Vertical semester organisation in a rural secondary school: the views of gifted students

This is the second report of a comprehensive study into the advantages for gifted students of Vertical Semester Organisation (VSO) in the middle school years of a NSW secondary school. The first report (Fardell &. Geake, 2003) analysed the academic performance of gifted students who took advantage of VSO to undertake curriculum acceleration. 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. In this article the views of those gifted students and, importantly, their teachers, about VSO are summarised and analysed. The analysis addresses several questions. How did the evaluations of VSO by gifted students compare with those of other students, and their teachers? How did gifted students perceive the benefits or otherwise of acceleration within VSO? What were the classroom experiences like for gifted students who were younger than most of their classmates? What recommendations would gifted students and teachers make for improving VSO at their secondary school?