A pioneering national initiative to help ensure that talented pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds reach their full potential, was launched today by Schools Minister Andrew Adonis.

For the first time, a national register is being established to help teachers to identify and encourage some of the brightest children whose true potential may in the past have gone unnoticed or may even have been masked by social disadvantage.

This will mean that there will be an onus put on schools to ensure that the background of their gifted and talented pupils should be broadly representative of the whole school population.

The new register will cover all children identified as gifted and talented by their schools and provide information to encourage schools to consider children they have not so far identified, which will mean that these children are identified earlier and given the right opportunities to nurture their talents.

Schools are also to be encouraged to identify the top 5% of 11-19 year-olds nationally, for registration at the National Academy for Gifted and Talented (NAGTY).

There are some 200,000 of these - part of the wider gifted and talented population - and 100,000 have been registered with NAGTY to date.

The Government wants to ensure that all eligible students who wish to register with NAGTY can benefit from the range of opportunities available and to coincide with this, NAGTY is piloting 'Goal' - a programme designed to provide an entitlement to outreach opportunities and support for members from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Government is supporting this with £1 million per year over each of the next two years and NAGTY is seeking matching sponsorship support.

Commenting on today's initiative, Schools Minister Andrew Adonis said: "We must stop the terrible waste of talent when children don't reach their full potential. This register will ensure they are identified early and don't lose out because they come from a deprived background. Our brightest children should be helped to reach the top and use their gifts. The pursuit of excellence which benefits the whole country should be open to children of all backgrounds, not just a privileged minority."

He continued: "The national register will enable thousands more gifted and talented children to be identified, especially late developers and those underachieving because of social disadvantage. Our education reforms set out very clearly that learning must be personalised and support the individual needs of pupils by securing access to appropriate learning opportunities inside and outside school."

Information about NAGTY will be sent to every secondary school outlining the purpose of the national register and encouraging those that have not done so to register eligible students with the scheme.

The Department is revising and updating its guidance on identification of gifted and talented learners for release early in the new academic year, and is emphasising there is no single test to identify gifted and talented learners reliably and the new guidance will encourage schools to draw on a wide range of evidence, for example: pupil's work; teachers' assessments; and classroom observation - alongside data from the national register.

(EF/SP)