Manor Foundation Business, Enterprise and Sports College

Leading Edge Partnership

Learning, Working and Achieving Together

Friar Park Road, Wednesbury, West Midlands, WS10 0JS
Tel: 0121 556 2858 | Fax: 0121 505 3150

Extra Curricular Activities

Gifted and Talented at Manor Foundation Business, Enterprise and Sports College

All pupils are assessed by both their subject leaders and Fisher Trust data upon arrival in the school to establish whether they are in the top 10% of pupils in their subject area.

Those pupils targeted as talented (drama, art, PE, dance) or gifted (all other subjects) are placed on a register. The top 15 candidates in each year group who have been targeted by several subject leaders are tracked for DfES purposes.

Those pupils on the register, which is annually upgraded, are entitled to funding to enable them to develop their specialism. Funding is available from the school itself as well as from the Network which forms a group of a third of all Sandwell Secondary Schools. The Network schools meet on a regular basis to discuss school events such as ‘Thinking Skills’ sessions, Summer School or excursions to Museums.

Manor has provided funding into many events including; additional course materials; visits abroad; theatre visits to London; visits to Science Museums with workshops; visits to art galleries and Saturday master classes in a variety of subjects including Japanese.

It is our policy that the subject teacher or indeed the pupil can request funding to support their specialism although usually it comes from a Head of Department.

All bids are discussed between the Gifted and Talented Coordinator and the Headteacher at regular meetings throughout the year and results of bids, both successful or unsuccessful, are given back to staff within a few days.

The Summer schools have been particularly successful at Manor in recent years and have included one week sessions on Japanese language and culture; sculpture; mathematics and forensic science. Around 70 pupils attend each year where they are taught in small groups with like minded pupils by expertly qualified staff. Indeed the Japanese course is taught by the department of Japanese from the University of Birmingham. All pupils over the past two years in forensic science have been awarded a Crest Bronze award.

At the end of the year a comprehensive document is prepared by the Gifted and Talented Coordinator which compares estimated grades at GCSE against attained GCSE grades for the 15 pupils at the top of the cohort. A supporting paper explaining why certain results have occurred, supports the document which is submitted to the Head.

This year all pupils on the register have been given either a National Curriculum grade at key stage 3 or a projected GCSE grade at key stage 4. This will be compared with results at the end of the year to assess how beneficial the Gifted and Talented programme has been to the pupils over the year.

2% of pupils of the school are on the National Academy for Gifted and Talented (NAGTY) Youth register operated by the University of Warwick. These pupils are allowed to apply for two or three week Summer Schools around the country and we regularly have two or three pupils who are successful in being selected to these.