An article in the Southern Daily Echo today pitches secondary school pupils on the Isle of Wight as being some of the most gifted and talented in the UK.
Apparently down in the south of the UK we have a higher than national average of exceptional secondary school pupils with figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) showing that 13,009 children in the region have been rated gifted and talented.
If you’ve been out of the education system for some time, you may be wondering what criteria is used to determine whether a child is ‘gifted’ or ‘talented’.
According to guidelines, ‘gifted’ refers to excellence in academic subjects and ‘talented’ refers to skills or ability in areas such as art or athletics.
But it’s not just secondary pupils who are showing these great qualities. According to the DCSF, a massive 13,404 primary pupils in the south (11.4 per cent of the total) were also categorised as gifted and talented last year.
Andy Tate has more detail on the figures in his article..
