Transcript – Equity Placement Model

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High potential and gifted students can be found across diverse family, socio-economic, language, cultural backgrounds, geographic locations and with disability.

In 2018, the Review of Selective Education Access found that there are groups of high potential and gifted students that are under-represented in opportunity classes and selective high schools.

The under-represented groups are:

• students from communities of low socio-educational advantage
• Aboriginal students
• students in rural and remote locations and
• students with disability.

The department wants to ensure that there is fair and equitable representation of all students in opportunity classes and selective high schools. We have made some changes to the way high potential and gifted students from underrepresented groups can be placed, through the use of the Equity Placement Model.

All students, including those in equity groups, are expected to take the placement test and parents are still required to apply for placement on behalf of their child. Equity placement will be used to increase participation in opportunity classes and selective high schools for students from targeted equity groups.

The department identified the number of students in equity groups currently in opportunity classes and selective high schools compared with the number of students in equity groups, currently in all NSW public schools to set target benchmarks for participation in opportunity classes and selective high schools.

The Equity Placement Model aims to reduce the gap between the current numbers of equity students in opportunity classes and selective high schools and the target benchmarks.

The Equity Placement Model works by first offering 75% of places to students according to their performance in the placement test. This includes students in equity groups whose performance qualifies them for one of these places. The next 20% of places are made available to students in the equity groups who have not already been offered a place. The offer is also based on their performance in the placement test and to be of a comparable level to general applicants.

Equity places for high potential and gifted students from equity groups in each school or class are:

• 10% of places for students from low socio-educational groups
• 5% of places for Aboriginal students
• 2.5% of places for students from rural or remote NSW locations and
• 2.5% of places for students with disability.

Where there are not enough successful applicants from targeted equity groups to fill the places held in a school or class, the places will revert to general applicants.

Up to 5% of places are offered to students who were unable to complete the placement test for a valid reason approved by the selection committee.

The Equity Placement Model is designed to be responsive to changes in schools. The department will monitor the placement outcomes each year to help ensure that our opportunity classes and selective high schools reflect the diversity of students within NSW public schools.

If necessary, we may add additional equity groups and change the percentages of places made available. We want to ensure that every child and young person in our school system is realising their full potential.

For more information about applying to opportunity classes and selective high schools please visit our website.

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Students from low socio-educational backgrounds

Students who currently attend schools that serve communities with high-levels of educational disadvantage will be eligible for placement consideration from this equity group.

Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander students

Students identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander will be eligible for placement consideration from this equity group.

Rural and remote students

Students whose home address and current school is located in a rural or remote area will be eligible for placement consideration from this equity group.

Students with disability

Students with disability who are listed on the Nationally Consistent Collection of Data on School Students with Disability (NCCD) as receiving a supplementary, substantial or extensive adjustment will be eligible for placement consideration from this equity group.

Equity means that students from all backgrounds have fair access and opportunity to attend selective high schools and opportunity classes, including those from diverse family, socio-educational, language, cultural backgrounds and geographic locations.

To help determine the percentages for each under-represented group, we compared the number of students in equity groups currently in opportunity classes and selective high schools with the number of students in equity groups in all NSW public schools.

The equity percentages will help increase participation in selective education from high potential and gifted students from the equity groups. This will help reduce their under-representation and ensure a fairer system, no matter what background students come from.

Please note that the equity model percentages are flexible year-on-year to respond to diversity changes in the wider student community, changes in student numbers, and the level of educational disadvantage experienced by under-represented students.

No. This is because of student privacy, equity and wellbeing considerations.

Likewise, schools will not be told if a student has received an offer through equity placement.

Just because a student might belong to or identify with an equity group, doesn't necessarily mean that their offer is an equity place. For example, they may have received their offer during the first 75% of places that are offered to all students (see How it works above).

Opportunity classes and selective high schools are just some of the ways that we support our high potential and gifted students in our public schools.

All NSW public primary schools and high schools provide high-quality education. High potential and gifted students are supported in every school so that their natural abilities can be fully developed.

Your local comprehensive schools may provide enrichment and co-curricular programs, and in the classroom, curriculum differentiation and extension strategies for high potential and gifted students.

Many high potential and gifted students choose to remain in their local comprehensive schools.

Learn more about how we support students in all schools at High Potential and Gifted Education.

No. All students from under-represented groups that are offered placement must have sat the placement test and demonstrated their ability to perform at a high academic level. This means that their performance on the test was very close to all other students who receive offers.

The majority of equity group students who receive first-round offers under the Equity Placement Model have test performance that is comparable or higher than students who were placed from reserve lists in previous placement years.

Equity group students who receive a placement offer have the same academic potential as other students offered a place, but they have been unable to demonstrate it due to their disadvantage. Schools often report that students who have entered on the lower end of scores for the school often outperform their peers.

Placement models with equity consideration are a very common practice in other state and independent school systems and at universities (including the University of Sydney, the University of New South Wales and public selective high schools in Victoria).

Transcript of video: ‘Meet Mouhtadi’ (1 minutes 57 seconds)

[Music]

[Mouhtadi speaking]

Hi. My name's Mouhtadi and I'm fourth year medical student at UNSW. I'm an ex-techie who previously graduated here from 2018. I'm a proud member Ngemba man from Sydney, however, my Indigenous roots are from Bourke.

Coming from a small primary school in Mascot to Sydney Tech, I was quite ecstatic, you know, getting into a selective school.

It has a good environment around it, especially like an academic environment.

It can push you to do better and just have the expectation, you know, that you're, you can go to uni and you can achieve.

Selective schools aren’t necessarily, ah, just focused on academics and that's something that I learnt through my time out here. So at Sydney Tech, there are a lot of opportunities. So, for example, in Year 7 to Year 11 I played saxophone in the school band.

There's a lot of good sporting opportunities as well, if you're in, like, competitive sporting teams; we have good soccer teams, and there are a lot of things that can help enrich student things, not just from an academic perspective, but career building and personal building skills.

Learning from my PHP teacher and other things, there's a big gap between Indigenous health, between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people, which is one reason that I wanted to get into medicine so to potentially help close that gap.

Yeah, I really enjoyed my time at tech. Just hanging around with different people, you know, playing soccer every day. Yeah. Just enjoying, you know, the student lifestyle.

Yeah, I feel like applying for a selective high school—definitely should apply for one. And there are academic pathways out there for Indigenous people. And if you study hard and put your head down to it, you can achieve a lot of things.

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Transcript of video: ‘Sky Story, Our Story’ (3 minutes 25 seconds)

[Clarence Bruinsma, Secondary and Post Schooling Pathways Advisor]

Ginagay. We’re here at Sky Story, and what a great opportunity for our young Aboriginal kids across New South Wales to have mob coming in from as far as Armidale to connect, share and learn in this space.

The Sky Story, I guess, in the essence of what it is, is bringing young people together; that they are the stars of tomorrow, the stars of today and they are growing in their brightness.

Sky Story, what the team of the selective schools program have created, is where our young people they’re thriving and screaming out for opportunities to connect through culture and to connect to other young Aboriginal people, and the team here have brought these young, strong, bright individuals together and done so.

The responses from the children in terms of their engagement in the program but as well as just seeing the smiles on their face and their new learning that they’re getting has been unforgettable. And I believe that they will walk away stronger and will be strong cultural leaders in their school, changing the face of what Aboriginal education looks like within the selective schools program.

[Student 1]

Sky Story for me is, kind of, everyone comes together with all these different stars from all these different places, and they come to create one big constellation, or one big community. And it’s a great way for us all to connect.

[Student 2]

When I think of the stars and I look up at the night sky, I think of how small we are, in a sense, and also like, one small star, like, together when you put all of those tiny stars together, like, it creates something really beautiful. It says how we’re all connected in a way, although we might not know each other, like, there’s always some way that we’re connected.

[Student 3]

The connection kind of just, like, happens. So, I’m talking, they’re talking and then, you know, the next minute we are just pals, we’re talking all the time, it makes me feel really good about myself.

[Student 4]

It was really easy to convene with each other and sort of make new friendships.

[Student 1]

When I came to Sky Story I expected that there’d be a lot more variance from the people and that everyone would be completely different, it might be a bit hard to get along. But we’ve all kind of found common interests among an other. And upon that we’ve been able to develop some great bonds, get along great. Like, for example, coming here we started playing chess. Just something as simple as that, we all immediately got drawn to that and we all started bonding over that.

[Student 5]

Sky story has helped me to learn about culture through Uncle Les, who is an Indigenous Elder of the area.

[Student 6]

Listening to all the mentors talk it’s really comforting to hear people that have walked similar paths of life as you as well. And, like, that there’s heaps of options for you and, like, the way that they’ve gone through their journey it could be a journey for you and it’s really comforting to know that those people are out there.

[Student 7]

If I heard a student was considering coming here, I would tell them go! It’s a really good opportunity. It is the most, best, or the most engaging, you know, Indigenous, cultural education program I have ever attended or experienced in my ten years’ of schooling.

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