Learning Area Overview

CURRICULUM VISION

Saint Mary’s Catholic Primary School is a learning community in which all students are challenged to reach their full potential, academically and spiritually. Through innovative and engaging curriculum delivery, students can be safely supported to take risks, make mistakes, learn at their own rate and therefore celebrate their uniqueness. 

CURRICULUM

At St Mary's we recognise that curriculum provision in Catholic schools is concerned with education across Key Learning Areas.  Effective Catholic schools provide a curriculum, which has a specific Catholic quality.  There is a priority for Religious Education both at the formal level in communicating the Catholic story, and the informal level by the infusion of the whole curriculum with the values of the Gospel. The curriculum is delivered using a variety of methods and strategies to meet the needs of the learners and we provide the students with explicit feedback. 

KEY LEARNING AREAS (KLA’S)

The Key Learning Areas shaped and agreed to by the Diocesan Catholic Education Office include:
·        Religious Education  (RE)
·        English
·        Mathematics
·        Science
·        Humanities & Social Science (History, Geography, Civics & Citizenship)
·        The Arts
·        Health and Physical Education (HPE)
·        Technology
·        Languages other than English (LOTE – French)

AUSTRALIAN CURRICULUM

In 2012 the implementation of an Australian Curriculum commenced for Prep – Year 10 in various Key Learning Areas.   The Australian Curriculum sets out what all young people should be taught through the specification of curriculum content and the learning expected at points in their schooling. Currently at  St Mary's Catholic School the following subjects are taught using the Australian Curriculum; Mathematics, English, Science, HASS, The Arts and Technology.

NAPLAN

In May of every year students in years 3, 5, 7, and 9 undertake NAPLAN (National Literacy and Numeracy Assessments) testing in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions –spelling, grammar, punctuation, and Numeracy. The information NAPLAN provides is used as a resource to help consider what areas our school is doing well in and where improvements might be possible, it should also be recognised that the information represents test results at a single point in time and is only a very small part of the overall education picture.  In 2020, the Federal government made the decision not to undertake NAPLAN this year due to Covid 19.