High potential and gifted education
Some students learn faster and more easily than others. These students may shine in creativity, thinking, leadership or sport. These students may show natural abilities in creative, intellectual, physical, and/or social-emotional domains.
At our school, we recognise and nurture these strengths early. We support advanced learners with great lessons and activities to help them grow and thrive.
Why choose us for your high potential or gifted child?
Recognising potential and developing talent
Our teachers find potential and nurture our students to ensure every student has the opportunity to thrive at our school.
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.
Supporting your child at school
Working with the school helps create a positive learning environment which helps your child achieve their potential. Our students can participate in a wide range of 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.
At Earlwood Public School, HPGE is embedded in everyday practice. Many students demonstrate high potential, and we actively nurture this potential to ensure every student has the opportunity to succeed and flourish.
- Differentiated tasks that adjust pace, complexity and higher-order thinking.
- Formative assessment to monitor growth and adapt learning.
- Advanced learning pathways, including accelerated or compacted content.
- Explicit teaching of critical thinking and problem-solving strategies.
- Opportunities for abstraction, inquiry, and curriculum depth.
- Tasks that promote choice, authenticity, and critical and creative thinking including cross-curricular projects.
- Flexible grouping for collaborative ideation and presentation.
- Differentiated movement tasks and skill refinement in PDHPE.
- Targeted learning goals for coordination, agility, and control.
- Opportunities to take on lead roles in physical demonstrations or team strategy.
- Supportive learning environments that enable exploration and self-assessment.
- Strengths-based feedback and goal setting.
- Opportunities for leadership within the classroom.
- Structured peer collaboration and reflection.
- Safe learning environments that encourage confidence, risk-taking, and perseverance.
Every high potential and gifted student is unique and we provide flexible and diverse opportunities designed to address their individual needs.
- Debating
- Robert Hardy public speaking competition
- Primary School State Debating Championships
- Coding club
- Academic competitions
- Critical thinking workshops
- Number crunches
- Puzzle club
- Music ensembles
- Digitral visual arts clubs
- Creative writing groups
- PSSA sports teams and competition
- Junior and Senior dance troupe
- Peer mentoring
- Student leadership eg SRC, environmental (green) team, sport house leaders, library monitors and Year 6 leadership team.
- Wellbeing programs
- Participation in whole-school inclusion and wellbeing initiatives.
Our students participate in a wide range of statewide programs to extend and enrich student potential.
- The Premier’s Spelling Bee promotes our students’ vocabulary development and attention to detail in competitive settings.
- APSMO Maths Olympiad
- The Premier’s Debating Challenge helps our students to build logical arguments and confidence in public speaking.
- Premier’s Multicultural Public Speaking
- Metropolitan South and Metropolitan South and West Public Speaking Competition
- Participation in music ensembles eg community of schools for band.
- The Premier’s Sporting Challenge (PSC) promotes whole-school participation in physical activity with leadership pathways and professional learning.
- The Representative School Sport Pathway and PSSA and CHSSA events enable our students to trial and compete in sports at regional, state and national levels, fostering discipline, commitment and collaboration.
- Premier’s Reading Challenge
- Create performing arts showcase - choir, band, dance and visual arts.
- Leadership grows through SRC, mentoring and peer coaching, Green team, Year 6 student leadership and primary dream and lead conference for our leaders of tomorrow.
- Support for high potential and gifted students is available statewide through the NSW Department of Education. We assist with entries, preparation, and reflection to ensure that every experience contributes to ongoing learning.
Student stories and highlights
NSW PSSA Athletics Championships
We are incredibly proud of Liv from Year 6 for her remarkable achievements at the NSW PSSA Athletics Championships last week! Liv soared to first place in the long jump with an impressive leap of 4.52m, earning the title of State Champion! She also delivered a strong performance in the high jump, where she and seven other girls cleared 1.40m in a tight contest for third place. Liv finished 9th on count back.
Liv will now proudly represent NSW at the Australian Track and Field Championships in Canberra. Additionally, she has been selected for the AFL Sydney Swans Academy in 2026! What an amazing superstar!
We are all behind you Liv, cheering you on the whole way!
Primary School State Debating Championships
My journey in debating this year began with the initial trial at Bellevue Hill, where I competed alongside 40 other students. It was a challenging start, but it sparked my interest and pushed me to improve. After the trial, I was selected amongst five others to attend training sessions with some highly skilled debaters, where I learned a great deal about argument structure, rebuttal strategies, and effective speaking. These sessions helped me grow significantly as a debater. I later trialled again and, to my excitement, earned a spot on the final team representing the Sydney region. Now, I'm preparing to compete at the state championships in Mulgoa; a milestone I'm incredibly proud of.
Bonbon - 6F
Earlwood Public School is also very proud of Bonbon’s achievements and wishes him all the best at the Primary School State Debating Championships in November.
FIBA Invitational Basketball Tournament
Recently, Lucas from class 6F represented his team in an invitational basketball tournament organised by FIBA in Liuzhou, China, competing in the 10–12-year-old age group.
The team played five challenging matches against some of the highest-ranked young teams in the region. Before their first game, the players exchanged gifts with their opponents as a gesture of sportsmanship and respect — but once on the court, they showed no mercy.
In the opening match, Lucas’s team achieved a dominant 100–40 victory, with Lucas personally contributing one-third of the team’s total points. Building on that momentum, they went on to win three more matches, losing only once during the competition. Despite the setback, the players showed resilience and determination, anxiously awaiting the final results after the fourth match.
Their patience paid off — the next day, they discovered that they had secured the tournament championship, becoming the team with the most victories overall. The celebrations included cakes and a buffet, enjoyed by all after a hard-fought tournament.
As team captain, Lucas proudly brought the championship trophy home and now keeps it on display at his desk. Reflecting on the trip, he shared that the experience was unforgettable — from making new international friends and trying local foods to learning that giving your best effort always leads to success.
Congratulations to Lucas and the entire team for their outstanding achievement!
The World Scholar's Cup
Congratulations to Jayden who last week was the youngest competitor to take part in 'The World Scholar's Cup'.
Jayden and his team competed in 8 categories over the 2 days of competition.
Coming in 4th place overall means that Jayden will progress to the next round of the competition in Bangkok, Thailand in September.
We wish you all the best for the upcoming challenges and congratulate you on your dedication to learning.
NSW Jigsaw Championships
Congratulations to our state finalist in this year's NSW Jigsaw Championships.
The team placed 4th in the NSW Schools Division of the competition.
Sydney Southeast Symphonic Winds Ensemble
We are thrilled to congratulate Pennie, Charlotte (6F) and Lachlan (5/6C) on their outstanding achievement performing as part of the Sydney Southeast Symphonic Winds ensemble! Selected though a competitive audition process, these talented students joined over 100 young musicians from across Greater Sydney to form this concert band.
2025 marks the 31st year of the Sydney Southeast Symphonic Winds, a program renowned for nurturing musical excellence in NSW public schools. Their recent performance showcased not only their dedication and talent, but also the power of music to bring communities together.
Well done, Pennie, Charlotte and Lachlan!
Canterbury Bankstown Youth Art Competition (12-18 year olds)
'The theme of the art competition was ‘My Positivity Playlist,’ which wasn't about music but rather the things or hobbies that bring joy, happiness, and positivity. Since I love animals and nature, which make me happy, I created and submitted a digital artwork of a bunny with colourful flowers on its head, titled The Crown of Spring. I worked on it during lunchtime digital art technology lessons with Mrs Thomas. I was excited to win 1st place in the digital artwork category!
My piece will be on display at the Bankstown Arts Centre from Tuesday, 11 November to Saturday, 16 November.
I feel thrilled to have my hard work recognised.' - Written by Angelina 6MR
Congratulations to Angelina 6M on your fantastic achievement in digital art and for winning $80 in the art competition!
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