A Few Things to Consider

The First Year of School

In your child’s first year of school, students learn through teaching interactions with others, experimentation, practice and play in the classroom
 and school community.
Priority is given to literacy and numeracy development as these are the foundations upon which further learning is built. Learning in the classroom and developing a sense of belonging at Lockley’s North Primary School are vital in setting up your child for continued success during their schooling.

Learning

We know learning begins and develops once we have formed positive working relationships with the children and their families. Our programming caters to every individual child and for all preferred learning styles.

Discovery Time

Discovery Time is set up every morning with an array of activities catering for all learning styles, preferences, interest and ability. It may look like plain old good fun, but every activity is designed with a purpose and intent to achieve a specific learning outcome. All these learning outcomes are spelt out in the Australian Curriculum, which is available to everyone online. These learning outcomes are the basis of our assessment and recording.

This time is also about supporting and encouraging many dispositions like

  • Curiosity
  • Optimism
  • Resilience
  • Concentration

And the development of

  • Friendships
  • Effective communication skills
  • Social and emotional skills
  • Conflict resolution
  • Cooperation and negotiation skills
  • Independent thinking
  • Problem solving
  • Vocabulary development which then creates the need and motivation to read, write and record

And children learn to regulate their own behaviour.

This all gives learning a purpose.

Inquiry

The essence of our program is ‘to promote a sense of wonder, exploration, investigation and interest in a rich range of materials, resources and opportunities in which the child can engage. Our engaged learners are busy and on task, they are questioning and chatting about their thinking and learning. 

We use an inquiry approach as it works alongside our play based learning and allows for the integration of many curriculum areas. As students move through the process of inquiry, they can draw on several ways of investigating and expressing their growing understandings – integrating skills and content from multiple disciplines or learning areas.

 

Over the past couple of weeks  our classes have been inquiring into What is School?