It was a huge disappointment to hear about the Department for Education’s decision to cancel the Future Talent Fund, which had been announced by Justine Greening in December 2017 to aid social mobility.
Ensuring that all children have an appropriate education that provides them with cognitive challenge, opportunities to build their resilience and maintain a positive self-image regardless of background is a fundamental aim of Potential Plus UK.
To aid the identification of, and provision for, high potential learners from disadvantaged backgrounds Potential Plus UK has established several programmes:
- We assess children for their potential as well as their current attainment.
- We train teachers to identify children with high learning potential and to put meaningful provision in place for them in the classroom.
- We have a programme of training for mentors to understand, support and inspire children with high learning potential from disadvantaged backgrounds.
- We work with parents and carers from a wide range of backgrounds to develop their understanding of their child’s potential and how to nurture it within the home environment.
Our hope was that the Future Talent Fund would enable schools, organisations and individuals to share their expertise and experience, to trial interventions and strategies, to monitor outcomes and to identify areas for future development that would aid disadvantaged high potential learners to excel both in their academic and personal lives.
We have written to the Department for Education expressing our disappointment and requesting a meeting to share our experience and vision.
Julie Taplin
Chief Executive
