The Gifted & Talented progress tool is built around seven key themes for reflection and provides resources for further exploration and a learning log you can download to record discussion.
How you can use the tool
Teachers and mentors can use the progress tool to support individual mentoring sessions or work with a small group of G&T pupils. Additional teacher materials are also available to meet particular development needs. The themes can be explored in sequence or in response to need. You can work through them in a small group or in individual tutoring or academic mentoring sessions. Whichever approach you use, it may be useful to focus on one theme per session.
Features of the tool
Understanding the following features will help you get the most out of the progress tool.
- Reflective questions: Each of the seven themes has a series of reflective questions, designed to encourage pupils to think more deeply about themselves. Each theme also has a page of mentor prompts to help guide the reflective discussion.
- The learning log: To support the reflective questions, there is a downloadable (and editable) learning log. This can be used on screen or printed as a permanent record. We recommend setting up a folder on your computer where you can download and save learning logs for each theme.
- Recommended resources: For each theme, there are also resources to provide information and to stimulate discussion. These will sometimes appear as related links underneath the reflective questions. Where there is a wider range of support materials, you will be invited to use a resource finder, which asks simple questions to match needs with materials.
- Resource finders: A theme’s resource finder guides you to useful resources by posing a series of simple questions. Each question has a number of possible answers listed – you will need to choose one of these before selecting the ‘Next’ button for each question. Once all questions in a resource finder have been answered, a list of recommended resources is displayed.
- Recording the journey: After each question, pupils or teachers can make notes of decisions, actions and timelines. The resource finder brings together your questions, answers and notes for this journey in a document that you can download. The document also contains links that will take you back to relevant areas of the progress tool. We recommend copying this document into your learning log.
