High potential and gifted education
At Oatley Public School, we are proud to align our approach with the NSW Department of Education’s High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) policy, which recognises the diverse strengths and needs of gifted and high potential students. We are committed to providing an inclusive and supportive learning environment that challenges and extends all learners, ensuring they are engaged, motivated, and able to reach their full potential. Our programs are designed to identify and nurture giftedness across multiple domains, reflecting the Department’s emphasis on catering to the whole child. By embracing a broad view of giftedness, we aim to foster excellence not only academically but also creatively, physically, and socially, preparing students for lifelong success and wellbeing.
Our approach focuses on four key domains:
- Creative Domain: We provide opportunities for students to develop innovative thinking and artistic expression, encouraging originality and problem-solving through diverse creative activities.
- Intellectual Domain: We challenge students with enriched learning experiences that promote higher-order thinking, deep inquiry, and advanced knowledge across the curriculum.
- Physical Domain: Recognising the importance of physical development, we support students in enhancing their coordination, health, and physical skills through targeted activities and sports.
- Social-Emotional Domain: We prioritise the emotional wellbeing and social development of gifted students, fostering resilience, self-awareness, and positive relationships to help them thrive within our school community.
At Oatley Public School, we are dedicated to implementing the NSW Department of Education’s HPGE policy by providing a comprehensive, student-centred approach that nurtures the potential of every learner across these four domains.
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.
Intellectual
- Differentiated tasks that adjust pace, complexity and incorporate higher-order thinking
- Teachers facilitating regular formative assessment to monitor growth and constantly adapt learning
- Development of critical thinking and problem-solving strategies through explicit teaching of learning dispositions and character strengths
Creative
- Development of creativity through explicit teaching of learning dispositions and character strengths.
- Open-ended investigations and design tasks that promote choice, authenticity, and critical and creative thinking including cross-curricular projects.
- Opportunities to innovate, imagine and express through visual arts, dance, music, drama, writing and STEAM projects
Social-Emotional
- Targeted development and explicit teaching of learning dispositions and character strengths related to intrapersonal and interpersonal skills and directly linking them to learning and positive social interactions
- Personalised strengths-based feedback and goal setting/reflection
- Classroom leadership opportunities, such as our Student Representative Council (SRC)
- Structured collaboration and peer mentoring
- Flexible grouping for collaborative ideation and presentation
Physical
- Differentiated movement tasks and skill refinement in PDHPE
- Opportunities to take on lead roles in physical demonstrations or team strategy
- Safe learning environments that encourage confidence, risk-taking, and perseverance
Intellectual
- Chess as a lunchtime club opportunity
- Maths Olympiad competitions
- Maths Games and Maths Explorer activities
- Debating
- Public Speaking
- STEAM investigations and projects
Creative
- Debating
- Public Speaking
- STEAM investigations and projects
- School Musicals
- TalentFest showcase at end of year
- Film by the Sea - developing students' visual literacy and filmmaking skills through the creation of high-quality short films.
- Band
- Choir
- Dance
- External visual arts and drama showcases
Social-Emotional
- Debating
- Public Speaking
- Student leadership as a whole student body (SRC)
Physical
- Inter-school sport representation
- Sport House competitions
- Wellbeing programs
- Participation in whole-school inclusion and wellbeing initiatives.
Intellectual
- The Premier’s Spelling Bee promotes our students’ vocabulary development and attention to detail in competitive settings.
- The Premier’s Debating Challenge helps our students to build logical arguments and confidence in public speaking.
Creative
- The Schools Spectacular is an iconic performing arts event that celebrates the talents, diversity and creativity of students from across NSW public schools.
Social-Emotional
- The Premier’s Debating Challenge helps our students to build logical arguments and confidence in public speaking.
Physical
- The Representative School Sport Pathway and PSSA events enable our students to trial and compete in sports at regional, state and national levels, fostering discipline, commitment and collaboration.
Public Speaking
Public speaking is one of the strengths of our school. We offer numerous opportunities for students to develop and showcase their skills through competitions both within the classroom and across the wider school community.
Sporting Opportunities
Our students have many opportunities to join a variety of sporting teams. Supported by a team of dedicated teachers, students are encouraged to participate in numerous sporting events, fostering teamwork, skill development and a love of physical activity.
Performing Arts Opportunities
High potential students benefit immensely from creative arts opportunities like dancing in School Spectacular, playing in our school band, and singing in the school choir. These experiences nurture their talents and boost their confidence.
Help for your high potential child
If your child shows signs of high potential, contact us. We can share how our HPGE support can guide their learning journey.
Student opportunities and activities
Discover the opportunities our students have at our school.
Learning
Find out about our approach to learning and supporting students to progress