High potential and gifted education

At Forestville Public School, our practices are guided by the NSW Department of Education’s High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) Policy, which acknowledges that high potential and gifted students demonstrate diverse strengths and learning needs. We are committed to providing an inclusive, supportive learning environment that challenges and extends every student, encouraging curiosity, motivation and confidence as they strive to achieve their personal best.

Our programs are designed to identify and nurture potential across a broad range of areas, recognising that giftedness extends beyond academic achievement to include creativity, physical capability and social-emotional development.

Our approach is structured around four key domains:

Creative Domain: Students are provided with opportunities to develop creativity and innovative thinking through artistic expression, problem-solving and imaginative learning experiences.

Intellectual Domain: We offer enriched and challenging learning experiences that promote higher-order thinking, deep understanding and advanced knowledge across the curriculum.

Physical Domain: We support students’ physical development through targeted sporting opportunities and activities that build coordination, fitness and wellbeing.

Social-Emotional Domain: We place a strong emphasis on student wellbeing by fostering resilience, self-awareness and positive relationships within a supportive school community.

Forestville Public School is committed to implementing the HPGE Policy through a comprehensive, student-centred approach that recognises and develops 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.

In our classroom

At Forestville Public School, High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) is embedded within everyday teaching and learning. Many of our students demonstrate high levels of ability across a range of areas, and we are committed to recognising, supporting and developing these strengths into meaningful achievement.

As a part of our assessment processes, teachers identify individual learning needs within the classroom and use evidence-based teaching strategies to challenge and extend students across areas of need and development. We provide enrichment and extension opportunities, as well as acceleration where appropriate. Teachers identify students as having high potential or giftedness across the cognitive, creative, physical or social-emotional domains every year, with family insights welcomed and valued. This information is shared across the school to ensure consistent and effective support.

Students receive explicit teaching with critical thinking and problem-solving opportunities woven into the syllabus content. Teachers use the Differentiation Adjustment Tool to embed effective differentiation into teaching programs, assessments and to provide targeted instruction. This tool enables teachers adjust the learning in:

Processes - Teaching is adapted to encourage critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and inquiry-based learning.

Content - Learning is extended through deeper, more challenging tasks that connect to real-world contexts.

Products - Students show their learning in a range of ways, including digital and hands-on tasks, and receive feedback from teachers and real audiences.

Learning Environment - Students learn independently, with a partner, or in flexible groups based on their needs and interests, supporting challenge, collaboration, leadership and social development.

Our approach also includes flexible grouping, leadership opportunities and strengths-based feedback, supported by clear learning goals and opportunities for student self-reflection and assessment.

Across our school

At Forestville Public School, High Potential and Gifted Education is embedded across the entire school with in-class and extracurricular opportunities. With a strong focus on identifying and nurturing students’ strengths across academic, creative, physical and social-emotional domains, we offer a wide range of opportunities.

In the Creative Domain students are offered enrichment and extension opportunities, in First LEGO® League teams, STEM and coding lessons delivered by a specialist teacher, creative writing programs, music lessons taught by a specialist music teacher, string groups and bands, band camp, choirs, drama clubs and dance groups and visual art exhibitions

In the Intellectual Domain students are offered enrichment and extension opportunities in debating, academic competitions such as ICAS and APSMO mathematics competitions, mathematics enrichment, chess clubs and public speaking competitions.

In the Physical Domain students are offered enrichment and extension opportunities in PSSA sporting competitions, school carnivals across swimming, athletics and cross country, as well as DanceFit for Year 5 and K-2 dance lessons with a qualified dance instructor.

In the Social-Emotional Domain students are offered enrichment and leadership opportunities as a part of our Student Representative Council (SRC), Positive Behaviour for Learning Focus for the week videos, class patrons, Year 5 and Kindy Buddy Program, Year 5 leadership program, Gardening Club and various lunchtime clubs, student voice initiatives.

Across NSW

State wide opportunities to develop talent include: