Inspire – High potential and gifted education

Some students learn faster and more easily than others. These students may shine in creativity, thinking, leadership or sport. At our school, we recognise and nurture these strengths early. We support advanced learners with great lessons and activities to help them grow and thrive.

What is high potential and gifted education?

Inspire – High potential and gifted education (HPGE) is how our school supports students with advanced learning needs.

We do this through:

effective teaching strategies like enrichment, extension and acceleration

tailored support during lessons that stretch, challenge and inspire

access to a wide range of opportunities both within and beyond our school.

Signs of high potential

High potential and gifted children are advanced learners. They tend to:

be intensely curious
learn new ideas or skills quickly and easily
display a good memory
ask complex questions
be creative
enjoy thinking in complex ways
require fewer repetitions when learning new things
become intensely focused in their area of interest or passion.

Suspect your child benefit from our HPGE program?

If you observe your child is advanced in any area or domain, please contact us.

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Our high potential and gifted education opportunities

Our students engage with HPGE education in the classroom, in our school, and across NSW.

In our classroom

Our classroom teachers support and extend high potential and gifted students.

Learning tasks that change pace and difficulty to suit different needs.
Different movement tasks and skill practice in PDHPE.
Advanced options, like moving ahead faster or covering more in less time.
Opportunities to lead within the classroom.
Feedback that focuses on strengths and helps set goals.

Across our school

Our school offers a range of whole-school programs that support student growth.

Debating.
Academic competitions.
Sporting opportunities, including PSSA.
Peer mentoring.
Choir.
Dance groups.
Eisteddfod competitions.
High Potential music program.
High Potential visual art programs.
High Potential academic programs.
Peer Support leadership.
Public Speaking (including our Young Communicators public speaking program).
Technology and ICT.
Tournament of Minds.
Student leadership (SRC and school leaders).

Across NSW

Our students participate in a wide range of statewide programs to extend their potential.

The Premier’s Debating Challenge helps our students to build logical arguments and confidence in public speaking.
The Premier’s Sporting Challenge encourages schools to get active, while also offering leadership and training opportunities.
The Representative School Sport Pathway and PSSA/CHSSA events give students the chance to compete in sport at higher levels and build commitment and teamwork.
STEM Enrichment Partnerships with industry and universities spark curiosity and encourage teamwork and innovation.
The Game Changer Challenge lets students use design thinking to solve real-world problems.

HPGE - CoS We Care - A Community of Schools joint project with Kooringal High School

Our Vision

CoS We Care is a dynamic transition initiative designed to celebrate and extend high potential and gifted learners. Our Community of Schools (CoS) is a partnership with Sturt Public School, Lake Albert Public School and Kooringal Public School where we work collaboratively to deliver a design thinking project. This is hosted and supported by Kooringal High School staff and students to create a connected and supported transition pathway to high school for students involved.

We are committed to creating rich, challenging and inspiring learning experiences that foster excellence across public education. Through purposeful talent development and authentic opportunities, we aim to position our schools as places of innovation, challenge and possibility. Throughout the project students attend a launch event where they are introduced to the process of design thinking and will work in teams to empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test a solution. Groups then attend an exhibition at Kooringal High School to celebrate their learning and pitch their ideas to the wider community.

By building strong partnerships across our Community of Schools, this project nurtures confidence, continuity, belonging and a lifelong passion for learning.

Why CoS We Care?

This initiative reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to extending high potential and gifted learners, aligning with the HPGE Policy and its focus on early identification and sustained challenge.

We recognise that talent development begins early. Through collaboration within our Community of Schools, CoS We Care bridges the important transition from primary to high school by: