National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth

The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) is based at the University of Warwick in Britain and was founded by a government (DfES) initiative for high achieving secondary students in England. The Academy provides extra-curricular activities for students between 11 and 19 years of age. It accepts students from all schools, whether state, CTCs, Grammar or Private, in the country and accepts into it all students deemed to be in the top 5%.

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Student Academy

The Academy provides a range of activities and services for all of its members in a number of different forms. Some of these follow:

  • Two or three week summer schools at universities around the country covering a variety of subjects. The aims of the Summer Schools programmes include providing additional breadth (introducing participants to subjects they might not be able to engage with in the National Curriculum), adding depth to a student's studies (introducing them to additional material in a National Curriculum subject that might not ordinarily be covered in school) and providing acceleration to learning (introducing concepts that a student might normally expect to encounter at a later stage in their school career). These summer schools are only open to Key Stages 3 and 4.
  • Outreach events on weekends and week days during school holiday periods. These vary in length from half a day to a week and may be residential or non-residential and offer condensed and rigorous work sessions.
  • Online learning material (Academic Study Groups). This often includes some ways of contacting professionals in particular fields.
  • Residential week-long courses aimed at sixth form and college students. These are in collaboration with Villiers Park.

The aim of the Student Academy is to help students to maximise their potential, by providing additional activities and services that maintain engagement with and motivation for education, especially seeking to identify and work with high ability students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Professional Academy

The Academy also provides a service for the education system of England and Wales, a service that is entitled the "Professional Academy". The aim of the Professional Academy is to work with schools to enable them to provide better education for Gifted and Talented youngsters than would otherwise be possible. In the long run they aim for a situation where as much emphasis and thought is given to the education of Gifted students as it is to people with special education needs. The Academy attempts to achieve these aims through the use of teacher training and publications.

Expertise

The Academy also has an 'Expertise Centre', the aim of which is to study 'giftedness' and what it is that makes some children more 'clever' than others, and to research the best ways of educating such children. A wider aim is generally to allow society to more widely understand the concept of 'giftedness' and encourage more research in this area.

Publications

The Academy produces a number of publications, all aimed at separate groups, but the majority of which are for use by the Professional Academy. The main publication intended for all of the students that are members of the Academy is entitled Aspire and this is published termly (three times a year). The first six issues of this magazine were distributed to both the professional and student academy but the seventh issue (Autumn/Winter 2004) onwards shall be split into two publications, one for the Student, and one for the Professional Academy. Copies of this publication can be found on the website.


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External links

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