Opportunity Classes cater for high potential and gifted Year 5 and Year 6 students. These classes help students learn by grouping them with students of similar ability, using specialised teaching methods and educational materials at the appropriate level.
The Opportunity Class at APS follows the Stage 3 curriculum but has the time to dive deeper into topics than might otherwise be possible and to head off on exciting tangents to see where the learning takes us.
The OC enjoys taking part in a wide array of extra-curricular competitions, such as:
Each year the students in the opportunity class work together to script, shoot and edit a short film for our MOCfest (Movies of the Opportunity Class festival). Our best films are then entered into the Film By The Northern Rivers film festival. Last year's Film By... gala night was held at Southern Cross University and attended by over 500 people. APS films have won awards both years the festival has been running.
X Marks the Spot won Best Movie at the inaugural Film By The Northern Rivers in 2021.
6 Hours 6 Kids won the Best Special Effects award at Film By The Northern Rivers in 2022.
The Opportunity Class has been taking part in Write A Book In A Day (WABIAD) since 2018. WABIAD requires the students to raise sponsorship and be at school for a 12-hour day, from 6am to 6pm. Students work collaboratively in groups of up to ten to plan, write, edit, illustrate and publish a book with parameters they receive on the day. In their six years of participating in WABIAD, the OC has raised over $16,000 for the Kids' Cancer Project.
Each year the OC enters the Maths Olympiad. The main aims of the program are to: Introduce students to important mathematical concepts, teach major strategies and develop flexibility for problem solving, foster creativity and ingenuity and strengthen intuition, stimulate enthusiasm and enjoyment of mathematics, provide for the satisfaction, joy and thrill of meeting challenges.
Program Format:
The Olympiad comprises four separate contests roughly six weeks apart, starting in early Term 2, and students should complete all four contests.
Each competition comprises 5 questions, worth 1 mark each, and must be completed in a specified time-frame of 30 minutes.
Contest questions are completed individually by each student with no collaboration during contests.
Each contest is held under exam conditions in the classroom and marked by the teacher in charge who then submits the results to APSMO.
The solutions are reviewed as a group to enhance learning.
The top ten scores in the class provide our team score. Our 2022 team, pictured below, posted our highest score of the last 6 years.
The Sleek Geeks Science Eureka Prize encourages students to communicate a scientific concept in a way that is accessible and entertaining to the public while painlessly increasing their science knowledge or, as prize patrons Dr Karl and Adam Spencer like to say, "Learn something without even noticing". It is intended to support budding young scientists across the nation, who will be our future leaders in research, discovery and communication. Here are two of our entries from 2024:
Tom and Marley investigate electricity.
Breanna and Rose teach us about radiation.
Each year the OC students attend the Byron Writers Festival and most choose to enter the Jesse Blackadder short story competition. Our students have won the competition in 2020 and 2024.
This has just been a small taste of some of the activities the OC takes part in on a regular basis. Our OC students are also heavily involved in the extra-curricular activities offered to the whole school. They often fill school leadership positions such as school prime minister or house captain, they have won Tournament Of Minds International Finals, Game Changer Challenge State Finals, Premiers Debating Challenge State Finals, and North Coast Chess Finals. They have performed at the Schools Spectacular and competed at the Premiers Spelling Bee, Northern Rivers Science and Engineering Challenge and the GRIP Leadership Conference. They have represented the North Coast at State Finals for athletics, cricket, soccer, rugby, swimming and cross country. Learn more about these extra-curicular opportunites by clicking the link below.
