Centre for Higher Education Studies

Enrichment opportunities for high ability students

With course selection coming up, a reminder of some of the enrichment opportunities that are on offer for high ability VCE students in particular at The Centre For Higher Education Studies (CHES).

CHES is a new centre of excellence based in South Yarra designed to further improve educational outcomes for high-achieving and high-ability students across Victoria and provides accelerated programs for senior students from government secondary schools that integrates with their regular load at Northcote High.

This includes a limited selection of VCE subjects and also has an opportunity to choose from 19 first-year university subjects as part of their VCE in their High Education Studies (HES) program. Subjects offerings for HES are rather diverse and range from subjects such as Law, Artificial Intelligence, Space Technology to Biology, Psychology and more!

They even have a lovely promotional video which features a background cameo from NHS student Liam Dodson who is currently studying VCE Algorithmics at CHES.

If you want to know more about whether the CHES program (or others) may be suitable for you/your student and how it works with subject selection please contact me at dean.ashton@nhs.vic.edu.au

~Dean Ashton, High Ability Practice Leader at Northcote.

A little more about CHES:

While remaining enrolled at their chosen government secondary school, students are able to undertake a study at CHES as part of their VCE program. To help students fit their CHES subject in with their overall VCE program, we deliver our VCE programs in hybrid and flexible ways. This way of learning provides an excellent grounding for students in the adaptive ways of working in the kinds of professional organisations they may seek careers with into the future.

This ‘hy-flex’ approach to teaching and learning means that we deliver our VCE subjects on site at our state-of-the-art CHES facility and online through our innovative virtual learning environment. Our provision of VCE subjects is mediated through the extensive technology installed and embedded within the CHES facility and this ensures that regardless of whether students are participating on-site or online, they can have an equitable, high-quality learning experience.

CHES have a limited selection of VCE subjects on offer such as Extended Investigation for students who qualify.

High Education Studies (HES) are first-year university subjects that are taken as part of a student’s VCE program. The HES constitute about 20% of a full-time first-year university course and are an advance on a VCE Unit 3 and 4 subject. Each HES has two full semesters and is equivalent in duration and workload with one VCE Unit 3–4 sequence.

There are 19 courses on offer through CHES and their University partners click here for more information.

Further information around CHES can be found at https://ches.vic.edu.au/

Info sessions for CHES:

Study a Higher Education Study (HES) with CHES in 2024

Tuesday 11 July (6.30pm): HES information evening (session 1, online)

Thursday 20 July (6.30pm): HES information evening (session 2, online and on-site)—repeat of first session

Study a VCE subject at CHES in 2024

Tuesday 20 June (6.30pm): VCE information evening (session 1, online)

Thursday 13 July (6.30pm): VCE information evening (session 2, online and on-site)—repeat of first session