At St Ursula’s College the Gifted and Talented program aims to extend and enrich all aspects of a student’s life. The program embraces contemporary educational research in Gifted Education along with Government and Catholic Education Office (CEO) initiatives. Students are screened for the program using broad selection data. A student learning plan is developed for each identified gifted student and is disseminated to all subject teachers. These plans assist teachers to differentiate their lessons and assessment tasks. The plans also serve to track the Gifted and Talented students within the College and monitor their progress. Additionally, students have access to a wide range of extra-curricular activities that serve as enrichment.
The Newman Research and Development Project
The Newman Stream Research and Development Project is an initiative of the CEO and explores programs for gifted students in our College and other Sydney Archdiocese Schools. The model that we have developed for Year 7 2013 at the College includes a class of ‘gifted’ students who will remain together for each of their subjects. The students engage in differentiated lessons and assessment tasks which cater for their high ability levels.
Differentiation of the Curriculum
St Ursula’s College seeks to embed gifted and talented education from Year 7-12 through curriculum differentiation. Differentiation within the College ensures a variety of instructional approaches are used to modify content, process and/or products in response to the learning readiness and interest of academically diverse students. This ensures students receive an appropriate curriculum for their level of ability and achieve new learning each year.
Class Grouping Structures
The College incorporates a variety of class grouping structures to ensure students of like-ability are clustered together. In Years 8-10, Science and Mathematics offer high ability classes. Other subjects have mixed ability groupings and teachers differentiate the curriculum and assessments to suit the ability level of each student in the class. In Years 11-12, students undergo a process to match them to suitable HSC subjects, carefully considering each student’s individual gifts and talents.
|  |
|
