Introduction
While it’s imperative to allow for a school’s own individualities, a common set of principles can be formulated as a foundation for talent development policy in a PE department.
The four key areas of policy development in which key principles can be applied to are:
- An educational approach to talent development in PE;
- Identification and selection;
- Teaching and provision;
- Professional development.
Formulating policy for a rich, equitable and progressive programme at the outset will help a PE department gain a real sense of ownership over the process of talent development, from the initial design right through to its provision and refinement.
Its design and practical implementation should be managed to ensure that consensus of agreement is reached at every stage of the talent development, from the initial design right through to its provision and refinement.
Its design and practical implementation should be managed to ensure that consensus of agreement is reached at every stage of the talent development process, and lead-in times associated with progressing around the cycle of implementation are realistic and reasonable.
Morley, D. & Bailey, R. (2006) “Meeting the needs of your most able pupils: Physical Education and Sport.” London: David Fulton Publishers Ltd.
The Starting Point
- Develop PE and Sport talent development policy framework;
- Identify CPD needs and formulate a training programme;
- Implement talent identification and strategies and determine PE talent cohort;
- Implement provision strategies and support mechanisms for talented pupils;
- Evaluate policy, identification, provision and support structures.
Download North Upland School Gifted and Talented Policy document
A Sports-based policy
A sole reliance on a sport based approach could cause significant problems, such as:
- Out-of-school programmes are less able to provide for all pupils, irrespective of gender, ethnicity or socio-economic background;
- Sports-based programmes with their focus on performance can overlook other abilities reflected in the NCPE such as leadership, knowledge and understanding;
- Performance-based programmes ignore pupils who are potentially talented but who, due to lack of opportunity or support, are currently underachieving.
An example policy
Download North Upland School Gifted and Talented Policy document
Developing your own policy
To find out more, please access our Develop you own policy page.