High potential and gifted education
At New Lambton South Public School, we are proud to align our approach with the NSW Department of Education’s High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) policy, which recognises the diverse strengths and needs of gifted and high potential students. We are committed to providing an inclusive and supportive learning environment that challenges and extends all learners, ensuring they are engaged, motivated, and able to reach their full potential. Our programs are designed to identify and nurture giftedness across multiple domains, reflecting the Department’s emphasis on catering to the whole child. By embracing a broad view of giftedness, we aim to foster excellence not only academically but also creatively, physically, and socially, preparing students for lifelong success and wellbeing.
Our approach focuses on four key domains:
- Creative Domain: We provide opportunities for students to develop innovative thinking and artistic expression, encouraging originality and problem-solving through diverse creative activities.
- Intellectual Domain: We challenge students with enriched learning experiences that promote higher-order thinking, deep inquiry, and advanced knowledge across the curriculum.
- Physical Domain: Recognising the importance of physical development, we support students in enhancing their coordination, health, and physical skills through targeted activities and sports.
- Social-Emotional Domain: We prioritise the emotional wellbeing and social development of gifted students, fostering resilience, self-awareness, and positive relationships to help them thrive within our school community.
At New Lambton South Public School, we are dedicated to implementing the NSW Department of Education’s HPGE policy by providing a comprehensive, student-centred approach that nurtures the potential of every learner across these four domains.
Why choose us for your high potential or gifted child?
Recognising potential and developing talent
Our teachers find potential and nurture our students to be the best they can be.
Tailored lessons
Each student has different abilities. Teachers respond to each student’s ability by providing extra challenges and extension activities to keep learning exciting and engaging.
Rich opportunities and activities
Students can take part in opportunities to develop their talent in the arts, sport, leadership and more.
Opening doors to wider experiences
Our students can participate in a wide range of state-wide opportunities that aim to extend and enrich student potential.
What is high potential and gifted education?
High Potential and Gifted Education (HPGE) is how our school supports students with advanced learning needs.
We do this through:
- effective teaching strategies like enrichment, extension and acceleration
- tailored support during lessons that stretch, challenge and inspire
- access to a wide range of opportunities both within and beyond our school.
Leaders in HPGE
Our school is recognised as the leading institution in the region for High Potential and Gifted education. Hosting a regional Opportunity Class that consistently attracts the highest-achieving students from the area allows us to design and implement innovative programs and experiences that benefit both these students and the wider school community. Access to HPGE competitions is unique to our school where we regularly perform amongst the highest schools in the state.
Our high potential and gifted education opportunities
Our students engage with HPGE education in the classroom, in our school, and across NSW.
At New Lambton South Public School, high potential and gifted education (HPGE) is integrated into our daily learning experiences. Many of our students demonstrate exceptional talents, and we are committed to supporting and developing these strengths into meaningful achievements.
Our teachers identify each student’s learning needs within the classroom and apply evidence-based teaching strategies to extend and challenge their abilities. We provide a variety of learning pathways, including enrichment programs, extension tasks, and acceleration when suitable. Students are identified by teachers (with family insights welcome and encouraged) as having high potential or giftedness across the cognitive, creative, physical, or social-emotional domains. This information is shared throughout the school to ensure effective support for every learner.
We create nurturing classroom environments that foster a sense of belonging, encourage creativity, risk-taking, and collaboration. Gifted students, particularly in the cognitive domain, receive targeted instruction to meet their individual level of challenge. They engage in open-ended activities and enrichment opportunities.
Flexible groupings, leadership opportunities, and feedback centred on strengths with clear goals and self-assessment are key features of our approach.
Our practices align with the NSW Department of Education’s HPGE policy, which highlights the importance of supporting giftedness across four essential domains:
- Creative Domain: Supporting students to develop original ideas and express themselves through creative thinking, problem-solving, and artistic pursuits.
- Intellectual (Cognitive) Domain: Offering challenging learning experiences that nurture advanced thinking, deep inquiry, and intellectual development.
- Physical Domain: Encouraging physical growth and wellbeing through activities that improve coordination, health, and physical skills.
- Social-Emotional Domain: Promoting emotional resilience, self-awareness, and positive social interactions to support the wellbeing of gifted learners.
At New Lambton South Public School, we are dedicated to fostering the whole child by recognising and nurturing each student’s potential across these four domains, ensuring every learner is empowered to succeed.
Every student is individual, so opportunities are flexible and diverse.
- Debating
- Academic competitions
- Music ensembles
- Creative writing groups
- Sport squads
- Student leadership (SRC)
- Wellbeing programs
- Participation in whole-school inclusion and wellbeing initiatives.
- The Representative School Sport Pathway PSSA events enable our students to trial and compete in sports at regional, state and national levels, fostering discipline, commitment and collaboration.
- The Premier’s Spelling Bee promotes our students’ vocabulary development and attention to detail in competitive settings.
- The Premier’s Debating Challenge helps our students to build logical arguments and confidence in public speaking.
- The NSW Premier's Reading Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature.
Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics
Robotics and Lego League programs at New Lambton South Public School provide valuable opportunities for students excelling in science, coding, and engineering. Our school teams regularly achieve success in the Hunter Lego League, with one team placing 4th overall at the national finals in 2025. Additionally, students from New Lambton South PS were recently crowned national champions in data analysis and presentation for their outstanding work with complex data sets. Our students consistently perform well in the Newcastle Permanent Mathematics Competition, securing first place consecutively in 2024 and 2025. Moreover, many students have earned recognition in the prestigious International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS), winning medals across various disciplines.
English-Writing and Poetry
Short story competitions and writing are highly valued at our school, where students regularly participate in tournaments and competitions. We have a strong tradition of excellence in this area. In 2025, one of our students won the Whitlam Institute What Matters Writing Competition. Additionally, students have been shortlisted in various creative writing competitions and have received national recognition for their achievements in poetry.
Davinci Decathlon and Tournament of the Minds
The Da Vinci Decathlon is a prestigious academic competition hosted by the independent school system. New Lambton South Public School is one of the few public schools in NSW to participate in this event and has a strong tradition of achieving outstanding results against highly regarded schools. Notably, in 2023, our team placed 2nd in the state, making us the highest-performing NSW public school. In 2024, our team advanced to the state final, and in 2025, we were proud to be named regional winners of the competition.
Creative and Performing Arts
Students at New Lambton South Public School have ongoing opportunities to engage in the Creative and Performing Arts. Events such as Star Struck and Hunter Dance offer students the chance to participate in dance performances beyond the school environment. Our school band, comprising approximately 60 students, performs regularly and achieved 4th place at the Hunter Bandfest in 2025. Additionally, our aerobics teams advanced to the national finals in both 2024 and 2025, earning medals at these prestigious competitions. A specialist teacher supports students in visual arts, providing opportunities for emerging artists to develop their skills and have their work showcased at school and state-level exhibitions.
Sport
Sport plays a vital role at our school, with numerous teams regularly competing in state-level competitions. While all students have the opportunity to participate and enjoy sport, our school has built a strong reputation for excellence in this area. Recent achievements include:
· 2025
· 5th place in the State Girls Cricket
· 3rd place in the State Boys Soccer
· 2024
· Inaugural winners of the Hunter Sporting School Competition
· 5th place in the State Boys Rugby League
· 2nd place in the State Girls Basketball
· 2nd place in the State Boys Basketball
· 2022
· 2nd place in the State Boys Soccer
Additionally, many of our students pursue High Potential and Gifted pathways and have been selected for Regional and State representative sporting teams.
Chess
The New Lambton South Chess Teams were crowned Country New South Wales Champions in consecutive years, 2024 and 2025. In 2025, the team achieved an impressive second-place finish in the state, competing against independent schools such as Sydney Grammar School. Chess is highly valued at our school, and all students have the opportunity to practice, play, and compete in chess competitions at various levels throughout the year.
Public Speaking
Our students actively participate in public speaking events both within the school and at regional and state levels. Notably, in 2023, a Year 6 student was awarded the Public Speaking State Championship for his speech on multiculturalism in Australia. This achievement reflects the strong emphasis our school places on developing confident and effective communicators.
Debating
Our school has a proud tradition of success in debating. We regularly field multiple teams in state-wide debating competitions and were honoured as Hunter champions in 2023 and 2024, achieving an impressive 4th place finish statewide. A whole-school commitment to developing critical thinking skills through debating equips us to sustain and build upon this success in the years ahead.
Help for your high potential child
If your child shows signs of high potential, contact us. We can share how our HPGE support can guide their learning journey.
Student opportunities and activities
Discover the opportunities our students have at our school.
Learning
Find out about our approach to learning and supporting students to progress