Australian Performing Arts Grammar School

For students who choose Australian Performing Arts Grammar School, the appeal is not simply that it offers more dance, more performance or more time in the studio. It is that the school has been built around the understanding that creative students do not all learn in the same way, and that many of them flourish when their education is shaped around who they are, not who they are expected to be. At APGS, that distinction is everything.

For Head of Dance Melissa Ayers, that idea sits at the centre of the school’s philosophy. “We want to support a love of learning,” she explains. “Doesn’t matter what it is.” It is a deceptively simple statement, but one that speaks to the school’s broader approach, an approach that values academic ambition, creative passion and individual difference in equal measure.

That flexibility is what draws such a diverse student cohort to APGS. Some students arrive with clear academic goals and a strong desire to pursue university, while still wanting rigorous training in dance, drama, visual arts or music. Others come because more traditional school environments have not fit the way they learn. For many, APGS offers something they have not experienced before, a school where creativity is not treated as an extracurricular interest, but as a legitimate and central way of thinking, learning and communicating.

Melissa sees that range every day. “We have some really high achievers who are very academic, but we also have kids that really struggle in school,” she says. “Then this becomes a smaller, more supportive environment for them.”

That support is not abstract. It is built into the structure of the school itself. Class sizes are intentionally small, allowing students greater access to both acceleration and support. Academic classes often sit in groups of 12 to 15 students, creating space for meaningful teacher attention and stronger relationships across the school. Students are known well, not just by their classroom teachers, but by the wider staff.

“Everyone knows everyone,” Melissa says. “All the teachers know all the kids. I don’t teach Year 7 or 8, but I know all the Year 7 kids. I know all of their names. I know what they like, where they hang out at lunchtime.”

It is this sense of familiarity that shapes the school’s culture and creates one of its strongest points of difference. Students are not anonymous here. They are seen, known and supported over time. Melissa describes the value of continuity as one of the most powerful aspects of the APGS model, particularly in dance, where she often teaches students from Year 9 through to Year 12. That consistency allows staff to understand not just where a student is, but where they are heading.

“I’m very much part of their growth journey,” she says.

For students, that journey begins early. While dance is not introduced as an academic subject until Year 9, performing arts is embedded into the school experience from the outset. In Years 7 and 8, students are already dancing across a broad range of styles, building practical foundations through jazz, Latin, ballet, contemporary and hip hop, while also exploring electives in a lower pressure environment. By the time dance becomes an academic subject in Year 9, students already have the technical grounding to begin engaging with choreography, analysis and deeper physical understanding.

Melissa believes that progression is intentional. The practical immersion begins first, then the academic framework arrives when students are developmentally ready to engage with it in a more mature and meaningful way.

By Year 9, students begin to connect their movement practice with critical thinking. They study choreography, analyse works and develop a stronger understanding of their bodies and artistic choices. It is a shift that many students recognise immediately, particularly in the way it strengthens their training both inside and outside school.

For Year 9 student Hasti, that growth has been visible in every part of her development. “Academically, in Year 7 my test skills were really bad and I had trouble studying the right things and I had really low grades in Maths and Science,” she says. “I’ve learnt a lot about how to study and now my Maths and Science grades are much better.”

That same growth has extended into her dance training. “It used to take me so long to pick up chorey whereas now I can pick it up more quickly and find it so much easier. I’ve also improved a lot in my flexibility since Year 7.”

This interplay between academic growth and practical development is central to the APGS experience. Students are not forced to choose between creative ambition and academic progress. Instead, the two are designed to strengthen one another.

That balance is something Year 7 student Luna recognised almost immediately. “Having small classes helps you feel like you fit in with everyone,” she says. “In our dance classes the teachers are all really nice and it’s good to be able to do classes and learn from the older kids, which helps us get better.”

For Luna, the weekly structure itself has become part of what makes the experience work. “I like having performing arts at the end of the week because we have the academics out of the way and it’s a thing to look forward to at the end of the week going into the weekend.”

It is a rhythm echoed by students across the school. Academic learning remains rigorous, but the timetable is intentionally designed to create variation, momentum and engagement. Shorter academic classes across the week help maintain focus, while practical training offers a different kind of intellectual and physical challenge.

That structure becomes especially significant in the senior years, where many students begin balancing major works, increasing academic expectations and serious external training commitments. At APGS, the timetable is designed to support that complexity rather than compete with it.

Melissa identifies this as one of the school’s strongest distinguishing features. “Many schools will put creative subjects on the same line,” she says, limiting what students can pursue. At APGS, students are given the freedom to undertake multiple major works across disciplines, allowing them to excel in the modes of learning that suit them best.

“If they want to do three, they can,” she says. “Maybe even four.”

That freedom matters deeply for students whose strengths sit in performance, choreography and creative process. Rather than being asked to adapt entirely to conventional academic structures, they are given the opportunity to demonstrate excellence through the forms in which they are strongest.

Year 10 student Gabi describes that freedom as one of the school’s most valuable gifts. “It’s really good in giving me lots of freedom to be creative in learning and expressing different styles of dance and choreographing in my own style,” he says. “The school is helping me to find my identity through dance.”

That sense of identity formation is a recurring theme among students as they move through the school. Technique matters, but so does authorship. Students are not only taught to perform, but they are also taught to think, analyse, create and articulate who they are as artists.

“I am definitely understanding choreography better as I move up in the school,” Gabi says. “The teachers push me and they all really care. It motivates me.”

That care, students suggest, is one of the defining characteristics of the APGS experience. It appears in the way teachers help students map out assessment schedules when they are overwhelmed, in the way rehearsals are revisited before performances to build confidence, and in the way creative ambition is treated as something worthy of time, rigour and serious support.

For Year 11 student Talyn, that support has been instrumental in shaping his future direction. “I would love to be a choreographer and being in the different Dance classes has helped me to be exposed to a wide variety of different teachers and styles,” he says. “They all have different ways of choreographing which has been great to learn from.”

That exposure, he explains, has helped him begin developing his own voice. “I’ve been able to take something from each of them to find my own way to dance and choreograph.”

This is perhaps where APGS feels most distinct, not simply in the breadth of its training, but in the way it encourages students to build authorship alongside skill. Students are not only prepared to perform well, but they are also prepared to think independently, create confidently and step into the next stage of their training with a stronger sense of who they are.

For Talyn, that extends beyond dance itself. “Have fun and take chances,” he says. “Explore all the performing arts. Even if you don’t think it’s for you, give it a go. It gives you lots of different options and skills for the rest of your life.”

That spirit of exploration sits at the heart of the APGS model. It is a school that understands that not every student thrives in the same environment, and that excellence does not always look the same. For some, it is academic acceleration. For others, it is finding confidence in a smaller classroom. For many, it is the first time their creativity has been treated not as a distraction from learning, but as the very thing that unlocks it.