High potential and gifted education

Caroline Chisholm School is committed to ensuring equitable access to high-quality education for every student within our SSP setting. We recognise that all students bring unique strengths, abilities and life experiences, and our practices are designed to ensure each learner can participate fully, remain engaged and experience success. Through strong partnerships with families, carers, allied health professionals and the wider community, we ensure every student is known, valued and cared for. Our staff engage in an ongoing programme of high-impact professional learning to continually refine and enhance their practice.

Within our SSP setting, support for students with high potential and disability includes:

• Acknowledging both high potential and disability:
We understand that students may display advanced abilities alongside significant disability. We recognise and celebrate individuality and provide a carefully balanced combination of support, extension and specialised intervention.

• Strengths-based planning:
Staff, parents, carers and multidisciplinary teams collaborate to identify each student’s strengths, interests and areas of high potential. These strengths, such as creativity, problem-solving, and social leadership, are intentionally nurtured.

• Personalised adjustments:
Students receive personalised adjustments that may include additional adult support, customised resources, explicit visual supports, structured routines and differentiated instruction tailored to their learning profile, communication needs and wellbeing considerations.

• Explicit teaching and meaningful extension opportunities:
Teaching is explicit, structured and responsive to each student’s developmental stage and pace. Students are provided with rich opportunities to extend their abilities through hands-on learning, challenging projects, flexible pacing, alternative ways of demonstrating understanding and opportunities to generalise skills across settings.

Why choose us for your high potential or gifted child?

Recognising potential and developing talent

Our teachers find potential and nurture our students to be the best they can be.

Tailored lessons

Each student has different abilities. Teachers respond to each student’s ability by providing extra challenges and extension activities to keep learning exciting and engaging.

Rich opportunities and activities

Students can take part in opportunities to develop their talent in the arts, sport, leadership and more.

Opening doors to wider experiences

Our students can participate in a wide range of state-wide opportunities that aim to extend and enrich student potential.

What is high potential and gifted education?

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.

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

Differentiated tasks that adjust pace, complexity, content and practice.
Assessment to identify areas of strength and need, to monitor growth, and to adapt teaching and learning.
Explicit teaching of foundational and functional skills.
Tasks that promote choice and independence, including cross-curricular projects.
Differentiated movement tasks and skill refinement.
Personalised learning and support planning for all students.
Supportive learning environments that encourage creativity and self-expression.
Opportunities for leadership within the classroom.
Learning environments that encourage confidence and perseverance.

Across our school