Victorian High-Ability program 

Victorian High-Ability Program Masterclass Report

Virtual School Victoria developed and delivered the Victorian High Ability Program (VHAP), which includes a 10-week online course in Mathematics and English for Year 7 and 8 students across Victoria. At the end of last year and the start of this year, our students were lucky to be a part of and have the chance to enrich our learning in this beneficial program.

The English VHAP class consisted of a further study on dystopian elements and stories, exploring the ideas and techniques used in this style of writing. We had a look at the dystopian, novel, “Hive”, as well as other films such as “The Hunger Games” and “Divergent”. To show our newfound knowledge, we were given the opportunity to write our own dystopian short narratives, as a gratifying project to finish the course.

After the completion of this course, students from multiple schools across Victoria, including Blackburn High School, Koonung Secondary College and Doncaster Secondary College gathered at East Doncaster Secondary College for a productive VHAP Masterclass. This one-day Masterclass was made to engage us students to share and reflect our experience and knowledge gained from VHAP with other like-minded peers in both Maths and English. 

In VHAP English this led to our final goal of publishing our very own anthology of combined dystopian stories that us students have written during the VHAP English course. Each of us had a role to take part in creating our valued collection of dystopian creative texts.

In VHAP Maths students worked together to solve complex worded problems and other numerical challenge games.

Our schools are pleased to release this anthology of our hard work displayed throughout this program, showcasing a deeper understanding we wish to share with all of you.

Written by English VHAP Students Ellen (KSC) & Neena (BHS)

Copies of the VHAP English anthology are available to read in the library.

Attached are the stories from KSC English Students Ellen & Molly to put in the newsletter also, and a jpeg of the front cover and a couple of pics from the day.

Amy McLellan 

High-Ability Practice Leader 

Visual Arts/Technology Teacher