Identifying and selecting able students for the NAGTY summer school: emerging issues and future considerations

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition that the educational needs of able students were not being adequately met in British schools resulting in a series of governmental educational initiatives aiming at improving the education of able students. The establishment of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) at the University of Warwick was a development aimed at enhancing able students' educational provision. An evaluation of the first summer school, established under the auspices of NAGTY, took place to address issues of identifying and selecting able students, exploring the relative value of different sources of evidence for determining eligibility, and looking at the overall effectiveness of the selection process. Qualitative methods (i.e., interviews, observations, document analysis) were employed to collect data on the process of identifying and selecting able students. The evaluation yielded interesting results with regard to the criteria/eligibility for selection, decisions about what counts as evidence of giftedness and its relative valu