High potential and gifted education

Recognising Potential, Nurturing Excellence

At Girraween High School, we understand that some students have the ability to learn faster, think more deeply, and demonstrate exceptional creativity, leadership, or sporting talent. We aspire to nurture these strengths from an early stage, providing a supportive environment where every high potential and gifted learner can excel.

High potential and gifted learners often demonstrate a unique blend of abilities and traits that set them apart. These may include:

Advanced reasoning and problem-solving skills
Intense curiosity and a strong desire to understand complex concepts
Rapid learning pace and excellent memory
Creativity and original thinking
High levels of motivation and persistence in areas of interest
Sensitivity to the feelings of others and strong sense of justice
Leadership qualities and the ability to inspire peers
A wide range of interests and advanced vocabulary or communication skills

We focus on nurturing not just academic talents, but also the leadership, creativity, and social-emotional skills that empower our students to thrive as confident lifelong learners who contribute meaningfully to society.

Why choose us for your high potential and gifted child?

At Girraween High School, we unite as a community that respects and celebrates diverse talents, encourages every student to aspire to personal excellence, and fosters a culture of collaboration and lifelong learning.

Aspire: We believe in inspiring students to reach beyond limits. Our teachers identify and develop each student’s unique talents, encouraging them to aspire to their best.
Respect: We respect every learner’s ability and individuality, tailoring lessons to challenge and spark deep engagement according to their strengths and interests.

Unite: Our programs unite students through rich opportunities across arts, sport, leadership, and community activities, helping them build confidence and collaboration skills.

What is high potential and gifted education?

High potential and gifted education (HPGE) is how our school supports students with advanced learning needs. We target the areas of enrichment, extension and acceleration in order to support the unique learning needs of high ability students.

We do this through:

Implementing proven effective teaching strategies like enrichment, extension and acceleration

Providing tailored support during lessons that extend, challenge and inspire

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

Our Accelerated Subjects

To further foster academic excellence, Girraween High School offers accelerated courses in Science, Chemistry, Biology, and Health and Movement Science. These accelerated subjects allow high potential students to engage with more advanced content early, work at a faster pace, and deepen their understanding. These courses provide pathways to extension study, research projects, and university-level challenges, enabling students to aspire to leadership in STEM fields. Acceleration enables students to maximise their HSC performance by completing some HSC units prior to Year 12.

Our Highly Educated and Dedicated Staff

Our ability to nurture gifted students is strengthened by a staff of highly qualified teachers who bring deep expertise and passion to their teaching:

Over 90% of our teachers hold a Mini Certificate of Gifted Education from the University of New South Wales, ensuring they understand the best strategies to engage and challenge gifted learners.
Many of our teachers are experienced HSC markers, HSC writers, and HSC judges, meaning they bring insights from examining excellence at the highest levels of achievement. This expertise ensures tailored, evidence-informed instruction that respects the individual learning journey of each student and unites our community in pursuit of academic and personal growth.
Our staff regularly engage in professional development and collaborate and share resources to stay at the forefront of gifted education research. Professional learning is geared towards collating artefacts demonstrating best practice for HPGE education, programming for new syllabi and facilitating dynamic teaching and learning. We focus on continuous improvement of teaching practice.

Our high potential and gifted education opportunities

Our students engage with HPGE education in the classroom, in our school, and across NSW.
In our classrooms	We foster an inclusive, stimulating environment that encourages critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration: Students work in supportive settings that foster confidence, risk-taking, perseverance and the development of higher order thinking skills Differentiated tasks ensure complexity and pace match individual strengths Collaboration and peer feedback build self-assessment skills and encourage a growth mindset Advanced learners are provided pathways for further extension and enrichment.
Across our school	Understanding the individuality of all students, we provide flexible opportunities outside the classroom to grow and develop skills and leadership: The school provides students with diverse leadership opportunities, including positions on student representative councils, roles as prefects and house leaders or captains, peer support and other leadership experiences across the school community. Enrichment in the performing arts through excursions, workshops, musical ensembles, band, drama, and production experiences Science and technology extension opportunities including research projects, competitions and advanced practical work. Students have access to high quality educational resources such as 3D printers, Amgen DNA technology and STEM spaces Participation in these programs provides students with valuable experiences beyond the classroom, opening doors to university early entrance programs, scholarships, cadetships and career pathways.
Across NSW	Girraween High School students access a broad array of state-wide competitions and programs to enhance their potential. These include: Participation in Academic Competitions across a range of subjects, STEM challenges, and robotics events Strong partnerships with various universities. Girraween High School is proud to be one of the schools involved in various university partner programs such as: Khuda STEM Outreach - USYD https://www.sydney.edu.au/engage/schools/high-school-outreach-and-access-programs/khuda-women-in-stem-program/khuda-stem-outreach.html Khuda STEM Academy – USYD https://www.sydney.edu.au/engage/schools/high-school-outreach-and-access-programs/khuda-women-in-stem-program/khuda-women-in-stem-academy.html Academy U – WSU https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/schools-engagement/connecting-with-western/school-programs/academy-u-unlimited-potential Partner School - Macquarie Involvement in knockout competitions and carnivals, both schoolwide and state-wide, fostering team spirit and sportsmanship