Curriculum News

Integrated Curriculum better known as Integrated Studies

An Integrated Curriculum is described as one that focuses on making connections across areas and this allows students to engage in relevant, meaningful activities  that can be connected to real life. At BPPS, we employ the guided inquiry model to engage and support the students in their exploration of big ideas embedded in the areas of Science, History, Geography, Economics, Civics and Citizenship, Health, Design and Digital Technologies, as well as the Capabilities section of the Victorian Curriculum which includes Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical Understanding Capability,  Personal and Social Capability, Intercultural Capability.

Engagement and ownership are key elements in fostering independence in each student and a guided inquiry approach enables the students to develop real-world skills such as intrinsic motivation, teamwork, time management and personal organisation. 

Guided inquiry is an approach that’s appropriate for primary aged children and is a blend of explicit teaching and modelled inquiry designed to give students a base knowledge and understanding, then challenge them to think creatively and critically to solve problems suited to their age and experience. 

At BPPS our Integrated Curriculum is designed around the 8 rich concepts of Sustainability, Identity, Community, Connections, Change, Discovery, Social Justice and Creativity. Different aspects of these concepts are then explored at each level. These umbrella concepts are frameworks the teaching staff use to plan and embed learning experiences most appropriate to each year level. This curriculum anchors our work in Literacy and supports our Wellbeing, Numeracy and Specialist programs. 

It is with this in mind that we deliver the fully comprehensive set of MAPPEN Integrated Studies units across the school. We use a whole school approach where in each level from Foundation to Grade 6, the students focus on the same overarching theme each term. The learning experiences are structured as opportunities to apply knowledge and skills and take action in real-world, authentic situations. These range from designing a structure to withstand a force or carry a weight, to designing teaching tools to instruct younger students on a particular topic, to running a micro-business at a profit to raise money for charities, to creating and testing products designed to promote a healthier life. Each unit of work is then celebrated with either a peer review, or an expo for other year levels and/or parents to showcase their learning.

Our Integrated Curriculum provides opportunities for our children to:

● Understand their world by posing questions, gathering information and communicating ideas 

● Work cooperatively with others to develop skills of listening, teamwork, empathy and collaboration 

● Develop life-long dispositions for intelligent, creative and reflective thinking 

● Develop a social conscience that enables them to take responsibility for their actions 

Working in teams, planning effectively and compromising and negotiating their way to a successful outcome are vital life skills embedded in the guided inquiry process. The students use a wide range of digital and hands-on thinking and planning tools to develop their ideas, such as challenge rubrics, and digital teaching and learning tools. We encourage students to experiment and choose the tool best suited to the task, so they become aware of the intrinsic pros and cons of each type of tool. Sometimes a pencil and paper is quicker, sometimes using an app on an iPad is better. Each student needs to know what suits their purpose and learning goal best.

Scope and Sequence: Our inquiry approach follows the following scope and sequence:

Each Term Integrated Curriculum Overviews are uploaded to our website. This outlines the Rationale of the Unit, the Essential Questions students will be investigating, the Rich Assessment Task and Future Actions that can be undertaken. If you want to know what your child has been focussing on this term, check it out.

At BPPS, we are committed to developing creative and critical thinkers; students who will grow into confident and capable independent learners. The guided inquiry approach, where learning is contextualised within real challenges with real audiences, is an effective and engaging way of achieving these goals.