In Hidden talents: the overlooked children whose poor verbal skills mask potential GL Assessment  report that a large minority of children are failing to get good GCSEs because poor verbal reasoning skills are hiding their innate talents. Whilst they suggest that the country is wasting a large, untapped reserve of young scientists and engineers, there must be an implication that talent is being squandered across the board.

There are many findings and we suggest that you access the whole report here. However, this Maths finding is a stand-out:

Those with good spatial and verbal abilities achieving an A*–B: 89%

Those with high spatial skills but poor verbal skills getting A*-B: 52%

In the ‘What can you do?’ section there are many suggestions that will be challenging for hard-pressed teachers, but always worth considering. For example (directly copied from the report):

• Develop specific pedagogies for spatial learning which, in turn, will benefit all learners
• Offer differentiated learning so pupils can choose how they do a task and do not suggest there is only one approach that is ‘correct’