Curriculum

Victorian Curriculum

At Barton Primary School we follow the Victorian Curriculum. For more information regarding the Victorian Curriculum please visit the VCAA website or the Victorian Curriculum Website.

Student Learning At Our School

 We believe that all students can learn with the right support. This means that we believe that every student is capable of learning and that it is our responsibility as educators to provide the necessary support to help them achieve their full potential. In order to meet the learning needs of all students we use Explicit Instruction and the Gradual Release of Responsibility.

Explicit Instruction
Explicit instruction breaks down what students need to learn into smaller learning outcomes and models each step. It allows students to process new information more effectively. Explicit instruction is a very efficient strategy for helping students learn because it suits how the brain processes, stores, and retrieves information.

Key principles of Explicit Instruction:

  • Clear learning outcomes: The teacher is clear on what they want the students to know and/or be able to do by the end of the lesson or sequence of lessons.
  • Explanation & modelling: The teacher explains the knowledge and models the skills and procedures that students need to be successful.
  • Management of cognitive load: The teacher presents new information in manageable amounts to help students to learn more effectively.
  • Opportunities for consolidation: Students have ample opportunities to begin the process of chunking and automating new knowledge and skills. Spaced and varied tasks are provided for guided and independent student practise as well as appropriately challenging opportunities for students to apply, extend and demonstrate mastery of their learning.
  • Checks for Understanding: The teacher explicitly and frequently checks whether students understand and can do what is required of them and gives additional instruction, guidance or feedback as needed.

Gradual Release of Responsibility
GRR is an instructional approach that involves gradually shifting the responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student. This approach recognises that learning is a collaborative process, and that students need support and guidance to develop their skills and understanding.

At Barton Primary School, teachers will use GRR to support the development of students’ independent learning skills. This will involve providing clear and explicit instruction, modelling thinking processes, and gradually releasing responsibility to the student through guided and independent practice.

For more information, please refer to our Curriculum Framework Policy 2023.

 

Reading

At Barton Primary School, we understand reading is a complex process and that many elements need to be explicitly taught and practiced regularly for students to become accurate, fluent and confident readers who understand what they read. Scarborough’s Reading Rope outlines the complexities involved in learning to read as well as the interdependence and interconnectedness of all components.

In the early years of schooling the focus is on building the foundational skills students need to be confident readers who can comprehend increasingly complex texts as they continue through school and into adulthood.

Reading in Prep to Grade Two

As students are beginning to read and learn the sounds in words, we have a greater focus on word recognition strands of the Reading Rope in early primary school years. Students are explicitly taught and given opportunities to practice the parts of words.

Classes read a range of fiction genres and non-fiction text types including multi-modal texts.

A typical reading lesson is structured as below and follows the Gradual Release of Responsibility model:

Phonological awareness

Time
10 mins

How Often?
Daily

What does it look like?
Teachers model and student echo different parts of a word; onset and rhyme, sounds, syllables, and segmentation.

Phonics/ Fluency

Time
25 mins

How Often?
Daily
1 wordlist and 1 passage per week, practised daily.

What does it look like?

  • Modelled Phonics
    Students are explicitly taught new sounds each week.Teachers model the pronunciation of the sound in words.
  • Echo Phonics
    The students echo the sound, segment, and blend in words.
  • Fluency Pairs
    The students segment and blend their wordlist to a partner. They continue to practise their learnt sounds and fluency with a decodable text.

 

Comprehension

Time
15 mins

How Often?
1 text fortnightly
(usually related to our Knowledge and Inquiry units)

What does it look like?

  • Guided/Modelled Reading
  • Think Alouds
    Teachers model their thoughts when engaging in literacy areas of; making predictions, questioning, vocabulary, making connections and summarising.
  • Questions of the text
    Teachers ask literal and inferred questions for students to answer independently or with a partner.
  • Reading Responses
    Students summarise and independently answer questions of the text in written forms. 

 

How can you support students reading at home?

  • Participate in shared reading as often as possible. This can be reading together, parents reading to students, parents listening to students read or students reading to other family members. Reading aloud improves fluency and promotes a love of reading.
  • Practise phonological awareness with students by playing games such as ‘I Spy’ with sounds or rhyming (I spy with my little eye something that begins with the sound /k/ or rhymes with the word mat), reading rhyming books and asking students to orally blend or segment sentences or words.
  • Ask questions about what they are reading and talk about new or interesting words and what they mean.
  • Support your student reading decodable words and texts by encouraging them to use these strategies if they get stuck.

Reading in Grade Three – Grade Six

As students become more proficient in reading, we have a greater focus on the Language Comprehension strands of the Reading Rope in the middle and upper primary school years. Students are explicitly taught and given opportunities to practice reading and comprehending complex texts.

Classes read a range of fiction genres and non-fiction text types including multi-modal texts.

A typical reading lesson is structured as below and follows the Gradual Release of Responsibility model:

Time
10 mins

How Often
2-3 words per week, practised daily.

What does it look like?
Students are explicitly taught new, challenging words and given opportunities to practise using these words orally and in writing.

Time
10 mins

How Often
1 passage per week, practised daily.

What does it look like?

  • Modelled Reading
    The teacher models reading a short passage aloud and highlights a particular aspect of reading fluently.
  • Echo Reading
    The teacher read small sections of text at a time and students “echo” the teacher’s reading rate and expression.
  • Fluency Pairs
    With a partner, students read the same short passage of text 3 times. Their partner checks for accuracy.

Time
30 mins

How Often

  • 4-5 sessions per week on the same (or similar) text

What does it look like?

  • Modelled Reading
    The teacher models reading a short passage aloud and highlights a particular aspect of reading fluently.
  • Echo Reading
    The teacher read small sections of text at a time and students “echo” the teacher’s reading rate and expression.
  • Fluency Pairs
    With a partner, students read the same short passage of text 3 times. Their partner checks for accuracy.

 

FICTION

  • Stop and Jot: students stop during reading at strategic pre-planned points that are deemed to be important or potentially confusing. Students jot down their thoughts in response to a comprehension question. The teacher checks student comprehension and responds to any partial understandings or misconceptions. Multiple students share their thoughts with the class.
  • Annotation: Students highlight or underline important passages or words as they read. They write questions, predictions and/or observations in the margins to document their thinking while reading.
  • Analysis: Teachers support students to understand and evaluate the choices that authors and illustrators make.

NON-FICTION

  • Literacy Skills: Students are taught to effectively navigate texts such as websites, newspaper articles and other non-fiction texts. They are explicitly taught how to use texts for different purposes such as skimming the text to work out the gist or scanning for key words to locate specific information. Students also develop research and note-taking skills.
  • Close Reading: Students read challenging non-fiction texts closely. They interpret the use of grammar and vocabulary to comprehend accurately.

In Term 2, we are reading the following texts:

Grade 3

Grade 4

Grade 5

Grade 6

Knowledge Building & Inquiry Units

Our knowledge & inquiry units cover the Science, Humanities & Technologies curriculum as well as give students the essential knowledge needed for comprehension of complex texts and a deep understanding of the world around them.

 

These are the units we are learning about in Semester One.

Water Life

A year on the farm

 

Ancient Egypt

History of transport

Light & sound

Forces & motion

Minibeasts

Design – How to build a game

 

Design project – Pizza

History of the Earth

 Properties of matter (solids, liquids & gases)

Water cycle

Plants

 

History of world exploration

The sun, moon & earth

 Food webs & chains

Zoos

 

Forces in sport

Design – Farm to table

 Heat energy

Design – solar ovens

Rules & laws

 

Colonies to nation (19th century Australian History)

 Chemical science

 Australian government & active citizenship

 

Market project (Business & Economics)

Space (Earth & Space Sciences)

Penguin adaptations (Biological science)

Oceans & sustainability

Digital technologies

 

Mathematics

At Barton Primary School, we have a whole school approach to delivering a comprehensive numeracy program designed to foster and promote a positive experience for Mathematics. We have a shared belief that all students can achieve high standards with high expectations and support and early intervention.

Gradual Release of Responsibility model 

Teachers use the Gradual Release of Responsibility model to deliver five hours of mathematics each week based on the Victorian Curriculum. Students explore Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability concepts using evidence-based teaching practices. Teachers analyse student data when designing units of learning to ensure that learning is differentiated and that all students are challenged at their point of need (Zone of Proximal Development – Lev Vygotsky). 

Barton Primary School’s focus on Professor Dianne Siemon’s ‘Big Ideas’ in Number assists teachers in targeting individual learners and creating engaging, practical lessons that develop conceptual understanding. Students engage with the ‘Big Ideas’ through authentic contexts using the proficiencies of Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning, which are fundamental to learning mathematics and working mathematically. The Strands of Mathematical Proficiency model (Kilpatrick et al., 2001) represents the interconnected relationship between each strand of the proficiencies rope.

The Victorian Curriculum outlines the four mathematical proficiencies as follows: 

  • Students develop understanding when they build their knowledge of mathematical concepts and explore the relationship between the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of mathematics.
  • Students become fluent when they can recall mathematical facts, choose appropriate strategies and calculate answers accurately and efficiently.
  • Students learn to problem solve when they conduct investigations and use mathematics to represent unfamiliar or meaningful situations.
  • Students build their reasoning skills when they explore patterns and related ideas, evaluate strategies, justify answers and explain their thinking. 
  • Productive disposition is often referred to as the fifth proficiency. It refers to the belief that mathematics is useful and worthwhile and that students can achieve success in mathematics through effort and persistence.

    Additional Information: 

     

    Visual Art

    At Barton Primary School, all students from Foundation to year 6 experience a weekly Visual Arts program filled with highly creative tasks that support innovation, explore new meaning and foster expressions of self. The Art teachers are always striving to develop the Visual Arts program, which allows students to be creative, motivated and excited about their art making. All students have an opportunity to further develop their skills and build knowledge as they learn about:

    •   Effective art techniques and finding new ways of expressing themselves in a comfortable and supportive environment.
    •   Reflecting on the lives and inspirations of famous Artists from all around the world and their artwork.
    •   Interpreting and responding to their own artwork and the artwork of others.
    •   The history of Art making and how it can be used in modern, real-world creativity and design.

    The Visual Arts Program at Barton Primary combines all the elements of visual art and creative thinking to help students work collaboratively and with an understanding of being an effective global citizen. Visual Arts supports learners socially by strengthening their confidence as well as their ability to work with other students. Students participate in many hands-on lessons that aim to refine their fine motor skills, build understanding and support their growth. These are vital skills that can be effectively applied to other curriculum areas.

    At Barton Primary school, the Visual Arts program is a positive and enriching part of the Australian curriculum. It allows each student the opportunity to express themselves with boundless ideas through the ‘Elements of Art’ which are covered throughout the year and for all year levels.

    Check out our Art Policy 2023 for additional information. 

    Performing Arts

    At Barton Primary School, Performing Arts is centred on the ability of each child to create musical works through song, instrumentation and technology. From the Foundation year onwards, students are engaged in an ever-expanding repertoire of songs and activities that prepare them to appreciate, create and perform musical pieces. Over their time at Barton, students will sing, dance, play percussion instruments, compose and explore music technology on iPads, learn the ukulele and guitar, and much more!

    Recently we have embedded drama into our Performing Arts program, where students have the opportunity to explore and learn about how they can make drama to communicate ideas and stories. Students develop confidence by sharing their drama with peers and experiencing it as an audience. Over their time at Barton, students will extend their understanding of roles and situations as they offset, accept and extend their ideas in improvisation and process drama. They learn about tension, space and time in drama through dramatic play, role-play, movement and mime activities. Students are also provided with the chance to learn about drama from a range of cultures, times and locations.

    Check out our Performing Arts Policy 2023 for further information.

    Physical Education

    Discover the joy of movement and the importance of a healthy lifestyle with our engaging Physical Education (PE) program at Barton Primary School. Aligned with the Victorian Curriculum, our PE curriculum is designed to nurture not only physical skills but also teamwork, confidence, and a lifelong appreciation for staying active.

    Through the many different activities, games, and exercises, students will develop their motor skills, coordination, and understanding of fundamental movement concepts. Our dedicated Physical Education teachers create a supportive environment where every child can thrive, building their skills and knowledge while having fun and fostering a positive attitude toward health and fitness.

     

    Spanish

    Bienvenidos a todos! At Barton Primary school, our students learn Spanish through a communicative and cultural approach to learning. Throughout their time at Barton Primary School, students experience a range of tasks relating to speaking, reading, responding and writing in Spanish, with an emphasis on cultural influences from both Spain and Spanish speaking countries. Our Spanish team provide the students with a variety of engaging, creative, and interactive activities to make language learning fun. Our method is ideal for meeting the needs of both upper and lower primary students from varying cultural backgrounds, language abilities and experience. Barton Primary School is proud of its multilingual community and fosters student development in all aspects of language learning. 

    Our school council chose Spanish as the whole school language as we recognise its important global influence. Our students are encouraged to contribute during their language learning, incorporating our school values to succeed. By working together in this way, our students thrive as a community of learners.

    Although they are not expected to leave primary school fluently speaking the language, we believe our program assists students to fully appreciate other cultures around the world and our role as global citizens.

    Sustainabilitity 

    At Barton Primary School, we are proud to be part of the ResourceSmart Schools program, an award-winning Victorian Government initiative that assists schools in embedding sustainability across all aspects of school life. This program supports us in minimizing waste, saving energy and water, promoting biodiversity, and taking action on climate change, benefiting both our school and the wider community.

    Through our participation in ResourceSmart Schools, we have access to sustainability experts who guide us in reducing resource usage, integrating sustainability into our curriculum, and sharing our learnings beyond the school gate. This collaboration has led to measurable environmental, financial, educational, and social outcomes, aligning with our commitment to fostering a culture of environmental responsibility.

    By working together as a school community, we are taking meaningful steps toward a greener future. We invite students, families, and staff to join us in making Barton Primary a leader in sustainability. 

    For more information, visit https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/our-work/resourcesmart-schools/about-resourcesmart-schools