I’ve put this together in response to a really good question, “How do we ensure challenge for our most able in a competency-based curriculum?”. A similar question that was posed to me when I gave a presentation to a regional group of English Local Authority Advisers.

I was explaining the potential of PLTS to support the development of gifts and talents using, as a case study, my work with a G&T Lead School to develop G&T provision through the Personal Learning Thinking Skills. This approach is working really well for the school, not least because it has prompted some in-depth discussion. They have been able to explore the tension between emphasising knowledge, subject expertise and generic learning skills in constructing learning opportunities. The group to whom I was speaking had similar reservations and were very concerned that in using the PLTS as the basis for identifying high ability in English, the distinctive subject expertise might be lost. I was able to reassure the group (I hope) that by using the PLTS as a start point and then linking this to subject-specific characteristics of high ability, identification of and provision for the most able would be far more complete. Following this discussion, I started to put together my thinking and came up with the following document (below).