Gifted and Talented • Emmaus Christian College

In Junior School, we recognise that it is important to identify students who show high intellectual ability and potential in order to nurture and enrich their abilities and talents. Students are invited to take part in a withdrawal program that is designed to stimulate and extend students. Entry to these programs is on a needs basis.

Gifted and Talented Students are invited to take part in an extension program designed to enrich learning. This ensures gifted and talented students reach their potential. Programs are targeted to meet individual student needs.

Students are invited to attend if they meet some of the following criteria:

Teacher referral
Results and recommendations from psychological assessments
Information received from parents
Strong academic performance reflected in school grades or results from external competitions eg University of New South Wales subject competitions
Strong performance in NAPLAN, PAT-M/PAT-R through ACER

Middle School (Years 7 to 9)

Extension English and Mathematics classes are offered throughout all secondary year levels to allow students to be challenged via additional enrichment activities, curriculum compacting and acceleration to match individual learning needs. Selection criteria is based on teacher observation, previous academic attainment and standardised test scores. Students are able to transfer into an extension class during appropriate times of the year.

Many competitions and extra-curricular opportunities are available for students of all ages.

Programs currently on offer:

Rostrum / Legacy Youth Public Speaking Competition

Students can compete in these public speaking competitions from 12-15 years old

FIRST® LEGO® League

Focused on building an interest in science and engineering in students, FIRST^® LEGO^® League is a hands-on competition designed to capture young students’ curiosity and direct it toward discovering how science and technology impact the world around them. The competition features a real-world challenge, to be explored through research, critical thinking and imagination. Guided by adult coaches and the Core Values, team members work with LEGO^® elements and motorized parts to build ideas and concepts and present them for judging.

Tournament of the Minds (TOM)

Groups of 7 students from year 5-10 can participate. TOM offers teams of students the opportunity to solve authentic, open-ended challenges that foster creative, divergent thinking whilst developing collaborative enterprise, excellence and teamwork.

Challenges are set in the following disciplines... The Arts, Language Literature, Social Sciences and STEM.

Debating

Interschool competition with Debating SA. Students are able to develop their research, communication , social and thinking skills. The competition runs from May until September.

Aurecon Bridge Building Competition

Year 8 students compete against other schools developing their engineering skills in designing and making a bridge under certain restraints.

Oliphant Science Awards

Students from Foundation to Year 9 are invited to investigate scientifically an area of interest and present a product to enter the State competition.

Philosothon

Thinking about thinking. A secondary team discusses ethical dilemmas at an inter school competition.

Da Vinci Decathlon

Three teams compete against other schools on 10 different subject area ranging from Maths to creative producers. It is a great day of working collaboratively on some very challenging tasks.

Chess club and Competition

Students from Reception to year 10 are provided with weekly training and compete against other schools in September.

STEAM club

Available to upper primary students. Students explore different engineering challenges using a hands on approach.

Girls / Boys activity Clubs

Upper primary students have the opportunity to plan, lead and organise different lunch time activities to foster communication and social skills.

Peer Mediation Training

A two day workshop for all upper Primary students learning how to mediate and to lead other students in resolving conflict in a win/win situation.

History Bowl and Bee competition

Secondary students train and compete on a state and international level using their understanding of dates and facts in history in a beat the buzzer style competition.

Computational Algorithmic Thinking (CAT) Competition

High order thinking students are invited to compete in this national competition.

Writers' week

Over 40 students attend this inspiring morning of hearing different authors talk about their writing experience.

Photo Gallery

Year 5/6 Class at the 2018 Da Vinci Decathlon

Student Achievements

2020 Achievements

OzClo - The Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad

One of our Year 11 teams qualified for the national final round of the OzClo, 2-hour competition. The team was competing against 28 schools across Australia. We are very proud to announce that Emmaus received a "Silver" placement.

Congratulations to Erica, Matthew and Ryan on an outstanding achievement. Thank you to Ms Sarah Burrow for organizing and supervising this competition.