Learning and Teaching

Learning Outside the Classroom

Teachers at LPS regularly work together to design engaging and innovative learning experiences in the classroom for all our students.

We are also extremely fortunate as a school community to have the resources and access to provide our students with a variety of learning experiences outside the classroom.

Over the course of the year, teachers plan and organise camps and excursions for our students to experience learning outside the classroom and in the real world. Despite this resulting in teachers usually having to put in an enormous amount of extra hours of time and energy, we all believe it is worth it because of the high quality experiental learning students are able to engage in.

Term 3 Out of Classroom Experiences

This week alone, students in Grades 4 and 5 attended Burrinja Cultural Centre to watch St Joseph and Mater Christi Colleges' joint musical Shrek, and Grade 6 students went to Rowville Secondary College to see their adaptation of High School Musical. Earlier this term, our Grade 3 students engaged in a long day excursion to Phillip Island, and later this term, our Prep students will visit the Museum of Play and Art (MoPA). Our Grade 5 and 6 students will also attend a week long camp to Coonawarra in a few weeks time.

The Benefits for Our Students

Taking students outside the classroom and into the wider community supports them to learn how to become positive and active members in the world outside of Lysterfield Primary School, where students learn to communicate effectively and interact positively with members of the public, and guides and teachers who are unfamiliar to them. These experiences also provide our students with great opportunities to practise upholding our school values of Curiosity, Acceptance, Respect, Resilience and Integrity, and help them to see the importance and embodiment of these values beyond just the school environment. 

Learning experiences outside the classroom assist our students to develop stronger connections to curriculum and academic content, and help them to see themselves as learners both within and outside of the classroom. Students are encouraged to deepen their learning within the classroom by drawing on the rich learning they experience outside the classroom. These experiences can often provide stimulus and purpose for Writing, drive interests and curiosity for Reading, and create real-world connections and understandings for Mathematics. 

Camps and excursions support students to recognise the role that learning plays in all aspects of life - play, recreation, sport, theatre etc. - and allows our students to see the importance of being life long learners. These out of classroom experiences also afford students with multiple and varied opportunities to activate and use their Learner Profile Traits. We teach these 7 traits explicitly in the classroom, but excursions and camps allow students to use these traits in the real world, and see their value beyond the classroom.

We pride ourselves at LPS for not only supporting our students to learn to the best of their ability, but also to develop an understanding of themselves, and the skills - academic, social and emotional - that will see them succeed in all aspects of their lives. Camps and excursions are a great vehicle to create learning experiences for our students to practise and apply the amazing learning that occurs within LPS to the fantastic world beyond it. 

Zahra Harvey,  Learning Specialist | Numeracy