Mr. Brendan Doody:

Twenty years ago, I had a conversation with a young person about the novel War and Peace, including its plot development, characterisation and the usual elements. The child was eight and in second class. Therefore, there are definitely children with exceptional abilities. Under the education Act, children with special educational needs are defined as being at both ends of the academic spectrum. We hope and expect that, in a school setting, a teacher’s response to the identified need of a young person with exceptional ability or giftedness would be appropriate and that differentiation of questioning and all the usual things would be the norm in a teacher’s engagement with the young person. However, the key principle that underpins the additional supports provided to schools through the special education teaching, SET, model is that the child with the greatest need should get the most support.

To return to the issue of the young child I came across, I remember having a conversation in which I learned the principal was concerned about him, not because of his academic ability – he was streets ahead of everybody else in the school – but because he had difficulty fitting in. He had difficulty in engaging with his peers. The school was allocating some of the additional supports to meet that need. The need was associated purely with social programmes. The support did not relate to academic skills because that was not necessary at all. We hope and expect that schools will adopt this type of approach.

This is a matter that we are focusing on in the Department. We established a working group recently on the provision of support and guidance to schools in respect of children with exceptional abilities. When talking about exceptional abilities, we are not talking about academic skills alone. There are young people with exceptional ability in music, art, sport and a whole range of other activities in schools. I do not know whether members are aware that a draft guidance document was issued to schools in 2007 by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. It was only ever a draft, however, so we have asked the group to examine this guidance in particular. Bearing in mind that we have had so many reforms in the system since 2007, the guidance certainly needs to be updated. I hope one of the outcomes of this work will be the provision of specific guidance for schools in this area. That would mirror what is done in other jurisdictions.