Curriculum differentiation : An innovative Australian secondary school program to extend academic talent

Within Australia, the response to giftedness, whilst undoubtedly influenced by the educational policies of both Britain and the United States, has followed a slightly different developmental trajectory. Individual states and territories have retained the responsibility for primary and secondary education, resulting in quite distinct educational provisioning for gifted and talented students depending on where one lives. The state of Victoria offers a range of options, including some unique programs that appear to be successfully meeting the needs of highly able students in a range of different learning environments. While a number of requirements appear to be vital to any successful programmatic response to meeting the needs of high ability students, curriculum differentiation inevitably emerges as perhaps the most important of all. This paper outlines the results of an evaluation of an Extended Curriculum Program (ECP) in an independent inner city school, where a complex structure of curriculum differentiation was combined with acceleration and ability grouping to provide for a large and diverse range of student needs