Information for high ability practice leaders about the structure and content of the Victorian High-Ability Program courses.
Overview
The Victorian High-Ability Program (VHAP) comprises four discrete courses, two for primary students in Years 5 – 6 and two for secondary students in Years 7 – 8. The content of each course is the same each term.
The courses predominantly cater for students who have high ability in the intellectual domain, especially in literacy and mathematics. The courses offered are:
- Primary English: The Power of the Pen
- Primary Maths: Patterns: From Symbols to Secrets
- Secondary English: Hope in Dystopian Times
- Secondary Maths: A Whole New World of Mathematics.
Primary English course: The Power of the Pen
In the Primary English course, students explore the history of writing and develop insight into the power of the written word. Throughout the course, students focus on the role of narrative in reflecting human experience. Students delve into the transformational influence of writing through history and within modern society. They study ancient narrative structures, including that of the ‘Hero’s Journey’ and Jungian archetypes, and apply this knowledge to popular texts and literary classics.
Students explore literary devices including metaphor, symbolism and personification, and experiment with these devices in their own creative writing. They consider the features of literary genres and explore the dynamics of writing humour and creating comic characters. They also investigate the role of narrative strategy and consider how varied narrative perspectives affect the style of creative writing.
Ultimately, students write their own story of a hero’s journey and creatively apply all the literary concepts they have explored throughout the course.
In line with the critical and creative thinking and personal and social capabilities of the Victorian F-10 Curriculum, students are encouraged to engage with ideas actively and contribute analytically and creatively as speakers, listeners, writers and collaborators.
Primary Maths course: Patterns – From Symbols to Secrets
Through their participation in the Primary Maths Victorian High-Ability Program, students explore a range of numeral systems, bases and ciphers. This enables them to deepen their understanding of the way symbols are used to express numbers, mathematical concepts, operations and sequences.
During the program, students formulate, examine and refine mathematical conjectures. They are introduced to the idea of evaluating mathematical strategies and solutions through the lens of the ‘3Es’, that is, by asking whether a solution is effective, efficient and/or elegant.
Students engage in a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning as they compare and contrast the features of Hindu, Arabic, Egyptian, Roman, Chinese, Babylonian and Mayan numeral systems. They learn to convert numbers expressed in bases other than 10 to base 10 and are given the opportunity to create their own numeral system.
The final three sessions of the course are devoted to cryptography. Students learn about substitution and transposition ciphers and collaborate to crack increasingly difficult encoded secrets. For the final session, students create their own cipher and celebrate their participation in the Victorian High-Ability Program by uncovering the secrets their peers have encoded.
Secondary English course: Hope in Dystopian Times
In the Secondary English course, students explore challenging concepts, characterisation and visual images to find deep meaning. They make comparisons between historical events and contemporary world problems. Students engage closely with complex ideas and discern warnings within texts that apply to the modern world and also to future societies.
Following an analysis of key texts that explore dystopian societies, including Hive by A.J. Betts, students create their own dystopian worlds. They are challenged to develop a protagonist and to think about what is sacrificed and gained as well as the frightening aspects of their dystopian society.
Students also focus on the hope evident in dystopian narratives and their own dystopian worlds. They provide meaningful feedback to support each other at the drafting stage, prior to the finalisation of their written piece.
In line with the critical and creative thinking, ethical, and personal and social capabilities of the Victorian F-10 Curriculum, students are encouraged to engage, empathise and contribute analytically and creatively as speakers, listeners, writers and collaborators.
Secondary Maths course: A Whole New World of Mathematics
Through their participation in the Secondary Maths course, students explore a range of big ideas such as infinity, optimal strategy, paradoxes, networks and patterns in numbers. Students develop their understanding of how to formulate mathematical explanations using a range of techniques.
During the program, students formulate, examine and refine mathematical conjectures. They are introduced to the idea of evaluating mathematical strategies and solutions through the lens of the ‘3Es’, by asking whether a solution is effective, efficient and/or elegant. Students are encouraged both to solve problems and to find new problems.
They are challenged to communicate their mathematical reasoning ‘beyond all doubt’ when explaining their findings and then apply this to the Three Digit Algorithm, patterns within the Fibonacci sequence, strategy in games and other interesting mathematical results. Students are given the opportunity to evaluate their own progress on a practical problem using graph theory. Mathematical horizons are broadened through the examination of infinity, repeating patterns and paradoxes.
Masterclasses
Near the end of the term, students should be given the opportunity to participate in a Victorian High-Ability Program masterclass. High ability practice leaders are encouraged to network and collaborate with schools in their area to organise a masterclass where students from the same Victorian High-Ability Program class can meet for a half-day or whole day to continue with enrichment activities related to their course and interact with their like-minded and like-ability peers.
Information about planning and running a masterclass in your school or collaboratively with other schools in your area can be found in Masterclasses for students in the Victorian High-Ability Program.
See also Victorian High-Ability Program masterclass resources to access professional learning videos, running sheets and sample activities.
Further information
For questions about the content of the Victorian High-Ability Program courses, please contact Virtual School Victoria at vhap-support@vsv.vic.edu.au.
For other enquiries, please contact Student Excellence at student.excellence@education.vic.gov.au.