De La Salle School

Mission Statement

Everyday our school is to be like a jigsaw, where each unique and special piece makes the whole of De La Salle. A school full of love, where gifts and talents blossom in our work. A Performing Arts school, where the light of God shines out through everyone. A school where, inspired by the example of St.John Baptist De La Salle, our dreams can come true.

School Information

Type of School: Voluntary Aided Comprehensive,
Headteacher: Mr. W. F. P. Daunt
Chair of Governors: Brother Alban
Postal Address: De La Salle School
Mill Brow
Eccleston
St. Helens
Lancashire
WA10 4QH
Tel: 01744 20511
Fax: 01744 20543
E mail: delasalle@sthelens.org.uk
Website: www.delasalle.st-helens.sch.uk

De La Salle is a Voluntary Aided School
Headteacher: Mr. W.F.P.Daunt
Chairman of Governors: Brother Alban, Clerk to the Governors: Mrs. J. Peet

Board of Governers

Headteacher Mr. W. F. P. Daunt
Foundation Governors Brother Alban (Chairperson),
Mrs. M. Bennett, Brother Bernard,
Mr. P. Case, Mr. B. Kavanagh,
Mrs. W. Marsden, Mrs. J. Fairweather,
Brother Philip, Mr. M. Sandeman,
Mrs. J. Fletcher, Mrs. C. Skidmore,
Mrs. S. Topping
Staff Governor Mr. P. Topping
Parent Governors Mrs. A. Yale
Vacancy

L.E.A. Governors Mr. D. E. Callan, Cllr. T. V. Sims
Clerk to the Governors Mrs. Joanne Peet
Teacher Governors Mr. F. Leather, Mrs. B. Graham

Gifted & Talented Education - Policy Statement June 2004

De La Salle is a school that demonstrates a universal commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of its community by valuing and cultivating individual capabilities and talents. We present our pupils with a curriculum that truly supports their learning and that fosters an ethos of achievement and success. Ultimately our aim to ensure that all pupils reach their full potential.

Rationale:

At De La Salle we aim to provide every pupil with a teaching and learning programme that meets their individual needs. We refer to our provision for Gifted & Talented pupils under the banner of GATE (Gifted & Talented Education). This frees us from thinking only of a particular cohort and reinforces our whole school responsibilities.

The GATE project has three main responsibilities:
We should foster and develop staff understanding of theories of education such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, Multiple Intelligence Theory and VAK learning in order to improve the quality of learning for all pupils.
We should identify our most able students and define a cohort which represents the cultural, social and gender profiles of the school. This cohort comprises approximately 5-7% gifted pupils (gifted in a traditional academic area of study and 3-5% talented pupils (those with high abilities in the creative subjects such as Art, Drama and PE). As a Performing Arts School, we share particular responsibility for our talented pupils.
We should provide these pupils with support; set challenging targets for them; monitor their progress and offer them as many opportunities outside the curriculum as possible.
Roles and Responsibilities:

The Governing Body and Senior Management are committed to meeting the needs of the most able pupils in this school. In order to do so they have appointed a School Co-ordinator for Gifted and Talented Provision. Funding for this appointment will be met by the Excellence in Cities, St. Helens Partnership allocation. The School Co-ordinator is Paul Ross, Assistant Headteacher and a Key Stage Co-ordinator at Key Stage 3 (Mrs Martindale) Our link governor is Wendy Marsden. Each Head of Department is ultimately responsible for the GATE provision in their area and to some extent, each teacher is responsible for the provision in their classrooms.

Policy Guidelines - Identification of the Gifted and Talented Cohort:

Using CATs data, prior attainment and teacher nomination we will mirror the entry criteria laid out in the National Academy for Gifted Youth.

Pupils will be placed within the GATE cohort if they:
have a single component of the CATs of 128 or above.
have two or more components of 120 or above.
are nominated by a member of staff with some evidence.

(Obviously the third criterion is designed to allow us to nominate talented pupils)

At present, we have approximately 75 pupils achieving the gifted entry requirements and so will also have 30-40 talented pupils nominated by departments giving us the 10% of whole school population required by DfES.