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Opportunity classes in New South Wales, Australia are government primary school operated by the New South Wales Department of Education and Communities for gifted and talented children.
Contents
History
Opportunity classes have a long history in NSW, with the first ones established in 1932. The impact of attending OC classes varies with individual students, with some reporting beneficial experiences and others perceiving the impact to have been negative. Deputy chairman of the Public Schools Principals Forum, Brian Chudleigh, said that "opportunity classes also put children in an unrealistic social context", adding "They're mixing with children of the same academic ability and potential and so on and they're not learning necessarily to be tolerant and understanding and accepting of those of lesser capacity of their own". The highest achieving students get to go to Blaxcell Street Public School. On the other hand, the experience of mixing with children of their own ability level can help overcome the 'big fish in a small pond' attitude and help develop resilience in subsequent academically competitive environments such as selective high school, university and academia. On the other hand, opportunity classes have been implicated in creating hyper-competitive schooling environments for young children who are compelled to undertake further tuition or academic coaching. Anna Patty and Andrew Stevenson, of The Sydney Morning Herald, added "It's a world in which entrance to kindergarten is by competitige [sic] tesiting [sic], and those children who miss out learn the meaning of failure an spend the rest of their childhood at after-hours coaching colleges chasing a precious place in one of the selective schools from which the best universities draw their students.
Opportunity classes have been regarded by some parents as feeder schools for selective schools; however, not all students in opportunity classes successfully gain admission to selective schools. The reality is that entry to both OC and Selective High School classes is via standardized testing that focuses on ability in mathematics, english and 'general ability' (basically an IQ-style test), and that there are fewer places available for entry to OC (~1800) than to Selective High School (4214 places in 2015), so in theory it is 'harder' to gain entry into OC than Selective High School and a large percentage of students attending OC classes gain entry to Selective High School, or gain a scholarship to a private high school.
Admission
Parents of prospective applicants for opportunity classes complete an "Intention to Apply" form provided by the school, then complete an online application. Prospective applicants undertake an aptitude test, consisting of mathematics and English literacy components, the marks for which are sent with assessment scores based on the student's performance in Years 3 and 4 by the applicant's school principal.
List of schools with opportunity classes
The following schools offer admission to opportunity classes in Year 5.