seek further guidance from outside organisations and the LEA in order to support those with talents in music sport or the creative arts in order to ensure extended provision out of school hours.