Stretch & Challenge for High Achiever Students at HTS
Philosophy:
As a comprehensive school our mission at Holy Trinity is to educate all, by ensuring equality of opportunity and promoting success for every student. This is why we identify and target students who have specific needs; whether they have Special Educational Needs, Disabilities, are Pupil Premium or have learnt English as an Additional Language.
Therefore, high achiever students also need our special care and attention. Our aim is to ensure that all high achiever students at Holy Trinity are given the encouragement, support and tools they need in order to meet their great potential.
High Achieving students may also be referred to as the 'most able' by Ofsted and 'higher attainers' by the Department for Education. Schools have in the past used the terms 'High Prior Attainers', 'Gifted', 'Gifted & Talented', 'High Fliers' and 'Exceptional' to describe this group.
These are young people who are more able in that they appear to progress significantly beyond their age related expectations. This group also encompasses those young people who have the capacity to achieve the very highest levels.
Identification:
We have taken a flexible and comprehensive approach to identifying High Achieving students, informed by government and Ofsted expectations, as well as what we feel works for our community at Holy Trinity:
- For KS3 and KS4 High Achiever students are identified as having a CATS score equal to or above 103 if taken before 2019, and, if taken after 2019, a CATS score equal to or above 103 (subject to slight variation from year group to year group).
- For Sixth form students, we identify them as High Achieving if they have an average of a GCSE grade 6 (or grade B).
Strategies:
- Teachers are expected to identify all categories of High Achieving students on their seating plans and to make specific provision for differentiation through stretch and challenge.
- Teachers are expected to monitor the progress of High Achieving students and ensure their needs are provided for.
- Teachers should employ questioning strategies to encourage the highest levels of engagement.
- Challenge tasks should be readily available, alongside more challenging routes through the work set.
- Extended Project Qualification opportunity at KS5.
- Extra-curricular High Achiever events for each year group.
Staff Training and Support:
- High Achiever vision and guidance delivered to whole school.
- Access to resources to support effective teaching and learning of High Achiever students.
- High Achiever Project Leader to support and monitor teaching and learning for High Achiever students
Additional Resources
The following links may be of interest to parents: