Young, gifted and bright

OLIVER Stannard would make a great teacher. Get him on to the subject of why the sky is blue during the day and red in the evening, and there's no stopping him. It is to do with the way air molecules scatter sunlight, he says earnestly, searching for the right words.

When light comes to earth from space, it hits air molecules and bounces off them and scatters around. "Light with a blue wavelength is much more strongly scattered than red light." Yes, so? So at midday, because the light with a blue wavelength is scattered everywhere, we see the sky as blue.

And in the evening? Then, as the sun is setting, the light comes in at a low angle, he says. You are looking straight at the sun, rather than at scattered light. Take away the blue, scattered wavelength of light, and what's left is red. Simple.

Actually, it is humbling taking lessons in elementary physics from a 13-year-old boy and struggling to keep up with him. But this is no ordinary boy.

Oliver is one of 150 or so gifted youngsters from all over the country taking part in a special two-week summer school at York University organised by the Academy For Gifted And Talented Youth.

All the youngsters - aged between 11 and 17 - are among the top two to five per cent of their generation academically. This summer camp, however, is not about hothousing precocious little geniuses so they can grow up to fulfill the dreams of ambitious parents. It is about something more important than that: helping them to fulfil their potential.

What the children are learning here won't even be touched on in most school curriculums, says Dr Ashley Wilson, who is site director of the York camp.

Instead, the summer school is intended to really stretch them and make them think, in a way that teachers can't always manage in a mixed ability classroom during term time.

One of the great benefits, says Ashley, is that it gives the youngsters the chance to meet other young people like themselves, and "spark off" each other.

"Often there may be just one gifted or talented child in a school," he says. "That can be frustrating for them, not having any real peers, not having similar gifted or talented kids at the same school. By bringing them together, it gives them a chance to really develop as far as they can in two weeks."

Oliver agrees. "Everybody is the same level here," he says. "You don't have to wait for other people!"

The children taking part in the school are taking one of seven courses, specially designed by academics with the help of classroom teachers

Oliver, obviously enough, is taking the physics course. Other children are studying chemistry, maths, archaeology, English (which includes performance and music), the history of ideas and the science of speech.

York university physics lecturer Dr Matt Probert, who helped design the physics course, says he deliberately chose topics the youngsters were unlikely to encounter in school because they were not on the curriculum, or because schools didn't have the right equipment.

The idea is to put the fun back into physics and really give the children the chance to discover and understand theories for themselves by watching demonstrations and then taking part in hands-on experiments, he explains.

The danger for gifted youngsters who don't get the chance to stretch themselves in a normal classroom situation is that they can become bored or frustrated, or even disruptive. There is no risk of that here. Questions are encouraged and then answered. If the answers lead to more questions that is great.

The children are so eager to learn that sometimes, even with a handful of academics, lab technicians, postgraduate university students and school teachers on hand to look after each class of between 18 and 22 children, it can be difficult to cope, says physics teacher Paddy Brinded who, during term time, works at Lady Lumley's School in Pickering.

"It's questions, questions, questions, from 9am to 4pm," he says. "It certainly keeps you on your toes, and it leaves you exhausted. But it is very, very rewarding."

Matt Probert agrees. "They do ask lots of good questions," he says. "Then they think about the answers they have been given and ask another question. It's great."

You only have to sit in on Matt and Paddy's afternoon physics class to see that at work. The youngsters have all been split into groups to try their hands at a range of different experiments.

The day before, they were studying light (which is why Oliver was able to explain why the sky is blue at midday). Today, it is sound.

In one corner, a group of youngsters is clustered around a long, vibrating piece of string.

The string forms an elegant wave pattern, with a couple of still points along its length that Matt describes as a 'standing wave'.

There is a little gizmo attached to the string at one end which can increase the frequency of the vibration and when it does, the distance between the still points on the string (ie the wavelength) decreases.

It is a hands-on illustration of the principle behind the way that string instruments such as violins work. Double the frequency (and so halve the distance between the still points on the string) and you raise the note by an octave, he explains.

Elsewhere, more youngsters, including Oliver, are grouped next to a little monitor.

There is an instrument for sending out a pulse of sound, which shows up as a heartbeat-shaped blip on the screen, and a reflecting panel.

What are they doing? Measuring the speed of sound, Matt explains. Wow!

Actually, it is not as complicated as it sounds. Using a special instrument, the children send out a pulse of sound, which is recorded on the monitor as a blip. The sound is reflected back from the panel, and recorded on the same monitor as another blip when it returns.

The time taken for it to travel from the source of the sound to the reflective panel and back can be measured by the distance between the two blips on the screen.

"Then, using a big rule, they can measure the distance the sound has travelled in reality (from the source of the sound to the panel and back) and you can work out the speed of sound," says Matt.

Oliver and a classmate, 15-year-old Matthew Lougher from near Sheffield, are all ears as Paddy explains the experiment to them. Matthew studies the two heartbeat-shaped blips on the monitor screen carefully.

You measure the distance between them to see how long the sound took to travel out and back, says Paddy. Matthew cranes his head in even closer. "But which bit of it should I measure from?" he asks.

"What do you think?"

Matthew looks at the pulse again. "Maybe from the beginning?" he says.

I don't know whether that was the right answer. But right or wrong, it was great to see him trying to work it out for himself.

That's what a summer school like this should be all about.

Nurturing top talent

The two-week summer school at York being run by the National Academy For Gifted And Talented Youth (NAGTY) began on August 1 and runs until 14.

It is part of a programme of such summer schools being offered by NAGTY around the countries.

Other universities running courses are Lancaster, Durham, Warwick, Exeter, Canterbury and Imperial College, London.

The youngsters come from all backgrounds, range in age from 11 to 17, and have been chosen on their academic ability and nothing else.

NAGTY was heralded in 2002 by the schools minister, David Miliband, as an antidote to Britain's "not cool to be smart" culture.

The Labour politician declared NAGTY would help smash the "old boys' network", even suggesting it would prove as radical a reform as the creation of the Open University in the 1960s.

The organisation says helping gifted youngsters achieve their potential is vital, not only for the youngsters themselves, but the future of the country.

In an increasingly competitive global economy, it says, Great Britain plc cannot afford to allow its gifted children to fail at school.

Updated: 09:53 Thursday, August 05, 2004