Empowering the Teacher to Meet the Challenge of the Able Child

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increased awareness of aspects of provision for able pupils in United Kingdom schools. This has been manifested through the amount of media coverage of the subject and an increased amount of Ofsted inspections highlighting the need for more effective provision for higher ability pupils. Yet, there seems to be very little substantial support offered to teachers in the form of longer courses relating to the education of higher ability pupils. In this paper, we describe some aspects of an in‐service programme offered to practising teachers which were evaluated by the participants as useful and practical. The context of the article is our on‐going work at the Brunei Able Children's Education (BACE) centre, providing teacher support and conducting research on aspects of educating able children.