BRIGHT teenagers are to be educated at an academy run by Warwick University, the Times Education Supplement revealed last week.

The Government has awarded a £60m contract to set up the institute, which will run during the summer.

This was announced at the same time as inspectors reported that many bright pupils are missing out on the gifted and talented programme in schools because they are not being identified.

This sounds like rubbish to me, because I know that teachers across Worcestershire do their best by their pupils.

If a child is bright then they will be spotted in class. It doesn't take much to see if a child is more intelligent than would be expected.

There are ways of getting more out of children other than sending them to summer schools for which they risk bullying for being picked out as being "special".

There are higher levels of GCSE that can be achieved and higher levels of A-level.

I can see why the Government wants to establish a gifted academy for children who are clever, but whose peers are probably average, and who may not achieve their full potential in a normal classroom situation.

Then there is the chance to socialise with kids of a similar intellect.

The only problem now lies in identifying the lucky 600 11 to 16-year-olds.

What criteria will they use to tell if a child is gifted? Surely the academy will not be able to help all of those who deserve it.

If we can establish an academy within Worcester then that would be ideal, though it runs the risk of elitism.