Young, Gifted and Meek Robert Legg on why we shouldn't hide our light under a bushel It is a truth universally acknowledged that the British love a loser. As a nation, we prefer a plucky fight in the face of inevitable defeat to the glory of an outright victory. We feel a natural resistance to unhindered success, celebrating instead those who show courage in adversity. Some might say it's what makes us who we are: that it defines us just as surely as do the knotted handkerchiefs we drape over our heads on the beach in August. In some parts of our education system, unfortunately, this otherwise charming trait manifests itself in ugly and counterproductive ways.

Celebrating success, so this attitude goes, is the same as showing off. It's far nicer to succeed quietly, out of the light of day, than to attract attention to something that's really thriving. Somehow success, well, just isn't cricket.
The relatively recent interest in programmes for bright pupils, therefore, seems like a refreshing break from the national pastime of talking ourselves down.
The Gifted and Talented (G&T) agenda, as this movement has become known, exploded onto the educational stage with the launch, in 2002, of the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) – a policy and research centre based at Warwick University expressly dedicated to the development of gifted and talented children.

Although a multi-disciplinary body operating across all National Curriculum subjects, the now five-year-old NAGTY is of particular interest to everyone involved in pursuing excellence in music education.
Taking as its principal goal the identification and nurture of those pupils who show most promise, it has successfully generated an increased awareness of otherwise latent talent, perhaps to a greater extent than has ever been possible before. Within any particular school, NAGTY considers the top 10 per cent of students to be Gifted and Talented, whilst of the national student population, the top five per cent are eligible for membership of the academy itself. According to NAGTY's estimate there are some 200,000 pupils in schools currently matching G&T criteria.

By its own admission, however, identification of these individuals can be an inexact science, and when compiling their G&T lists, schools are often left more or less to their own devices. Most have operated a Gifted and Talented register for a number of years, but for the first time last year the Secondary School Census required each institution to provide statistics relating to this document, effectively making its use mandatory.
The usefulness of the scheme rests not on the identification of G&T pupils, though, so much as on the opportunities presented to those whose names appear on the register.
So what do we, as classroom music teachers, routinely offer our most talented pupils? And what more could be done for them?
The use of in-class extension materials has been the foundation of G&T provision for as long as anyone can remember. Here the subject matter and the learning environment are the same, but extra work is given, allowing musically talented students to access the curriculum in more depth. It works well when activities are carefully planned and explained, but often fails when planning is cursory and pupils feel they are being fobbed off.

Working with a talented pianist on the final movement of Mozart's K. 331 sonata, therefore, could be a useful adjunct to a module on rondo form. But, in all likelihood, giving instructions to ‘go and research rondo on the web' will be less successful. The first is an example of personalised learning at its best; the second smacks of desperation and inadequate planning. In-school approaches to G&T work have been much boosted over the last three or four years by the spread of accelerated learning strategies. Learning ‘by stage not age' has created a trend for some pupils to be entered for GCSE Music not at the end of Year 11, when they would normally be 16, but at the end of Year 9, when most are only 14. Across the UK hundreds of talented musicians have achieved the highest grades at GCSE in precisely this way, some going on to study towards an AS or A2 specification during Years 10 and 11.

In addition to in-class extension tasks and accelerated learning yet more enrichment for G&T pupils is possible by looking further afield, beyond the confines of a single school. Local authority-based or regional enrichment for musicians is common, but it tends to focus on gifted performers, providing a less impressive array of activities for gifted composers or budding musicologists. Whilst maintaining the excellent provision for players is essential, remedying the deficit for talented musicians whose gifts lie outside performance should be a priority.

The imbalance in favour of performance is only one of several thorny problems teachers might encounter when engaging with the G&T agenda. Another is the difficulty of establishing exactly who has the latent talent for music in the first place. Giftedness, defined by NAGTY as ‘expertise in its development stage', is naturally much easier to spot in someone who has had opportunities in the first place. Therefore, spotting those with real but undeveloped talent is a difficult task. How many potentially brilliant composers or insightful musicologists have passed, anonymous and unnoticed, through my classroom doors? I hope the number is very small, of course. But the possibility remains, and the thought worries me.

Even assuming it is possible correctly to identify each of the most talented pupils and to collect their names together, the next difficulty arises when it is discovered that the chosen pupils fail perfectly to match the 10 per cent quota set by NAGTY. Whilst the academy's own literature is not in the least dogmatic about the figure, many schools are, often to the point of setting quotas per class or per year group. If the distribution of talent falls unevenly, this could mean that G&T pupils are ignored, or that other pupils incorrectly labelled.

Of course, ‘labelling' is another tricky area where G&T pupils are concerned. How much should they be told? How much emphasis should we place on their ‘giftedness'? Praise is a powerful tool in the classroom, but used carelessly it can also cause painful collateral damage. Imagine the Year 11 violinist who has attended orchestra rehearsals every week for the last five years, who practises regularly, virtually lives in the music department and considers herself part of the music crowd.

Despite all that, she is still only Grade 3, and stands no chance of receiving a G&T nomination. How might she feel not to be included? Especially if others – perhaps younger or less dedicated – are? This is a hypothetical example, of course, and sensible teachers have ways and means of lessening such a blow. But the labelling issue remains a challenging one, and there are those who are philosophically opposed to G&T programmes for this very reason.

Whether you regard these difficulties as insurmountable problems or insignificant caveats surrounding an otherwise inspirational programme depends mostly on your point of view. Maybe it's time, though, for us to put aside our love of the underdog, toss away our knotted handkerchiefs, and face the fact that talent doesn't nurture itself. It may not be very British, but the Gifted and Talented agenda is here to stay, so I say let's raise our glasses of warm beer in a toast to success.