Curriculum and Reporting

Curriculum Overview: Term One 2015

Religion

We will create our class vision statement, which is a set of statements that all children must follow in order to create a harmonious classroom environment.  These vision statements will be presented in a ceremony in the church.  We will also explore what life was like for Jesus growing up in the Jewish faith.

English

As part of our English program we will work on developing phonemic awareness (letter and sound relationships), sight words, reading, comprehension, spelling and writing skills. Students will participate in Morning Talks to share information about themselves and their family.  They will write a character profile about themselves.  They will also listen to different narratives and discuss the events and characters.   

Mathematics

We will revise numbers 1-20 and extend on this to include the numbers 0-100.  Through our class calendar wall we will look at the days of the week, months and seasons.  We will also look at money and 2D shapes.

History

Students will look at how they have changed over time.  As part of this unit children will be asked to bring in photos that will be used to create a timeline of their life.  They will be asked to comment on how they have changed in the photos.  

Science

We will be starting our own garden so that students can learn to identify the parts of the plant and explain the purpose of each part.

Geography:

Students will explore our school grounds and identify ways that we can care for an important place in our community

Regular updates of our learning journey will be posted on this site.

Criteria Sheets/Report Cards

A guide to help you understand what is coming home in the portfolios and Semester 1 report cards!

Criteria sheets will reflect the marking guide used to assess a piece of student’s work.  These will have several key points similar across the year levels.  

These include:

·  The significant task the students completed

·  The subject area/s listed and unit topic

·  The key curriculum content descriptors (taken directly from the Australian Curriculum)

·  Dot points under the descriptors to describe the specific work required to achieve this descriptor

A five point scale of A-E is awarded in conjunction with a 4 point effort scale.  I stress that the 5 point scale we use today is NOT the same as when we were at school.  The expected achievement standard for the year level, which includes all work being covered to be understood and demonstrated consistently across a range of assessment items, is awarded a ‘C’ rating.  This is NOT just average, just doing what is needed to scrape through!  This is an excellent achievement, a semester of consistent work, meeting year level expectations.

Keep in mind this year with the introduction of the Australian curriculum, the amount and level of complexity of the work has increased significantly in every year level, yes even in Prep!  For a student to achieve a ‘C’ rating this is something to be praised and celebrated as it is a semester of dedication and a significant amount of work to be completed.

One very important part of the criteria sheet and/or report card is the effort rating.  This is a very telling sign of how much effort and commitment to their learning your child has.   The ratings are: Consistently, Generally, Sometimes and Rarely.  We would expect that most children are working in the Consistently or Generally rating.  If your child comes home with ratings in the Sometimes or Rarely column, I would be questioning them as to why they are not trying their very best at all times.