Learning at Old Orchard
Our school learning environment is friendly, caring and relaxed, whilst maintaining high expectations and standards. We provide a teaching and learning program of the highest quality, which continues to evolve as new education initiatives are introduced. Children are grouped according to the Victorian Curriculum in clean, well resourced classrooms. Students are encouraged to develop their leadership potential through membership of the Student Representative Council and as leaders across a range of areas in Years 5 & 6. At Old Orchard we are helping to build the leaders of the future and we believe that through our relationships with the school community, we can have a positive impact on the daily lives of the children we teach. It is the people in our community who forge the character and potential of our school. We truly believe that people make a difference! Our commitment to care and respect is non-negotiable.
High quality classroom teaching provides flexible and adaptable approaches and constructive strategies to enable students to reach their full potential. Our curriculum planning is based upon our understandings of students; their development, needs, talents, interests and ways they learn best. Individual Learning Plans are an integral component of our teaching and learning programs. Our curriculum is also based on the assumption that all students are capable of responding to high expectations, of working effectively with others, of making decisions about their studies and of expressing themselves in creative ways. A variety of programs are used across the school to support the personal development of our students. These programs address development of social, personal and interpersonal skills. The school values together with the Restorative Practices model form the core of these programs.
The Victorian Curriculum is the curriculum used in Victorian schools and forms the basis of the school’s teaching and learning programs. The curriculum guides our planning and reporting on student achievement. The Victorian Curriculum has been designed to provide children with the capacities to prepare them for success in education, work and life. To succeed in life, we all need to have the capacities to:
Manage ourselves as individuals and in relation to others
Understand the world in which we live and
Act effectively in our world.
Prep and Years 1 & 2 focus largely on foundational literacy and numeracy skills and development of physical, personal and social capacities. At Prep standards are written for English, Mathematics, Health and Physical Education, The Arts and Interpersonal Development. In Year 2, standards are introduced for Information and Communication Technology.
At Years 3 & 4 students are expected to also achieve standards in Science, Humanities, Thinking Processes, Design, Creativity and Technology, Personal Learning and Civics and Citizenship.
At Years 5 & 6 standards are introduced in the remaining domains of Languages Other than English (LOTE), History, Geography, Economics and Communication.
Integrated Units are developed to link areas of the curriculum into meaningful and manageable units of work. These units are planned across a two year cycle and are regularly evaluated and further developed in response to the needs of our learners and the world in which they live. Thinking skills form a significant component of all our teaching and learning programs.