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Junior School Teacher - High Potential Learners, Jesse Black

At Central Coast Grammar, consistency is key. High Potential Learners are identified and supported through a carefully sequenced program across the Junior School years. This ensures that extension opportunities are not isolated events but part of a sustained and reliable pathway that builds year on year. By embedding common strategies, frameworks and shared expectations across classrooms, we create an environment where high potential is nurtured with continuity, confidence and intentionality.

When it comes to extending High Potential Learners (HPL), a carefully crafted suite of tailored interventions ensures these students are continually challenged and supported, through atypical opportunities that extend beyond conventional classroom experiences. In the Junior School years, the model evolves as students grow. Imagine an upward funnel: as students’ progress through the years, the number and depth of enrichment opportunities expands. One approach used to extend High Potential Learners is the use of ‘simulations’; a powerful form of experiential learning where students explore how complex systems operate in the real world. In these instructional scenarios, a ‘mini world’, defined by the teacher, represents a reality in which students interact. This immersive method accelerates understanding, deepens critical thinking, and fosters independence through active participation.

The simulation for Junior School students at Grammar, Earth Craft Games, takes foundational influence from John Hunter’s renowned World Peace Games in which students explore the interconnectedness of the global community and the critical role of collaboration, compromise and teamwork. Through Earth Craft Games, the classroom is transformed into a global stage. The game unfolds on a large, multi-layered board representing land, sea, air, and space. Students take on different leadership roles in assigned nations to navigate crises like war, poverty and climate change. To win, they must not only protect their own country’s interests but also achieve peace and prosperity for all players. The real power of this work, however, is that it is far removed from a traditional lesson structure. It’s imaginative, immersive, and intellectually stimulating. It’s highly complex and opaque, with an open set of rules defined by the players themselves. Students experience the realism of the scenario first-hand to gather meaning from it.

In this scenario High Potential Learners can explore concepts at greater depth and breadth than standard classrooms, through environments that complement and extend core classroom learning. I have seen first-hand the impact simulation learning can have. Like the real world, the problems in the simulation are complex and messy, which promote the skills of resilience and ingenuity. Students are given the opportunity to show leadership, practicing making decisions under pressure, and taking responsibility for those decisions; at the same time, they also learn that success is only possible through negotiation and empathy. Perhaps, however, the most unique aspect of this type of learning is that it opens the minds of our high potential learners, deepens their thinking, and helps them to see themselves as agents of positive change in the world. Children begin to understand the impact of their actions on others and the importance of ethical leadership.

The reflections of students speak for themselves: “My favourite thing about Earth Craft Games was that we could have fun pretending to be a country, and that we took in the roles of important people and solved actual problems. I really liked negotiating with other people and just having a blast with fellow problem solvers,” said a Year 6 participant. Importantly, the reflection and debrief processes following simulations help students solidify the concepts and skills they’ve learnt and develop awareness of their thinking processes and learning strategies, illuminating the true value of this innovative approach to extend High Potential Learners.

“I love how everyone had to help each other to achieve a certain goal. It didn't matter if they were in a team, friends or enemies, everyone put that aside and helped who ever needed it the most. The experience also made me understand the problems and solution that needed to be solved or made to finish the challenges. It helped me think outside the box and think creatively,” said one Year 5 student.