EXCELSIOR PROGRAM

The King's School welcomes gifted and talented boys and seeks to cater for their needs through the "Excelsior Program." The Excelsior Program is designed to identify, support and extend students who are gifted or talented.

Gifts and Talents
Gifts are abilities in various domains such as verbal/linguistic, mathematical/spatial or musical and creative which place a student within the top five percent of the population. Talent is a demonstrated ability, seen in performance outcomes, developed from a gift or gifts, reflecting about the top 5% of the population.

Collaborative work in a competitive problem solving event

Meeting the Needs
Highly able students need to be challenged academically. Some able students can be tempted to hide their ability or can disengage from school because of boredom. It is vital that tasks be presented that are motivating and challenging. It is also important that expectations are set based on actual ability.

“Do your best, not somebody else's” should be the aim of our students. Research indicates that optimal learning occurs when tasks are set which are not so difficult as to cause anxiety, nor too easy, which may lead to boredom.

Differentiation and Compacting
A large number of teachers at The King's School have completed professional development courses designed to equip them to meet the needs of our gifted and talented students, and close links have been established with the Gifted Education, Research, Resource and Information Centre (GERRIC).

One way the learning needs of our gifted and talented students are met is to ensure a differentiation of tasks in areas of content, process, product and learning environment. This includes an emphasis on the higher order thinking skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

A Year 9 Robotics student with an extension project – automated traffic light system

Work in these advanced skill areas is incorporated into regular tasks so that more able boys have a differentiated curriculum and do not have to complete the same program as other students. At times work may be “compacted” to allow early completion and freeing up or “buying" of time for other projects.

Options for varying needs
Scholars Classes are structured in Years 7 to 10 to cater for the most able boys. Placement is performance-based and classes follow a modified program incorporating more enrichment and extension tasks.

Withdrawal of students is also used to provide for boys with capabilities beyond the regular class grouping. In-class enrichment is staffed by subject specialists with relevant programs developed to meet the individual needs of students.

Sometimes gifted and talented students need to be accelerated into higher grades in order to work at a level commensurate with their ability. These cases are assessed individually, and a decision arrived at after considering all aspects of a student's well-being.

A wide variety of co-curricular activities add to the richness of opportunity for talented boys at King's. Intellectual societies exist for many age groups including the Mary Burns Society (Y7), Tom Barrett Society (Y10) and Cartesian Club and Twelve Club for senior students.

Mary Burns Society – the discussion topic of the day was aggression

Inter school and national competitions are offered such as Future Problem Solving and UNSW competitions. University courses are also available such as Sydney University Summer Schools.

Identifying Giftedness and Talent

All students have abilities in various areas. The aim of the Excelsior Program is to assist in the identification of students with academic gifts and to develop their talents through appropriate educational instruction.

Mary Burns Society visit to Sydney Observatory

Generalisations are dangerous, but gifted students characteristically have:

These are broad areas and no student will display all these characteristics all the time, but the list does provide a starting point in the identification of gifted children.

Identification tools that may be used include:

Recognition and Support

Gifted children are generally “asynchronous” in their development. This means that aspects of their physical, intellectual and emotional growth are out of step with each other. This can be frustrating for the student as well as their parents and teachers.
The pastoral care structure in the school of Tutors and Housemasters is used to monitor each boy in the Excelsior Program and help him to recognise and use the positive elements of his particular gifts.

Academic attainment is celebrated with the awarding of Colours. The awarding of scholarships is also possible in some cases.

New scholarship holders are presented with certificates and welcomed to the School