Gifted Education Intemational2005 Vol19, pp 182-196 ©2005 A B Academic Publishers

retrospective on gifted education in the australian state of new south wales If schools are looking to make opportunities real for gifted and talented students, implementation of policy needs to be prioritised and made routine on a system-wide and a school-wide basis. This paper analyses implementation initiatives as they have occurred over the time span of twenty years from the inception of the New South Wales Department of Education and Training policy for gifted education through the first revision and now through the second revision. It considers the correspondence of policy recommendations with actual school provisions. Such information is of assistance in further policy (re)formulation and in further implementation. Implementing policy and practice in Australia: defining terms In considering the success of implementation one might define policy, for the purposes of this paper, as an 'intended list of priorities and activities' (Johnstone,1984:4; Knight,1987). Policy is decision-making within a context and brings into play the notion of ends and means espoused by Jenkins (1978:15) who defined policy as 'a set of interrelated decisions... concerning the selection of goals and the means of achieving them with a specified situation'. Whether the means of achieving the goals are adequately delineated and appropriate, given the context, is thus part of the assessment of success in policy implementation at both the government state office and school levels