Prep them well for VCE

About the Junior School Curriculum

Years Prep to Year 4 – Laying the Foundations

The Junior School Curriculum provides quality teaching programs that focus on developing the fundamental knowledge, skill and behaviour in English and Mathematics together with opportunities for the development of physical, creative and digital technology.

The Junior School Curriculum is based on the Australian Curriculum which sets out the sequence of learning across the years of schooling Prep to Year 10. The curriculum content, presented as content descriptions, specific the knowledge, understanding and skills that students in Prep to Year 4 are to be taught and are expected to learn.

Teachers use the Australian Curriculum to develop teaching and learning programs that build on student’s current learning. It enables teachers to plan rigorous, relevant and engaging learning and assessment experiences for all students.

The achievement standards at each level, describe a broad sequence of expected learning in terms of typical students’ understandings accomplishments. Teachers use the achievement standards to locate the student’s current levels of achievement and then plan programs that build on, and account for the different abilities of each individual, their prior learning experiences, and the different rates at which they learn.

English and Mathematics are given particular emphasis in the Junior School. The study of English from Prep to Year 4 provides students with a wide range of experiences with language and texts. These experiences are included in the curriculum as valid ways of communicating and as rich resources for further learning about language, literature and literacy. From Prep to Year 4, students engage with purposeful listening, reading, viewing, speaking and writing activities for different purposes and contexts.

Students in Prep to Year 4 have the opportunity to access mathematical ideas by developing a sense of number, order, sequence and pattern; by understanding quantities and their representations; by learning about attributes of objects and collections, position, movement and direction, and by developing an awareness of the collection, presentation and variation of data and a capacity to make predictions about chance events.

Other subjects including Science, History, Studies of Society and Geography and so on are taught within units of inquiry. The inquiry approach lays the foundations for students to make connections and relationships between subject’s areas which were traditionally taught in isolation. Students become explorers, gathers and presenters of information enabling them to use the relationship and links between their own lives and the world around them.

Specialist subjects in Junior School include Physical Education, Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) in Prep & Year 1, Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Library, Mandarin and Indonesian in Years 3 & 4.

The Junior School Curriculum is based on the Australian Curriculum which sets out the sequence of learning across the years of schooling Prep to Year 10. Teachers use the Australian Curriculum to develop teaching and learning programs that build on student’s current learning. It enables teachers to plan rigorous, relevant and engaging learning and assessment experiences for all students.

For further information about Junior Schooling at Overnewton, please contact the Head of Junior School, Mrs Tracy Fielder