Balwyn High School
Balwyn High School offers a comprehensive High-Ability Learning Program that is available to all enrolled students at the school.
The school’s Learning and Teaching Team developed the high-ability program to differentiate for all students, whatever their level of learning, significantly extending students’ learning capability and access to high-ability learning at the school.
Students are empowered to build their own decision-making capability from their entry at Year 7.
Targeted strategies and learning opportunities developed by the team are extending high-ability learners across individual classes, and through self-directed research tasks and competitions.
Advanced level extension subjects and the dedicated Selected Entry Accelerated Learning program are offered alongside co-curricular programs, including the school’s music, debating and sports programs, and a Maths Games Day run by the Mathematical Association of Victoria.
The school’s inclusive high-ability provision is resulting in student outcomes and levels of achievement consistently amongst the highest for Victorian open-entry public schools.
Officer Secondary College
Staff at Officer Secondary College strongly believe that their role is to extend their high-ability students’ achievement, knowledge, and capacity for learning.
Over 2022 and 2023 the college designed and implemented a High Achiever Program that would extend their highest achieving students in innovative growth-focused programs. A dramatic improvement in students’ learning, behavioural and attendance outcomes has resulted.
As a means of extending growth opportunities to those students identified as high-ability students but not enrolled in the High Achievers Program, the Academic Champions Program was implemented as a growth-coaching initiative. Members of the leadership team mentor students to determine their own learning goals and to self-monitor their progress.
Whether implementing mentor support, rewriting the mathematics curriculum to facilitate students’ ability to better retrieve and apply numerical content, or initiating Flipped Learning Student Voice Courses for their Year 9 high-ability students, Officer Secondary College is supporting their students to extend and accelerate their learning.
Templestowe College
At Templestowe College, high-ability students select subjects aligned with the Victorian Curriculum but follow a staged, rather than age-based, learning pathway.
Developmental rubrics are used to provide students’ with formative feedback on a wide range of measures, unrestricted by year level. This enables high-ability students to experience a greater degree of engagement as they are able to study at their own level across all areas of the college.
Templestowe College’s emphasis on project or product-based learning ensures that students’ projects are always linked with clients, businesses, or organisations external to the college. High-ability students are provided with programs and initiatives that support individuals to apply their learning, including virtual study groups, entrepreneurship and leadership programs, and a student employability skills program.
Through their challenging Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) program, students regularly compete at World Championship level within Robotics, with their National Championship winning teams representing Australia at the 2023 VEX Robotics World Championships.
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