16th May 2025
Exciting final hour of the school week at Cabramatta Public School HPGE Class when 21 students combined their brain power to beat the BetterBot. It was exciting for us because it presented us with an very close endgame, where one false move meant instant death. We managed to avoid phonies, despite some strong temptations. Every student had a board in from of them, and they had from 1-2 minutes to place what they believed to be the best move on the board. Sometimes it was the highest scoring move. Other times, rack leave won out over score, and in another move it was decided it was best to exchange - so, what to keep and what to hold? It was great to see that many different students contributed to the “best moves”.
We didn’t have time to fully analyse the game in class, but thanks to the awesome design of the Woogles platform, we are able to analyse our moves at our own leisure.
Play through the game by pressing “Analyze” and the “<<“ button.
28th April 2025
The start of Term 2 in NSW saw Department of Education teachers focus on HPGE - High Potential and Gifted Education. High potential students are those that have been identified as having potential that exceeds that of students the same age in one or more of the domains: intellectual, creative, social-emotional and physical.
It is now policy that NSW schools must have visible programs that accommodate students that have been identified as HPGE.
When it comes to the intellectual domain, teachers are encouraged to consider the question: how do we further challenge our kids who have been identified as having high potential.
Chess is one activity that comes to mind. Chess has a well established infrastructure in NSW, with many clubs and academies, tournaments and events and on-line resources.
We would like you to consider Scrabble as an option.
When it comes to syllabus outcomes, Scrabble has all the strategy and mathematical outcomes that chess has… plus a lot more.
Scrabble directly supports language development and vocabulary building. It involves using mental strategies to solve addition/multiplication problems. Additionally, it involves calculating probabilities. It also teaches resilience - learning how to adapt and make decisions when tiles or board situations are unfavourable.
We have trialled HPGE Scrabble in Cabramatta Public School for 3 terms. This has involved one hour per week. We have used a variety of strategies which have seen our children develop into capable Scrabble players, many of whom have gone on to enter rated tournaments playing against adult opponents.
We are now ready to roll this model out across all schools.
Contact us to express your interest.
Think outside the “chess box”.
And ask your kids to aim high - sign them up for the 2025 AJSC - detail below
