By Emily Kowal
The state government is ramping up efforts to keep gifted children in public comprehensive schools via a $100 million budget spend designed to make parents consider their local high school.
In 2024, the state government announced it would roll out high potential and gifted education (HPGE) programs in every NSW public school, pledging $50 million for facility upgrades at select schools.
The state government will invest $100 million in upgrades at 33 public high schools to support the delivery of High Potential and Gifted Education. Credit: Steven Siewert
Now, an additional $50 million has been promised ahead of Tuesday’s state budget, to improve school science and technology labs, creative and performing arts spaces, music workshops, sporting facilities and design and technology workshops at 33 schools in western Sydney and regional NSW, as well as fund teacher training.
Launched in 2021, the HPGE policy was supposed to ensure gifted students were extended even if they did not attend a selective school or an opportunity class. However, the program was available in only half of government schools.
Enrolments in NSW public schools are falling.: 25,000 fewer students attended state schools last year than 2019, amid a rush to low-fee privates.
Windsor High School principal Jennifer Hawkins said its renovations, including new science labs, soundproofed music rooms and visual arts rooms, should help attract gifted students.
The school will also receive a refurbished admin block and it is working with council to upgrade its kiss and drop zone and external signage.
“We were selected as we have the potential to attract students to our school that we aren’t currently attracting. We compete with some very nice private schools and independent schools and appearance appears to be important,” said Hawkins. She said the money being spent on aesthetics was “minimal” compared to the spend on classrooms that “will absolutely allow students to achieve their potential”.
Department deputy secretary Martin Graham said the investment was to ensure “parents can be confident if their child goes to a local public school they can be challenged and stretched”.
Asked how the department decided which schools would receive upgrades, Graham said the department was investing in schools serving “slightly more disadvantaged communities” with room for more students.
“They have space. This is a chance for them to actually improve their offering, so more people in the local area go ‘that school does have great facilities’,” he said.
Graham said the program would attract gifted children to stay at their local public school.
“The purpose of this program is so that if you have a child with particular gifts, you don’t feel like you have to seek out a specialist school. The purpose is to actually try and meet that need,” he said.
“Particularly in Sydney where schools are quite close together, people have felt like they need to seek out a school that can support their child. Whereas we would rather say ‘we can provide you with that stretch so you’re not bored or not reaching your potential’.
Pictured is Windsor High School’s old art classroom, which will be refurbished under the scheme.Credit: Steven Siewert
“The difference between this program and lots of other infrastructure programs is that it started with: ‘What do you want to tell parents that their child will be able to do here and what do you need to deliver that?’.”
At the beginning of term two, every NSW teacher received professional development training on identifying high-potential students across four domains: intellectual, creative, social-emotional and physical.
University of NSW head of gifted education Associate Professor Jae Jung said teacher training would be crucial to the program’s success.
“At the moment, gifted education is not a mandated part of teacher training programs,” said Jung. He said this would take more than one day and that it needed to occur earlier in a teacher’s development.
“We need to require all teaching programs to incorporate a compulsory gifted education program.”
Jung said that when gifted children were not identified, it can lead to “substantial underachievement”.
“If their educational needs are not being met, they are going to stagnate and might drop out of school. This is a huge loss of potential.”
Graham said teachers were being taught not only how to identify students with academic intelligence, but also those who may “look disruptive in class” but who have high social-emotional abilities.
“That kid might actually be the kid who likes to argue back but what we actually need is a debating program to channel that [energy],” he said.
“It’s about identification of different kinds of gifts and talents and stretching beyond more traditional academic domains and also about how you actually provide opportunities to kids.”
Acting Education Minister Courtney Houssos said the state government wanted “every child to have the opportunity to reach their full potential, with high expectations for achievement”.
“Parents can be confident that their local public school will bring out the best in their child. NSW public schools already offer a free, world-class education and these new programs will only enhance that offering,” she said.
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