Vertical semester organisation in a rural secondary school as a vehicle for acceleration of gifted students

Abstract

Vertical Semester Organisation (VSO) is a form of curriculum organisation that implicitly allows for student and subject acceleration. Moreover, as VSO is implemented through guided student choice of units, it avoids overt student labelling. This study of VSO in the middle school years of a NSW secondary school investigated the extent to which the possible benefits for gifted students were actualised; in particular, how students of high ability availed themselves of opportunities for acceleration, and how their grades were affected. The results indicated that many students, not only those of higher ability, took advantage of the many opportunities for acceleration to study material in advance of their age and scholastic year. While most students only accelerated by one scholastic year in one or two units, some accelerated in more units, and several students undertook 'radical acceleration' by studying material two or more years in advance of their scholastic year. The performance of students in accelerated units matched or exceeded their mean performance across all their units, but this was more marked for the higher ability students who on a number of occasions performed better than their older peers.