Curriculum

Reception to Year 6

We want our students to develop their God-given potential to its fullest capacity. We achieve this by providing a challenging, stimulating, child-centred curriculum. Students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning within a caring Christian environment, where they know they are valued, feel safe to extend themselves and take risks. Our curriculum reflects process as well as content. The curriculum strives to develop within students a love of learning, a desire to achieve personal excellence, deep understanding, and the knowledge, skills and dispositions necessary to take their place as responsible global citizens who have been called by God to be all they can for the well-being of human kind.

Given this, our curriculum is underpinned by the following beliefs:

• all children are curious and capable of learning
• all children make meaning and express themselves in a myriad of ways
• making mistakes and reflecting on one’s learning are central to developing understanding, knowledge, skills and right attitudes
• learning experiences and the curriculum should engage and develop the heart, mind, body and will
• a high quality curriculum that documents clearly what we want the children to know, do, understand and value
• Digital Technologies is incorporated across all Key Learning Areas so that students are taught how to use those technologies as learning tools
• all Key Learning Areas are linked rather than viewed and taught as isolated disciplines, and
• the curriculum seeks to prepare students not only for what they need to know and do today, but in the future.

Being able to think critically, logically and creatively is central to a Jesuit education and thus, the teaching of thinking skills in context, is mandatory; it permeates our entire curriculum.

Key Learning Areas

The Junior School curriculum is centred on nine Key Areas of Learning which are supported and nurtured by Special Programs and co-curricular activities.

The Key Learning Areas:

• Religious Education
• Design and Digital Technologies
• English
• Health and Physical Education
• Humanities and Social Sciences (History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship)
• Languages: Chinese (Mandarin)
• Mathematics
• Science
• The Arts: Visual Art, Music, Drama and Dance

Specialist Areas

The Junior School provides specialist teaching in a number of subject areas, each in a specialist facility. Among these are featured:

• Art
• Languages: Chinese (Mandarin)
• Library
• Music
• Physical Education
• Design and Digital Technologies
• Science

The Science of Reading

At Saint Ignatius' College, we are committed to implementing evidence-based teacher practices and programs. In our Reception to Year 3 classrooms, we use the Science of Reading approach as part of our Literacy program. This is to ensure that students develop the literacy skills they need to become lifelong learners. We have created a video to illustrate what we do.