[Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that this video may contain the images, voices and names of people who have passed away.]

[music]

[Mentoring for students

HIGH POTENTIAL and GIFTED EDUCATION.]

Voiceover

On the first day of year 5, a teacher greeted her class and suggested they share a little about themselves that might help her as a teacher plan for their learning needs. When it was Rafael's turn, he stated passionately, "I'm fascinated by string theory and antineutrinos." The teacher, who was not even sure how string theory worked, quickly ascertained she would need support to meet this child's learning needs. Her journey of exploration unearthed a university physics lecturer who was excited and willing to mentor Rafael. The email relationship lasted the year. And Rafael gained firsthand experience of the rigour of his mentor's profession and as a result was able to make a wise and informed career decision.

Mentoring can be a relationship between student and teacher, student and community expert, or student to student, where the expertise of the mentor brings added depth and dimension to student experiences. Mentorship programs are a valuable tool for identifying the potential and developing the talents of high potential and gifted students. They extend and challenge students in the intellectual, social-emotional, physical and creative domains.

The New South Wales Department of Education's High Potential and Gifted Education policy states that mentorships are part of advanced learning pathways that should be available and supported at all levels of schooling. If a student is outpacing classroom resources or desiring increased depth of knowledge in an area of passion, then providing opportunities for staff to mentor students in their specialist area can drive success. These students often desire more independence in, and control of, their education. Teachers can help drive this autonomy.

[Mullumbimby High School]

At Mullumbimby High School, staff are paired with students with high potential.

[Greg Armstrong – Principal Mullumbimby High School]

Greg Armstrong

Student mentorship at Mullumbimby High School has played a huge part in the development for our students and for their successes.

[Amanda – Year 12 student Mullumbimby High School]

Amanda

Miss Elliott is amazing and she has been my mentor for many years now since I first started. She's helped me with every aspect of my learning and a lot of my personal life as well.

[Toni Elliot – Maths & Head Senior Studies Teacher – Mullumbimby High School]

Toni Elliot

Amanda and I pretty much spent every day together. She's been in my maths class every day until she finished extension two at the end of year 11. It made me so happy that someone loved a subject so much and we could offer something for her.

Amanda

It is just amazing the things that you can do with mathematics and what you can explore.

Greg Armstrong

I think that Amanda feels very safe to come to school and to be able to work really hard and have the support around her for that to happen.

[Beau – Year 11 student Mullumbimby High School]

Beau

When I first came to school in Year 7, I shortly met Mr. Steven, who works as the software design development teacher at our school, and immediately we hit it off and we became good friends. He encouraged me to pursue software as a passion project. To this day, if I have a problem, I might come to him. His experience in the field is a really deep understanding of the concepts that I'm working with on a day-to-day basis.

Greg Armstrong

For example, Beau being able to do an HSC course in year 9, where he achieved a band six. The support he had from the head teacher and teachers was exceptional, and it would have been part of the reason why he was able to achieve the results he could, at a comprehensive public school in rural New South Wales.

Voiceover

Prairiewood High School in south-west Sydney successfully identifies high potential and supports this burgeoning talent with mentoring.

[Nazli – Former student Prairiewood High School]

Nazli

My public speaking and debating teacher was, I think, an integral part of my entire high school career because she actively went out of her way to give me extra resources to really feed my brain with things that I genuinely cared about.

[Kimberly Oates – Teacher – Prairiewood High School]

Kimberly Oates

I've been able to act not just as her classroom teacher, but also as somebody within the school context that she can come and talk to, bounce ideas off, someone she can talk to when things don't go to plan. I remember a number of conversations with Naz about saying - you cannot stay up till two o'clock every morning studying. And yes, you're doing 14 units and you're wonderfully intelligent and you're about to go to the state championships next week for volleyball and you've got public speaking coming up and state debating, how do we manage those things? How do we get some strategies for you to achieve all of these great things?

Voiceover

Onur, who had high potential in science, was successfully mentored by a teacher who extended him in the field of neuroscience and provided him with external opportunities, such as the Brain Bee.

[Onur – Medicine Student Co-founder of Youth Neuro]

Onur

Through the Brain Bee I met so many amazing researchers in the field, neurologists. And they inspired me further, and the level of passion they had for the subject, and I kind of saw that within myself as well. And that's, I think, what pushed me to push myself further in that field.

Voiceover

Onur has now become a mentor himself.

Onur

We came up with an organisation called Youth Neuro Australia. What we aim to do is basically engage and inspire people in STEM in general. We are trying to develop a program right now for students to work together with mentors, whether that be undergraduate students or real scientists, researchers from the field for them to come together and work on a project that they are interested in.

Voiceover

Students with high potential in the physical and creative domains can also display higher levels of performance than their peers. These students have unique learning needs that can be met through mentoring.

[Endeavour Sports High School]

[James Kozlowski – Principal, Endeavour Sports high School]

James Kozlowski

Every targeted sports program has a teacher mentor attached to it. They're there to monitor the well-being of the student and to support the student in all aspects of their school life and also beyond their school life. They're often liaising with parents, they're often liaising with external coaches. They really do take very much a second parent role.

Voiceover

The extended community is a human, cultural and professional resource for high potential and gifted students. No amount of knowledge about a field can ever substitute for a practitioner's passion for the field in attracting students to its content and methodology. Endeavour Sports High School liaised with universities to provide rich mentoring experiences.

James Kozlowski

I looked at some of the elite sporting organisations that we've got in this country, and I realised that they really didn't know what Endeavour Sports High School did. So quite often it was a case of a cold call by me to these sporting organisations to ask them whether they would be interested in seeing what we do here, and whether there was anything that they could do to support us to develop these students.

[Professor Ross Sanders – University of Sydney]

Professor Ross Sanders

We don't, we're not expecting that every person in the sports stream at these schools will become a champion. But what we are trying to do is help them develop to their potential and to help them make sure they're in the right playing position and the right sport to get the most out of their sport and to enjoy it to the maximum.

Voiceover

Microsoft have mentored Aboriginal students from Sydney's south-west, building on and expanding their cultural knowledge through technology.

[Rosemeadow Public School]

[Stuart Keast – Instructional Leader – Rosemeadow Public School]

Stuart Keast

This year, we were lucky enough to partner with Microsoft and In-digital for the Njulgang digital custodians project, where Aboriginal elders brought language and Dreamtime stories to the students, and we were then able to turn these into augmented reality that was available through an app on your phone.

Animation narrator

Dharawalwulawalaga gamayaringiil dhadjanwari ngarawanlangga,

nguradha ngalayari nhay.

Voiceover

Student rock band, the Rions, turbocharged their careers with real gigs, studio time, and touring.

[Barrenjoey High School]

[Tom – Year 12 student Barrenjoey High School]

Tom

The school staff and mentors have been a really big help in our development as a band and with creativity. We had a teacher, a music teacher, John Stone, who was a very big influence for us and a big support. He brought us into the industry, gave us gigs around locally, even took us on a band tour up the coast all the way up to Byron Bay. It was a really good experience that kind of gave us the tools to kind of grow and get more into the industry.

Voiceover

Creating opportunities for older students to mentor younger students can be a great way to build strong and supportive intra- and inter- school culture.

[Canley Vale High School]

[Rhianna Kalemen – Teacher – Canley Vale High School]

Rhianna Kalemen

Tournament of Minds is a problem-solving competition that runs at a regional, state, national and international level.

[Deborah Santucci – Principal – Canley Vale High School]

Deborah Santucci

We've always had a strong partnership with our primary schools, but in particular, this year we've looked at developing our Tournament of Minds approach. And what we've had is our high achievers actually move into the primary schools and our high achiever students actually mentoring our primary school students.

Rhianna Kalemen

So my Google classroom was blowing up. You know, just congratulating each other, supporting each other, and sometimes students don't get to show that side of them.

[Lansvale Public School]

[Maria – Student – Lansvale Public School]

Maria

They also prepared us for the spontaneous challenge to how we should think creatively and work as a group well so we can gain more points.

Voiceover

Research demonstrates the positive effects for student mentees and student mentors.

[James Ruse Agricultural High School]

[Chelsea – Student - James Ruse Agricultural High School]

Chelsea

So at the start of year 11, we were given the opportunity to mentor younger students in mathematics because some people transferred to our school in Year 9, and it was a good way to help them get accustomed to the new academic culture in James Ruse.

[Sowon – Student - James Ruse Agricultural High School]

Sowon

I would especially recommend mentoring to students who are reluctant to ask questions in class, as the Year 11 mentors may be a more approachable source of help for them.

Voiceover

As an advanced learning pathway worth considering, mentorships have proven highly effective in the growth and development of high potential and gifted students from diverse backgrounds. As educators, we constantly need to optimise learning opportunities by creating open and informal mentorships between the school and community.

[Find the high potential Develop the talent Make the difference

NSW Government logo

© 2021 NSW Department of Education]

[End of transcript]