The OC Program
What are Opportunity Classes?
Opportunity classes located in government primary schools cater for academically gifted Year 5 and Year 6 students with high potential. These classes help students to learn by grouping them with students of similar ability, using specialised teaching methods and educational materials at the appropriate level.
The High Performing Students Team administers the opportunity class placement process.
Parents normally apply when students are in Year 4. Students who are placed then attend the opportunity class full time in Years 5 and 6 at the primary school with an opportunity class. It is a two-year placement program.
In the majority of cases, students who accept a place in an opportunity class will leave their current school to attend the school with an opportunity class. However, placement in the Aurora College Opportunity Class allows students to access a challenging academic program without the need to leave their local school.
There is no provision to apply for Year 6 placement only.
There are 89 primary schools with opportunity classes across NSW, including Aurora’s virtual opportunity class.
There are more than 600 Aurora host schools.
For more information, visit the Department’s Opportunity Class Placement website.
What does the Aurora College Opportunity Class look like?
The Aurora College Opportunity Class (OC) is a provision that is accessible to students who may not otherwise be able to access a current OC provision.
Students will connect with teachers and classmates from around NSW through a virtual learning environment. Delivery of face-to-face synchronous lessons using Adobe Connect and a range of communication and collaboration platforms are used to support learning. Unlike other schools, our OC students remain at their current primary schools and engage in learning in collaboration with their home schools.
In Year 5 and 6 (Stage 3), students will study these subjects as part of the OC program.
- Mathematics
- Science and Technology
- STEM
What is STEM?
STEM stands for the integrated teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. These essential areas of study that foster students’ skills and prepare them to participate in a rapidly changing world.
An integrated approach to STEM education provides opportunities for students to develop knowledge, understanding and problem-solving skills. Its real-world application encourages students to actively contribute to society through empathy and the design think process. Critical thinking, engaging and relevant learning experiences and perseverance are key factors to STEM.
Our OC students engage in STEM based tasks to design, build, test and re-design if necessary a solution to problems that are relevant to our world, our communities and lives. The 5 stages in the Design Thinking Process are used in designing solutions to these problems. These stages include: Define, Empathise, Ideate, Prototype and Test and Modify.
The Journey of MAJAM
In 2022, we had two Year 6 teams, Team MAJAM and Team PIE, who were successful in the making it through to the Game Changer Challenge finals in Sydney. After two intense days of learning new skills, iterating and designing for their perfect pitch, Team MAJAM was successful in being crowned Primary School champions for the GCC 2022.
The Game Changer Challenge is a Department of Education initiative. It aims to improve design thinking skills and help students apply classroom learning to the world around them. Students work in teams to come up with solutions to Wicked Problems, and go through a rigorous process of refining, developing, extending and connecting their ideas to real contexts.
All Year 6 Aurora students enter the challenge in teams across their class. Working through the ‘playbook’ they learn and apply new thinking skills to generate, deconstruct and reconstruct their ideas. In 2022, 16 teams were successful in making it to the semi-final, with an additional 2 teams moving through to the Final in Sydney. We wish our future teams the very best of luck with this highly competitive and highly anticipated program.
Have a look at the video below that charts the Journey of the MAJAM GCC Champions.
