“Experience has shown that identifying talent and predicting later sporting success in adolescent children is a far from a perfect science.”
Recognising talent is the first steps of any Gifted and Talented programme and it is the first pillar of the JAE framework.
Effective talent identification is a major challenge for schools, due to the wide range of skills and sports, and the relatively small number of “talented” pupils in any particular school. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that talent is extremely difficult to define.
There are three routes by which a young person can be recognised as having talent and placed on a school’s G&T program; through a multi-skills non-sport specific route, through a sports specific route linked to competition and/or representation or through a National Governing Body of sport (NGB) talent development programme.
Multi-skill
A useful tool for recognising talent early (KS2), is the QCA National Curriculum attainment levels in physical education.
Recognition of talent can be through the selection of young people onto the network of 450 Multi-skill Academies (MSA) and later Regional Multi-skill Academies. MSAs can be organised as a weekly after-school activity or as a programme run over a holiday period. These MSA’s build on the QCA National Curriculum attainment levels and then uses fundamental movement and multi-abilities to refine the selection.
For more information on how to select and run a Multi-skill Academy see the
MSA Guidance booklet – Selecting young people for Multi-skill Academies.
Sports Specific
National Governing Bodies of sport play an important role in providing guidance to schools on simple descriptors for recognising talent. Large mainstream school sports like hockey and netball, are likely to be based around county and regional representation squads, or NGB recognised academies (i.e. within football the professional clubs academy programmes). While in smaller or individual sports these markers might be national competition rankings (i.e. UK Athletics power of 10 ranking lists).
To source NGB websites click here.
NGB World Class Talent Programmes
I eXcel card
A small number of exceptional talented young performers are placed on National Governing Bodies’ World Class talent development programmes or equivalent. The I eXcel carding and guidance scheme gives recognition to schools of these pupils.
UK School Games
For information about the UK School Games visit www.ukschoolgames.com/home.php or download the information sheet.