Transcript of High Potential and Gifted Education evaluation and planning tool - part 1 (introduction) video (6 minutes 48 seconds)

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[Voiceover]

This video provides a brief introduction to the High Potential and Gifted Education evaluation and planning tool. The tool was designed to support effective implementation of the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy which is mandatory for all New South Wales public schools, P to 12, from the beginning of term one in 2021.

This video covers the evaluation and planning tools purpose, its structure, and its key features. A second video, Part 2, is also available contains a step by step guide for those who want to look more closely at the interactive functions of the tool, as well as being guided through a worked example.

The High Potential and Gifted Education Policy evaluation and planning tool provides a framework where you can document evidence, self assess to create a focus and then plan a course of action. Consider it almost like a workbook where everything is in one place much like a one stop shop.

Development of the tool has involved a lengthy consultation process of over 18 months with over 150 school leaders and corporate staff. Feedback along the way has ensured the tool is user friendly and encourages alignment with existing school priorities and Department support.

To support successful implementation of the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy the evaluation and planning tool has two functions: evaluation and planning. The tool provides a platform for self assessment against the School Excellence Framework, albeit with a focus on high potential and gifted students, and an opportunity to provide evidence that policy implementation has commenced.

The evaluation and planning tool's purpose is also to support schools to integrate the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy into their existing strategic improvement plans. Page 2 of the evaluation and planning tool includes a preface which contains some important background information about the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy including what additional support is available for school leaders and teachers to help with implementation. You'll also notice on this page the presence of hyperlinks. This is a common theme throughout the evaluation and planning tool, with many of the suggested sources of evidence as well as courses of action and planning aligned with existing departmental support and resources to make it easier for schools to implement the policy within their own context.

On the contents page of the tool, you'll see that there are two sections clearly distinguished by colours. The evaluation section in blue and the planning section in yellow. Also note the way the contents is structured with the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy statements at the center. These are the statements which drive the tool.

The overview describes the structure of each part of the tool, including the School Excellence Framework (SEF) and the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy. The page also contains a discussion on how to use suggested sources of evidence, how the planning section is aligned with the five key actions, as well as the four domains of potential that are covered under the policy. Finally, there is a reminder that while the SEF applies to all students, the evaluation and planning tool is designed specifically for high potential and gifted students.

The evaluation section of the tool, again clearly denoted in blue is aligned with the key action of evaluate which asks schools to take a look at their procedures, programs and practices as well as student growth and achievement to inform school planning and implementation of the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy.

The tool also contains a clear step by step guide to help users navigate the evaluation section. At the conclusion of the evaluation section, there is also a summary page, where schools can determine where to next and identify their policy statement points that they wish to focus on for planning.

At the conclusion of the evaluation section, we now move into the planning again, denoted in yellow. The planning section includes the other four key actions that support implementation of the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy. This key actions are collaborate, assess and identify, implement, and build teacher and leadership capacity.

The High Potential and Gifted Education Policy is a comprehensive document and schools cannot be expected to be implementing it in its entirety within the first year. We would expect that schools use this evaluation and planning tool to decide on one or two statement points to focus on to begin with, and this is the role of the planning section.

Similar to the evaluation section, the tool again contains a step by step guide to walk users through the planning section. The planning section also concludes with the summary page where schools can choose their policy statement points of focus, highlight key research, and align their course of action with other school priorities. Schools will find these pages useful as they include the ability to attach files and other resources as evidence to the tool. This may be helpful for external validation evidence and school improvement plans.

Thank you for watching the High Potential and Gifted Education evaluation and planning tool part one introduction and overview video. For those who want a more in-depth and deeper explanation of the tool, there is a Part 2 video, which goes through some of the user friendly features, and interactive functionality of the tool, as well as walking you through a guided example of the tool for one of the policy statement points in the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy. For those who want more information, please watch the additional Part 2 video - a step by step guide.

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Transcript of High Potential and Gifted Education evaluation and planning tool - part 2 (step by step guide) video (13 minutes 26 seconds)

Start transcript

[Voiceover]

The High Potential and Gifted Education Evaluation and Planning Tool was designed to support effective implementation of the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy which is mandatory in New South Wales public schools, P-12, beginning term one 2021.

This is the second video in a two part series supporting the High Potential and Gifted Education Evaluation and Planning Tool. It is a step by step guide to using the tool. Before watching this video, it is recommended that you have previously viewed the part one introduction and overview video which covers the purpose, structure and key features of the tool.

This video is intended to provide extra support and guidance when using the High Potential and Gifted Education Evaluation and Planning Tool, and it covers the Evaluation and Planning Tool's interactive functions and provides an example of one policy statement point being completed for both planning and evaluation sections. As you view this tool, it is recommended you have a copy of the tool at your disposal.

Pause the video as often as you like to test the features out for yourself. You may also choose to complete the tool for one of the policy statement points in real time with the video. The evaluation and planning tool

gives schools baseline data so schools can continue monitoring the progress of High Potential and Gifted Education Policy implementation over time. Throughout the planning cycle, the tool can be revisited at anytime. Let's take a closer look at the tool now.

To create a sense of ownership so all staff engage with the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy and contribute to the evaluation process. There may be several ways that school leaders may wish to engage with the evaluation section of the tool. For instance, one might one way might be that you divide the policy statement points up among the different teams in your school. For example, different stage groups might focus on one specific statement point and gather the evidence for that statement point and then share back to the leadership team. The leadership team may decide to give staff a choice as to which statement point they are responsible for gathering the evidence for so that the staff can focus on the statement point that resonates more with them. Or, alternately, you might ask staff to choose which domain of potential they might like to focus on to gather the evidence on as to what the school is already doing to make your self-assessment against SEF for each statement point. You might already have some teams in place that are charged with gathering evidence across the school, and you might utilize existing teams to engage with relevant statement points.

Well, let's now take the time to delve a little deeper into the contents page. There are quite a few user friendly features to point out. You'll see the two colors of blue and yellow on either side of the page, blue for evaluation, and yellow for planning. This is an easy way to tell what section of the tool you are in. The most relevant School Excellence Framework domains and themes have been aligned with these policy statements to assist in finding evidence for self-assessment of where a school believes they currently sit in regards to the High Potential and Gifted Education Policy, this is quite deliberate. It is the policy that you are being asked to implement and this tool's purpose is to support you in implementing the policy. Here you can see the policy statement points are front and centre of the tool and drive the tool throughout. Also note the user guides for the evaluation and planning sections are on pages 6 and 46, with a summary section on page 41, and course of action pages on pages 44 and 62.

Navigating to any page is simple. Simply click on the number, say page 11. When you want to return to the contents, click the navigation arrow at the bottom of each page and this allows you to navigate the tool with ease. Let's take a look at a policy statement point more closely, say 1.3 in the evaluation section and review the user features in the tool. You can see for each policy statement point the most relevant SEF theme is aligned to it, and this is where the work has been done for you.

Let's look at one example. Each statement point has suggested general examples of sources of evidence and domain specific evidence examples. These are not an exhaustive list; they are simply some suggestions to help you get started to think about the possibilities of the evidence you can use within your own school context. You can see that there are many links for you to access that have been taken from external and departmental sources, including many links to the High Potential and Gifted Education web section with specific advice and support.

Going to the next page shows you the relevant SEF themes for the policy statement point. You can see there is a drop down box where based on your own self-assessment against SEF in regards to your high potential and gifted students, by examining your own evidence, samples and perhaps using some of the suggested evidence samples provided in the tool, you can make a determination of whether you feel your school is at the delivering stage and the evidence listed below describes what evidence your school is using to make that decision. However, your school might decide that they are at the yet to be determined stage. As you may believe that you may need time to further investigate your evidence or you are still developing your programs, practices or procedures. Whether you believe you are at the delivering, sustaining and growing, or the excelling stage, you can list your evidence samples in the box provided. Let's now return to the contents. Remember, we do this by clicking on the navigation arrow.

Let's look at where all of this information is collected. If we go to the self-evaluation summary, the tool automatically takes you to the summary pages and we can see that as you complete the evaluation section for each policy statement point your self-assessment judgments will automatically populate this summary, allowing you to quickly see where you may wish to direct your attention in your efforts to implement the policy.

We can see that for the policy statement 1.1.1, this school has assessed their School Excellence Framework themes for their high potential and gifted students at delivering, sustaining and growing for each of the relevant SEF themes. If we look at some of the other statement points that this school has begun to document, the tool provides a succinct summary of their self-assessment to make it easier to make decisions for where to next and what statement points to plan for.

Let's go back to the contents page so we can go to page 44 where we will find the where to next section. As a result of the evaluation summary results, users can determine what their policy statement points for focus will be and answer the questions to determine where to next. The reasons they have chosen this focus. How it aligns with other school objectives and priorities and the evidence they have that they will use to monitor this. This evidence and other files, such as photos, can be attached to the tool itself by using this attachment feature at the bottom of the page. This feature is particularly powerful as it enables you to keep all of your evaluation evidence and planning examples in one place and in one file; the tool.

After completing the evaluation component of the tool and having decided on your policy statement points for focus, you will now look to the planning section to support you to implement these policy statement points. You can see that the tool begins with evaluation so that it can inform your planning decisions for policy implementation. So let's now return back to the contents page and make our way to the planning section. To get to the planning section of your chosen policy statement points, you actually have two options.

You can either click directly on the number to the chosen policy statement point or a very nifty feature is if you are in the evaluation section for a policy statement point, you have the ability to instantly swap between the evaluation and planning sections for a policy

statement point. You can do this by clicking the yellow or blue arrow beside the policy statement point heading without having to go back to the contents page. Let's use this feature quickly to hop over and take a look at the planning section for 1.3.

As you can tell by the yellow sidebar, we're now in the planning section 1.3. Once you have determined which policy statement point you've chosen for your focus and we would recommend you choose no more than two to begin with in your policy implementation journey. Then these are the only statement points that you will engage with in the planning section.

Each planning section has a delegated key action for focus, and this is so that you can go to the relevant web section advice on this key action for further support. You can also see that each statement point in the planning section is accompanied by a succinct list of research. This research has been taken from the Revisiting Gifted Education literature review, which is available on the High Potential and Gifted Education page.

To cater for P to 12 schools across the state you can appreciate that all examples are of a general nature and like the evaluation section, these examples are merely suggestions and they are not an exhaustive list. There are suggested general examples. The general examples you can see are organised to support you based on your prior evaluation, delivering, sustaining and growing or exceling. There are also domain specific examples: creative, intellectual, physical, and social-emotional. You can see that links are again provided.

Once users have engaged with the one or two statement points for focus and considered possible program, procedural or practice example ideas they might implement from either the suggested examples or those that they have created themselves, then the course of action summary on page 62 is the next step. We described this page previously using the drop down boxes. Responding to the questions again, you can add further examples, documents or photos as attachments and this can then store all the files you need in one place. A great resource for external validation evidence, or to add to strategic improvement plans.

If you would like to contact the High Potential and Gifted Education team with feedback on the tool or for more information, send an email to this address (hpge@det.nsw.edu.au)

Now that you've had a deeper explanation of the tool ways it can be used to support your staff to implement the policy, how the user friendly features work and a guided example of the tool in action, you're ready to use the tool. It is strongly recommended that school leaders who use the tool also participate in professional learning. A two day leaders course is available where leaders can collaborate, share and engage in using the tool as well as research and access to the attitudes and teacher practices survey. More information can be found on the High Potential and Gifted Education web section under professional learning.

Thank you for participating in the High Potential and Gifted Education part 2 video - step by step guide.

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