British too quick to deride cleverness, says minister

Britain must rid itself of the culture that allows its brightest children to be sneered at as "too clever by half", David Miliband, the minister for School Standards, said yesterday.

He urged parents to take part in a talent competition in the new year to find and stretch the country's most intelligent youngsters by nominating them for master classes at the newly formed National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth.

Up to 150,000 children aged 11 to 16 will qualify for the classes, which are intended to stretch the brightest 5 per cent of the country's state school children.

The scheme was immediately attacked by headteachers, who warned that the talent search risked creating an elite of pupils within schools.

John Dunford, the general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said: "Teachers spend a great deal of time preparing additional materials for bright children but it remains the case that children with learning difficulties rightly take up more of the teacher's time. I'm sceptical about the need to increase this programme to create an elite group of young people at a tender age."

Mr Miliband announced at a conference in Birmingham last night that the search for the brightest youngsters would start in earnest in January.

"We will show we have succeeded when 'too clever by half' is no longer an English insult," the minister said in an address to the first conference organised by the Government on educating gifted and talented children.

He said parents, teachers and carers would be able to nominate children on a website being set up in the new year – www.warwick.ac.uk/gifted. Tutors would then select the youngsters for the academy. The minister made clear that the youngsters would not be judged on test and exam results alone.

He said they would need a supporting testimony from their teacher but that evidence of success in events such as poetry competitions would be taken into account before any decisions were made. The talent search is to be called "Loc8or" – as in locator.

Mr Miliband also urged teachers to spend as much time with the brightest pupils in their class as they do with the least able.

He said: "We need to cater for the special needs of every single pupil, whether they have statements of special needs because they are struggling with learning or because they have special gifts and talents that mean they are bored in too many lessons and fail to make the most of themselves. You should not have to go private to be stretched, developed or nurtured."

He promised that the Government would be offering more cash aid to schools to help them concentrate on teaching gifted pupils, and that it would extend the programme into primary schools.

The new academy, which is attached to the University of Warwick, was set up for the first time this year, taking in 100 youngsters to a summer school featuring lessons in problem solving, maths, science and English. The numbers will be increased to 900 next year.

Eventually, the programme hopes to cater for up to 150,000 gifted youngsters and run courses all the year round.

At first, the programme is concentrating on youngsters from deprived inner-city areas, but it will expand to take in pockets of deprivation in more affluent areas.