This article reassesses the contribution of the Plowden Report (1967) to educational thinking in the United Kingdom. It discusses how the report was scapegoated by politicians advocating a performance-led approach and suggests the report, which advocated a holistic, child-centered educational approach, has much to contribute to present educational…

Reviews approaches to differentiation for gifted students used by educators, including setting tasks with an increased thinking demand, setting open-ended tasks, using graduated worksheets, and allowing pupils to record their responses to a task in different ways. Concludes teachers have too little guidance on differentiation. (Author/CR)

The author reviews the research on quality of tasks set by 35 secondary teachers for their pupils and notes that the majority of tasks fell into the category of low cognitive demand. Preliminary results from a second study point out the importance of seeing task-setting as a critical teaching skill. (CL)

Results of a survey of teachers in 60 English primary schools indicated that positive strategies to use with gifted students working on projects include setting open-ended tasks, encouraging use of imagination, praising lateral thinking, requiring the construction of hypotheses, and encouraging distinctive approaches to tasks. (DB)

Observation of academic instruction in regular classes revealed that even though teachers were aware of the presence of gifted and/or highly intelligent students in their classes, they did not use questioning to provide cognitive stimulation for them. It was concluded that improving questioning techniques can enhance student learning and…