For Commonwealth Games gold medallist, turned PE teacher, Katrina Morrow, helping her students jump to new heights is second nature.

Ms Morrow has spent the past two decades getting students active as a PE teacher at Eastwood Public School.

“Part of my job is teaching fundamental movement skills like catching, throwing, kicking and hitting and building those skills to flow from one sport to another,” Ms Morrow said.

With the introduction of the Inspire program, which offers high potential and gifted education (HPGE) for students to achieve their potential, Ms Morrow has been providing additional sports coaching to students who excel in the field.

“The Inspire program really tied in beautifully with the ethos of the school to ‘Aspire, Achieve, Exceed’. Kids don’t often realise they have potential because they never had the exposure and it’s my job to identify and nurture the talent,” Ms Morrow said.

“At its core, the Inspire program looks at giving kids the confidence, persistence and resilience to achieve.”

Under Ms Morrow’s guidance, students have opportunities to train and compete in athletics, badminton, table tennis and tenpin bowling.

“Athletics can be a foundation for all other sports, and I have seen students achieve at a high level simply by being taught how to do something they may have never tried before,” Ms Morrow said.

From the track to the classroom, Eastwood Public School’s Inspire Program also extends to musically gifted students and is run by Lindsey Forster who is a classroom teacher employed as a music specialist.

Every year, Ms Forster hand selects 20-30 students to work with individually to finesse their musical talents and convenes a choir of promising singers.

“Lately, I have been working with students to create their own music by using nature as inspiration to create songs,” Ms Forster said.

“Last session, the students decided on the topic of the kingfisher. They brainstormed words and short sentences. I gave them some notes from the piano which they used to make up musical phrases and together created a three-part song.”

One of her students, Malcolm, joined the Inspire Program in Year 2 and is now set to perform his own self-composed piano score at the Primary Proms concert hosted at Sydney Town Hall.

“I worked one-on-one with Malcolm over a number of years and was impressed he could already incredibly improvise his own music on the piano at the age of seven,” Ms Forster said.

“His brain is so creative so this year, I had to pin him down and get him to put what’s going on in his brain down on paper.”

Over multiple 35-minute weekly sessions, Malcolm was able to compose a sonata through a software program under Ms Forster’s mentorship.

“Some of our gifted musicians, like Malcolm, meet to play music together,” Ms Forster said. “It’s important for artists to work together so they can socialise and learn how to cooperate as a team. This group play 4-part xylophone pieces and are currently learning a complex piece of music using boomwhackers.”

In addition to nurturing student talents, Ms Forster also writes the musical scores for the school’s plays, concert and other events.

“I have been working on a pirate song for the end-of-year concert that is a bit silly and fun. I can’t wait for the students to perform it,” Ms Forster said.

“A lot of my past students are doing music in high school, some have gone through the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and for the past 10 years, at least one student is represented as a soloist at the Opera House or Sydney Town Hall in the Arts Unit State Festivals.

“We’ve had some incredibly gifted children come through Eastwood Public School and it’s a pleasure to see them continue their musical journey.”