More Chinese pupils seen as being gifted

Last updated at 15:42 26 April 2007


Chinese children are twice as likely as other pupils to be seen as bright by their teachers, new figures show.

Almost a fifth of Chinese pupils are in the "gifted and talented" set nationwide, compared with 10 per cent of white pupils, according to data published today by the Department for Education and Skills.

Girls are ahead of boys and children who are poor enough to qualify for free school meals are half as likely to make it into the top ability set as their more affluent classmates, the figures showed.

It is the first time the Government has published a detailed breakdown of what kind of children make it into the gifted and talented bracket.

Teachers said the wide variations among different ethnic groups and between rich and poor children could have been predicted from their A-level and GCSE results.

Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "They underline the importance of efforts being made to overcome under-achievement of white working class children and black working class children."

Mr Sinnott added: "There is a need to give particular attention to children who are on free school meals, whose parents are unable to give them the back-up support at home by way of computers, books and trips,that so boosts a child's development."

Schools get extra money for helping bright pupils fulfil their potential and are supposed to encourage them to do extracurricular activities such as chess.

Teachers are required to track pupils whose achievement in national tests marks them out as particularly able and encourage them from 11 to think about university.

The DfES data showed that 693,570 children aged five to 18 were judged gifted and talented -or 9.4 per cent of the total in primary and secondary schools.

As this is the first year these figures have been published, there is no data from previous years available for comparison purposes.

Girls were more likely to be seen as bright than boys, with 13.3 per cent of female pupils in the top set, compared with 11.8 per cent of boys.

The breakdown among ethnic groups showed that 18.6 per cent of Chinese pupils were judged gifted and talented, compared with 10.5 per cent of whites.

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