Enrichment
Our enrichment program for gifted and high-potential students is known as the Thomas Aquinas Scholars Program. It supports these students providing opportunities, resources and guidance to help them excel.
Inspired by the greatest Dominican scholar, St Thomas Aquinas, the program fosters academic achievement, creative thinking and personal growth in an inclusive and supportive setting. The diverse nature of giftedness shapes the identification of high potential at Santa Sabina as a multi-faceted and ongoing process, employing multiple criteria to ensure gifts across many domains are recognised. We enrich students’ minds through innovative ideas and through critical thinking and reasoning. Giftedness encompasses creativity and can be seen on the stage, on the sporting fields, perceived through artistic expression, seen in expert experimental design and heard through musical performances and composition.
Many opportunities are offered to our gifted and high potential students to facilitate talent development, resulting in a range of pathways by which gifted learners can achieve excellence.
High potential and gifted students make the most of several opportunities before school, during lunch breaks and in class which extend their learning in fun ways:
Writers’ Club: we meet each week to work on storytelling techniques. Students enter competitions such as ABC News in My Neighbourhood and WriteOn and CBCA Shadow Judging. We also enjoy an annual excursion to the Sydney Writers’ Festival.
- Pi Maths Class: this regular activity allows for a deep dive into problem solving. Designed to provide stretch and challenge, these sessions in class time encourage students to think critically, collaborate effectively, and celebrate the satisfaction that comes from persevering through complex tasks. Whether they’re sharing strategies, testing ideas, or refining their reasoning, students thrive in this dynamic learning environment.
- Maths Olympiad: we prepare for this competition in Term 2.
- We enter Australian Mathematics Trust and Maths Challenge competitions.
- In Maths Games we collaborate to solve problems.
Our Gifted Learners compete in detailed scientific investigations in the Young Scientist Competition.
- Digitech – our digital technology club
- Da Vinci Decathlon – multidisciplinary competition
- Ethics Olympiad – for our philosophers