Aim Higher Program

The Aim of Aiming Higher

The ‘AIM Higher' program provides all Year 7-11 students at Junee High School the opportunity to attempt more challenging and demanding work so that they may in turn achieve both short and longer term academic success at school.

All assessable tasks, from Years 7-11 will have at least one additional question or task. The heading AIM or AIM Higher will be used to frame the additional question(s) to be asked.

The question will be posed as a supplementary challenge to students attempting that course and a genuine attempt by a student to address the question will receive immediate and recognisable benefits; however, not if it is done without a serious attempt at the remaining elements of the task.

The question(s) that is presented needs to demand more from the student. But as Thomas Edison noted ‘genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration' so, the task will often be both an intellectual challenge and require some commitment of time and energy on the part of the student.

What will be the reward and recognition?

An Achievement Award will be given to each student who makes a genuine attempt at the additional question. An outstanding effort may warrant the presentation of a Merit Award. While results from this question will not be used to determine a student's final assessment results, it may be used to justify a student's place/rank in a course or class placement in Years 7-11.

A record of attempts at the AIM Higher question will be maintained for that student for each course. This in turn will be recognised in our Honours system.

Parents will be informed through semester reports of a student who makes regular and/or consistent attempts to respond to AIM Higher challenges. Students who have the ability to address the AIM Higher challenges but consistently fail to do so will be encouraged to make more of the opportunities that are being presented.

What might the AIM Higher question entail?

Hell, there are no rules here — we're trying to accomplish something. (Thomas Edison, again!)

However, the AIM Higher question may respond to the requirements of what is sometimes referred to as the ‘third-storey' intellect: applying, analysing, predicting, speculating, judging and imagining. It will generally be connected to the intent of the initial task or assignment. It may be: a puzzle that needs unravelling; a memorisation exercise; a more challenging essay question; an additional piece of research or perhaps more appropriately, applying the research completed in the first part of the assignment/task.