This article surveys some of the recurrent themes relating to able students as they have appeared in the education Press (UK) mainly during the last three years. The emerging themes include the debates about various forms of ability grouping, about the relative performance of boys and girls, the value of examinations, and the organisational strategies for teaching and learning that schools adopt. What emerges is a multiplicity of conflicting evidence, and the sense that politicians are nudging the educational system in specific directions whether the research evidence supports their doctrines or not. Notable is a lack of concern with pedagogy, though there is rather more with the structures of teaching and learning.
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