How an ICAS grant helped Maitland–Newcastle challenge its brightest learners
When Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Maitland–Newcastle received an ICAS Academic Enrichment Grant in 2025, they used it to launch their first-ever holiday workshop for high-potential students across 58 schools. The program filled to capacity within 24 hours.
The Diocese spans a vast region across the Hunter Valley and beyond. While gifted education programs do exist in other parts of New South Wales, they’re often concentrated in Sydney, putting them well out of reach for families in the region.
Maree Karaka, Leader of High Potential and Gifted Education for the Diocese, is responsible for identifying and developing high potential and gifted learners across all schools. She and her team have long recognised the gap between what their students need and what’s available locally.
“In the Hunter region, we don’t have the availability for our students. Our Diocese is huge. The travel to reach those kinds of workshops is simply unachievable for most families.”
Maree Karaka, Leader of High Potential and Gifted Education
From idea to pilot program
The ICAS grant enabled the Diocese to design and deliver its first-ever holiday workshop for high potential and gifted learners: IQnition = E³: Extend + Enrich + Excel. Held at St Bede’s Catholic College in Chisholm in December 2025, the program was targeted towards students identified in the top 10% of their age peers from across the Diocese’s 58 schools.
The workshop ran across two targeted sessions. A morning program for primary students in Years 3–5 and an afternoon session for secondary students in Years 6–10. Both were built around immersive CSI detective cases, requiring students to analyse evidence, identify patterns, draw logical conclusions, and present their findings collaboratively.
“The ICAS grant enabled us to tap into uncharted waters. We pride ourselves on high potential and gifted education across the Diocese, but we hadn’t done a holiday workshop before. We really wanted to provide an enrichment opportunity that went above and beyond what the curriculum provides. Something that brought out the joy and love of learning.”
Maree Karaka
Expertise that made the difference
The grant also made it possible to bring in specialist external facilitators from outside the region.
“To get that level of expertise, we had to reach out to specialists who weren’t local. It comes at a cost. The ICAS grant gave us the opportunity to get it off the ground and use it as a pilot, without the burden of stretching an already constrained budget.”
Maree Karaka
The workshops were designed to develop both academic and interpersonal skills. Students practised complex problem-solving, deductive reasoning, and mathematical thinking, while also building teamwork, persuasive communication, and abstract thinking, all within an engaging, narrative-based context that kept them motivated and challenged.
Demand confirmed the need
Interest in the program was immediate. The workshop filled to capacity within 24 hours of being announced, confirming what Maree and her team had long suspected: families across the Diocese were eager for more enrichment opportunities for their children.
“Our parents are constantly wanting to enrich their kids. We do embedded differentiation across our schools, and families value competitions like ICAS. Our high potential students thrive in those competitive environments. But this workshop gave us the chance to offer something different: a collaborative, challenging experience where like-minded students could come together across schools and push each other’s thinking.”
Maree Karaka
Why enrichment matters for high potential and gifted learners
For Maree, providing targeted enrichment for high potential and gifted students isn’t optional. It’s essential. She points to the well-documented risks of underachievement and disengagement when capable learners aren’t given the right level of challenge.
“Every child should have the opportunity to have their needs met. There’s often an assumption that gifted students will find their own way, but that’s not true. We have strong support in place across our schools for students who are struggling, but we need to match that commitment for students at the other end. Grants like this enable us to be really targeted.”
Maree Karaka
The Diocese uses a comprehensive, multi-criteria approach to identify high potential and gifted learners, drawing on cognitive abilities testing, standardised benchmarks, and input from dedicated Gifted Education Mentors (GEMs) across their schools. This rigorous identification process ensured the right students were targeted for the workshop and that the program met their needs for extension, complexity and depth.
What comes next
Feedback from students, parents, and teachers was overwhelmingly positive, and the program has set a clear benchmark for future initiatives. The Diocese is already exploring what comes next, including a stronger focus on STEM enrichment.
“This opportunity made a genuine impact for our students and further strengthened our culture of excellence across the Diocese. It’s set a precedent to continue offering something like this. The challenge now is: where to next? We’re not just about delivering outcomes. We’re about future-proofing students and lifelong learning.”
Maree Karaka
The ICAS Academic Enrichment Grants program helps schools turn ideas for academic extension into reality. Each year, ten schools receive $3,000 to design and deliver initiatives that challenge high-potential learners and expand opportunities beyond the classroom.
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