Learning and Teaching News
Stories of the Past: How Our Students Explore History
This term, students from Year One to Year Four are exploring History through their Inquiry learning. Across the school, students are investigating big questions about change, continuity, community, identity and culture, with all learning carefully aligned to the Victorian Curriculum.
In Grade One and Two, students are becoming “family historians,” discovering how daily life has changed over time by comparing their own routines, homes and school experiences with those of parents and grandparents. They are learning to use time vocabulary such as past, present and future, building simple timelines and examining how stories, photos and objects help us understand the past.
In Grade Three and Four, students are exploring Australia’s early stories, focusing on the period between 1750 and 1800 and investigating how early encounters between First Nations Peoples and Europeans shaped communities, identities and decisions that continue to influence Australia today. They are analysing different perspectives, exploring significant events, learning about rules, laws and democratic decision‑making, and investigating how local governments support communities through services and shared spaces.
This learning is an important part of the Victorian Curriculum as it helps students understand how the past shapes the present, develop respect for diverse cultures and viewpoints and build the skills needed to participate thoughtfully and responsibly in their community. By learning to ask questions, interpret evidence and recognise continuity and change, we hope students strengthen their sense of identity, belonging and active citizenship.
Sun, Seasons and Shelters: Our Prep Scientists at Work
Our Prep students have been exploring the Earth and Space strand of Science from the Victorian curriculum, learning how daily and seasonal changes affect people, animals and plants.
Over the term, they have been making observations and recording the daily weather, noticing patterns and talking about how weather influences what we wear, what we do and how living things behave.
Students have also investigated different materials that can provide shelter from changing weather and used this knowledge to design and create a sun shelter for a frog, combining science thinking with early design skills. Well done Preps!!!
Kathy Blythe
Learning and Teaching Leader
Hobsons Bay Youth Network
Starting Secondary School
Register here: Starting Secondary School (parent webinar) - Hobsons Bay