Gifted and Talented Rural Partnership :
Vision
To ensure that all those with responsibilities for gifted and talented education take account of the needs of those gifted and talented young people within rural communities.
To explore how the rural environment can be used to develop challenges and opportunities for progression into wide ranging rural industries for all gifted and talented students.
To encourage rurally isolated children and young people to value, recognise and enhance their unique gifts and talents within a diverse society, enabling them to achieve their potential, therefore supporting them to develop a positive vision of the contribution they can make to the sustainable economic growth of their rural community.
Principles
To raise the profile across national organisations and government agencies regarding the educational, emotional and social needs of gifted and talented children and young people in rural areas.
To ensure that new national strategies and initiatives, e.g. the Every Child Matters (ECM) and Excellence in Education agendas, reflect and support the needs of rurally isolated gifted and talented children and young people.
To use the rural environment, rural communities and inherent expertise to create enrichment and extension opportunities for gifted and talented young people which diminish the impact of ‘rural’ barriers to their education.
To develop, with partners, regional, national and international professional development opportunities for all educators. These will further extend and develop collaboration within and beyond the rural gifted and talented community.
To review current educational research in gifted and talented education to enable the network to identify the areas for future research projects that consider the rural dimension.
To identify examples of good practice, effective teaching and learning strategies, enrichment and extension activities that have had an impact on raising the aspirations and attainment of gifted and talented young people in rural areas.
