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The primary Learning Extension department celebrates the unique academic giftings and needs that God provides to His children. Highly qualified and experienced staff in gifted and talented education support students, their families and teachers through the provision of differentiated extension programs for gifted and high achieving or underachieving students, and enrichment opportunities for the broader school community. Our aim is for young people to recognise, develop and strive to utilise their gifts, talents and abilities to be people of influence and world changers. We delight in seeing their spark and love of learning.

Our academic extension programs are for students with identified strengths and needs in the humanities (English, Geography and History) and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

Specialised weekly STEM Explorers programs enable Years 3-6students to collaborate, design and investigate with fellow researchers, and enter their projects in STEM competitions. Weekly Mindset Maths extension lessons challenge lower primary students with hands on, open-ended investigations, while the extension Maths class in Years 3-6 engage students higher order thinking activities, requiring them to work collaboratively to apply a number of strategies to solve real life problems that extend their understanding and application of mathematical concepts. They also enter a number of individual and team Mathematics competitions.

Students in Years 4-6 with identified strengths in the Humanities and STEM are invited to engage with like-minded peers through the ASPIRE (Academically Strong Pupils Inspired to Reach Excellence) program. The fast pace of the classes invigorates students as they complete their year level’s curriculum in a compacted manner, allowing for additional time to participate in extension activities, while learning more about themselves as gifted and high achieving students.

Our Years 1-6 wordsmiths enjoy weekly, small group, creative writing lessons in Writers Circle. They are encouraged to ‘play’ with words and many of their personal pieces of writing are entered in competitions.

A variety of clubs and workshops enable students to enrich their learning in areas of personal interest and generally change each year to support the interests of the students. Currently, motivated students are invited to attend weekly Primary Maths Club sessions and visit the Makerspace to freely create and investigate.

Primary students are also given extensive opportunities to participate in external academic and creative competitions, including poetry and short story writing, English, Mathematics, Science, History and Digital Technologies. They also have the opportunity to compete directly against students from other schools through interschool team competitions such as chess, debating, Kids Lit Quiz, Mathematical team challenges, and Write a Book in a Day.

In exceptional circumstances, students whose cognitive ability is well above their chronological age may be accelerated in their learning to a higher year level when sufficient data is gathered to support this decision.