Opportunity Class

The Sturt Public School Opportunity Class

"Opportunity Class" placement provides intellectual stimulation and an educationally enriched environment for academically gifted and talented children in Years 5 and 6. 

The program at Sturt Public School has been carefully developed by dedicated teachers to provide a stimulating curriculum which emphasises academic rigour whilst nurturing the gifted child's overall social and emotional development. 

It is our aim to instil in our students a love for learning:

• to make them think critically and creatively
• to make them question
• to make them get involved deeply into the subject they are studying
• to make them want to feel success
• to feel inspired
• to feel that learning is one of the greatest things in this world!

Our OC program provides a planned curriculum that matches the ability of gifted students to:

• learn at faster rates: Gifted and talented learners understand new concepts easily with fewer repetitions. This means that they will progress through the curriculum at an accelerated pace of instruction to ensure learning is continuous and that they are being stimulated.  
• find, solve and act on problems more readily We focus heavily on creative thinking, divergent thinking and general knowledge as these skills are important for today's problem solversmanipulate abstract ideas and make connections to an advanced degree: Gifted and talented learners understand concepts, abstractions and ideas beyond what would normally be expected at their age level. Therefore our programs are concept based and include complex, abstract ideas so that interests and abilities are challenged and extended.
• Gifted and talented learners benefit when they work with gifted peers. One of the best advantages of the  OC class is that the children  get to work with children of similar abilities; they bounce ideas off children who are like minded and have similar interests. The discussions and debates in an OC class are amazing to listen to. The friendships formed are strong and mature. The children bond well and have a respect for each other and the other benefit is that they spend two years together, which strengths the bond.

We use a variety of teaching and learning strategies to cater for such learning styles, including:

• using pre-assessment to compact the curriculum for students who have already mastered the core: then focus on accelerated progression in all key learning areas.
• extension activities that deepen students' knowledge, understanding and skills.
• enrichment activities that broaden  the curriculum to develop knowledge and skills to a greater complexity.
• contract work, with students negotiating the components of the contract, these incorporate many different models including Blooms Taxonomy, The Maker Model and The Williams Model.
• open-ended questions, activities and assignments.
• hypothesis testing and problem solving.
• individual research and investigation, where students learn how to develop and manage their independent learning skills.
• opportunities for peer assessment.
• using graphic organisers as an instructional tool.
• group tasks and creative thinking sessions that allow like-minded students to discuss and bounce ideas off each other.

Programs in the Sturt O.C:

Murder under the Microscope: students become online detectives in teams and research & analyse evidence in order to solve an environmental crime.

Tournament of the Minds: is a problem solving program for teams of students. They are required to solve demanding, open-ended challenges from one of the following disciplines: Applied Technology, Language Literature, Maths Engineering and the Social Sciences. Teams are required to work together on a Long Term Challenge for six weeks, they are encouraged to explore possibilities and experiment with ideas as they endeavour to produce their best possible solution. They develop a creative and original way to communicate this solution to others, working within predefined parameters such as limited materials, complex challenge criteria and the deadline of Tournament Day.

Australasian Problem Solving Mathematical Olympiads: a  very challenging mathematical problem solving competition that consists of 5 tournaments held throughout the year.

Engineering Quests: provides an exciting way for students to participate in educational engineering activities involving mathematics, science and technology.

Web Quests: online inquiry-oriented activities that encourage: knowledge acquisition and integration, extension &  refinement of knowledge and synthesis, evaluation and decision making.