Gifted and Talented students in English:
- Articulate their thoughts easily; express their viewpoints in a sophisticated, assured and mature manner.
- Have good questioning skills; they listen perceptively and asking inventive, pertinent questions that initiate discussion ,
Build on the contributions of others, synthesize points, offer alternative viewpoints - Read voraciously and with enjoyment; they have an independent love of literature of a wide range of genres, understanding text structure, language and context.
- Explore productions in and through a range of different media.
- Enjoy writing, and do so with flair, originality and imagination; they are skilled at experimenting with different structures, devices and a range of ambitious vocabulary to create engaging work.
- Some are committed creative writers with ambitious projects of their own.
- Adapt their writing and speech to suit a range of activities/purposes; they are familiar with, and can exploit the linguistic, structural and organisational features of numerous genres to suit the purpose and audience of most tasks.
- Where they have more than one language to draw on, they can explore similarities, differences and links between languages and their literatures.
- Support their oral and written arguments with detailed explanation and evidence; they locate and retrieve poignant and concise evidence from a wide range of sources, making detailed and thorough inferences explaining how this evidence clearly illustrates the point made.
Beyond the classroom students:
- Enjoy solving crosswords and complex word puzzles
- Use the advice of our School Librarian, Hayesfield’s online catalogue, local Libraries, the interlibrary loan service and access to University Library catalogues to extend their reading
- Enjoy visiting writers at local bookshops, Festivals and Hayesfield’s Writer in Residence, Sally Nicholls (pictured)
- Write for the School Magazine, local papers, appropriate creative writing fora online
- Enter local, regional, university and national competitions for creative or essay writing
- Listen to Radio Four plays, arts/review programmes live, via iPlayer or online
- Take part in Hayesfield Library activities, such as shadowing the Carnegie Award, Battle of the Books, The Centurion Award and/or read shortlists for the Booker Prize.
- Enjoy a range of live theatre via Hayesfield Theatre Club
- Establish Book Circles, Fan Fiction Workshops, Film Clubs and the like to share expertise and enthusiasm.
- Plan, prepare and play creative table top games such as Dungeons and Dragons or Paranoia with friends.
