As an International Baccalaureate School our curriculum is organised around PYP units of inquiry under six broad transdisciplinary themes. Students show their understanding through studying these six units of inquiry across each year from Kindergarten to Year Six and four units in preschool. These units are mapped to the Australian Curriculum and incorporate a balance of all subject disciplines across each year. Through offering a balanced learning program we aim to support and nurture the development of children's academic, personal, and social wellbeing.
Teachers focus on delivering a differentiated curriculum for all students. This involves catering for the full range of student abilities and offering a range of activities/programs at each year level. It is important that each child be catered for whether they require additional assistance from our specialist reading teachers or extension within our classroom or enrichment programs. Recognising that children do not possess the same level of skill, maturity and development at the same chronological age we believe that every child can succeed and be proud of their personal achievements.
All teachers meet weekly in professional learning teams to discuss curriculum planning and assessment. All units of inquiry are planned with the IB coordinator, Executive leader of the team and all team members. Staff at Miles Franklin utilise a range of classroom assessments, system and national assessments (PIPS and NAPLAN for example), professional judgement, anecdotal notes and moderation guides to inform their planning and practice.
- Literacy is explicitly taught each day along with supporting our PYP Units of Inquiry. Literacy programs incorporate guided reading, differentiated writing, handwriting, spelling, grammar and punctuation as well as listening, speaking and viewing.
- Numeracy programs utilise the whole-part-whole approach where explicit teaching and focus group inquiry takes place. Students in numeracy lessons are seen to problem solve, reflect, explain and demonstrate. Numeracy throughout the week as explicit stand alone lessons alongside working mathematically within our PYP units of inquiry.
- Other areas: French is the additional language taught at our school. We have a specialist French teacher who takes classes from Kindergarten to Year Six for one lesson a week. We also have a specialist PE teacher who takes each class for one lesson a week.
- School bands are offered in Years Five and Six.
- Two reading teachers take small groups and individuals students for additional literacy assistance and a English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EALD) teacher works with children from Kindergarten through to Year Six.
Our library is a focal point of the school, opening each morning before school and at lunchtime. Students are also able to nominate themselves to be their class representatives on the Green Team and the Student Representative Council (SRC).
Information and computer technology (ICT) is used extensively across the school. Whilst we use a range of technologies appropriate for student age, we have been a lead school in the ACT in using and developing Google Apps for Education with Chromebooks as the hardware platform. We have found this to be a highly effective way of ensuring children in Years Three to Six have daily access to technology and parents can see the work their children have completed at home if online.
Strong partnerships with parents and carers are valued so student needs can be met in the best possible ways. Relationships between home, school and the community are fundamental to the academic, social and emotional needs of each child.
The school's reporting processes serve to strengthen partnerships by informing parents and carers of student progress through formal and informal interviews, email, reports and phone conversations by classroom teachers and school leaders.