High Potential and Gifted Education classes Years 2 to 6
Developing HPGE learners – the whole child approach
We understand that every student requires personalised learning opportunities to ensure their growth and achievement is optimised. This is especially critical for our high potential and gifted education (HPGE) students where we work to turn their potential into talents.
For the last 29 years a key to our success has been our full-time, HPGE classes from Years 2 to 6. This well-established program is unique to our setting and helps set us apart from other primary schools. That’s because our program allows our HPGE students to learn alongside peers of similar advanced intellectual abilities, for up to 5 years! This creates a strong foundation for their talent development pathway.
The intellectual benefits of our HPGE classes
Our HPGE classes draw on expert teaching and research-informed practice to meet students’ advanced intellectual abilities. By bringing together students of similar advanced ability, we have created the optimal learning environment where intellectual challenge is embedded in everyday learning. This grouping enables our teachers to deliver differentiated programs at a faster pace where students demonstrate growth through greater depth, complexity and exploration of abstract concepts. Learning alongside similarly advanced peers enriches academic discussion, requiring students to explain their reasoning, evaluate evidence and justify conclusions. Ongoing assessment ensures individual needs remain central, reducing repetition of mastered content while explicit teaching and targeted feedback support further progress. Together, these approaches deepen curriculum knowledge and help advanced learners develop the analytical skills, independence and intellectual confidence they need to excel.
The social and emotional benefits of a HPGE classes
Alongside developing students’ intellectual abilities, our HPGE classes also respond to their individual social and emotional strengths and needs. Informed by research highlighting the benefits of learning alongside peers of similar advanced ability, our classes foster meaningful friendships, shared interests and a strong sense of belonging.
Feeling understood and supported helps students confidently share complex ideas, ask questions and embrace intellectual challenges. Through purposeful collaboration and guidance in managing emotions, responding to feedback and navigating setbacks, students develop the resilience and self-awareness needed to persevere with demanding learning. This connection between wellbeing and learning creates the conditions for students to deepen their thinking, sustain their motivation and develop their potential.
The creative benefits of a HPGE classes
Haberfield Public School’s HPGE classes bring together advanced learners who can inspire, challenge and extend one another’s creative thinking. Working alongside like-minded peers with diverse perspectives gives students opportunities to exchange original ideas, question assumptions and build on one another’s thinking. Through carefully designed, open-ended tasks, our teachers encourage students to explore multiple possibilities, make unexpected connections and develop imaginative solutions across the curriculum. A supportive classroom culture makes it safe to experiment, take creative risks and refine ideas through constructive feedback. This combination of purposeful grouping and expert teaching helps students move beyond familiar answers, developing the originality, flexibility and perseverance needed to turn creative ideas into meaningful outcomes.
HPGE Classes: Testimonials
Everything I needed
“I started learning as part of the HPGE classes in Year 1. Being in this program with students specifically chosen for their talents, it really did help with my learning. Then, in Year 4, I tried out for OC and received an offer for Wilkins OC, then a little later, an offer to Summer Hill OC. I was really excited because I felt it would be a good change. However, after a term, the change wasn’t right for me, and I missed the learning and my teachers from Haberfield, so my parents and I began the process to return to HPS. I arrived back at HPS in the second term of Year 5.
Being back at HPS gave me opportunities for extra learning and advancement in education, such as great excursions like the Fort St High School lessons. They helped to advance me in maths and science by exposing us to what we would be learning in high school, except we learnt these things in Years 5 and 6!
Now, in Year 6, I sat the Selective High School test, and I received a first-round offer for my first preference with no reserve list! I accepted the offer to Fort St High School, and I’m looking forward to all the stereotypical things a selective high school has to offer.”
Sofia Year 6
Great relationships and opportunities
“I chose to stay at Haberfield in Year 5 even though I received a first-round offer to Summer Hill's OC program, as after being there already for many years, I had formed close relationships with my friends and I liked all of the teachers.
I always had great experiences in each class and had a lot of fun at HPS, so I wasn't very keen to leave such a great environment.
I enjoyed participating in extracurricular activities like choir and working to earn a medallion, and leaving would mean giving up on both of those.
I was also particularly excited to have a teacher I had known from my sister, who had a great experience with them a few years earlier, and wanted that same experience for myself.
I stayed to try new things like DanceSport, which I still compete in, and now I'm in Year 9.
I stayed and received a great education, getting a first-round offer to Fort St High School in Year 7.
I’m glad I chose to stay.”.”
Myra (now in Year 9)
Have a question regarding our HPGE classes?
Our friendly office team can help you get in touch.