A small scale study was undertaken to explore classroom provisions to enhance creative thinking. Such provisions included modification of the classroom environment and subject material, processes, specific strategies and teaching models. The paper questions whether today's teachers are providing these opportunities and suggests reasons why creative thinking is not being promoted in our schools for all children but in particular the creatively talented child. The literature reveals that teachers need to become aware and interested in teaching strategies to encourage creative thinking in the classroom. Using results from this study and suggestions from the literature the research sought to determine if the attitudes of teachers and children today towards creative thinking are developing or static. While teachers are working without definitions of creativity and with limited training as a whole, their attitudes seemed to be slowly developing in favour of creative thinking. Children, while developing an awareness of creativity, are perhaps not keeping pace with what is required for our nation's development. BackgroundCreative thinking not only results in invention, discovery, scientific theories, improved products and arts but is important for the development of the total person, including personality and mental well-being. (Dalton, 1985:2) Understanding Creativity Clear operational definitions of creativity have been lacking in the research (Hennessy and Amabile, 1988) -as in the classroom. Today's teachers in order to identify creative children need to understand what creativity means. There is, however, "no universal agreement on what creativity actually is" (Wallace, 1986:68). Lack of agreement on the conceptualisation of creativity stems from the many different ways creativity manifests itself and the behaviours that can be associated with the diverse forms of creative efforts.While it may well be the wrong tack to want to pin down a concept that resists definition one needs to be aware of some of its facets in order to encour-

If schools are looking to make opportunities real for gifted and talented students, implementation of policy needs to be prioritised and made routine on a system-wide and a school-wide basis. This paper analyses implementation initiatives as they have occurred over the time span of twenty years from the inception of the New South Wales Department of Education and Training policy for gifted education through the first revision and now through the second revision. It considers the correspondence of policy recommendations with actual school provisions. Such information is of assistance in further policy (re)formulation and in further implementation.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate how policy has become practice in the area of gifted education in the New South Wales government school system. In general, it was a heuristic study of the articulation of policy and practice.A conceptual framework applied to the policy process was used to consider the extent to which the policy intent was realised. At each level of the policy process perceptions and practice were revealed through interviews, documents, content analyses and, in addition, at the school level, through questionnaires as part of a case study approach.The study clarified and gave validity to general assumptions in the areas of policy-making and gifted education. Finch'ngs showed that providing for gifted and talented children was not a priority, was not systematic and was not routine. Specifics were lacking through the policy process, resulting in the ad hoc nature of provision for gifted children which varied according to individual initiatives. As the then Minister for Education saw it, the situation was 'a pepper pot of exciting activities alongside inaction' (Metherel11989).

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