The widespread suppression of talent within areas of relative deprivation, by a variety of social and economic factors, casts a long-term shadow over a nation's development. Our intervention programme, operating within a government educational initiative of the United Kingdom, has enabled us to embark on an expedition of discovery of suppressed talent.During an interview two years after attending a four year-multi-faceted intervention programme, at our University, 18-year old Joseph talked of how he felt about being selected for the programme:'People go on about our school being in a slum area, going nowhere, but to be chosen for a University programme at the age of 12 was inspirational'. In its 7 th year, 300 students have so far completed the programme. After having celebrated its success at a national conference attended by Mrs Sarah Brown (the UK PrimeMinster's wife) and the Schools Minister Lord Andrew Adonis, the programme team shares their experiences in this paper.

This article presents and analyzes policies in identification and provisions in England with respect to gifted education. England has developed a national policy to provide services to identified students. Surveys and interviews with teachers illustrate how implementation of both identification and provision policy elements were handled. Although policy evaluation was conducted by an external ministry agency, it appears to have had little impact on practice. The article suggests that policy implementation, if left to local schools in the absence of monitoring controls, results in lack of services to gifted children in local school environments.

In 1999, the British government launched an education program for gifted and talented pupils as part of its Excellence in Cities initiative (EiC) that was initially designed to raise the educational achievement of very able pupils in state-maintained secondary schools in inner-city areas. Although some activities targeting gifted children had already been initiated by various voluntary organizations over several previous decades, this was the first time that the topic of improved provision for these pupils had been placed firmly within the national agenda. This article provides the background to the English gifted and talented policy “highway” and an overview of what was expected of schools. How practitioners responded to the policy, their beliefs and attitudes toward identifying gifted and talented pupils, and the opportunities and challenges that arose along the way to the current crossroads are explored. The need to empower teachers to feel more confident in classroom provisions for gifted and talented pupils is identified along with the potentially pivotal role of action research and “pupil voice” in the process of continued professional development and support.