St Kilda Primary School’s Middle Years program strongly reflects a range of strategies that promote engagement for students in Years 5 and 6 which encourage improved attendance and a stronger connection to learning and school.

Curriculum in the Middle Years in the Victorian Essential Learning Standards at Years 5 and 6 is based on ‘Building Breadth and Depth.’  Higher Order thinking skills to develop children’s deeper understandings and successful problem solving skills is a focus through the Inquiry Approach to Integrated Curriculum.  

The development of strong leadership skills and relationships with peers and teachers is fostered by students being in composite Year 5/6 home groups, staying together with the same teacher for two years and a commitment by staff to a team approach in relation to the provision of curriculum.

The Real Life Learning Program is a feature of Curriculum in Year 5 and 6 at SKPS.  Students participate in negotiated autonomous learning projects that relate to real life and have connections to local community resources and global networks.  An example of some units are: Forensic Science, Robotics, Cooking from the Productive Garden, multi-media/imovies.

The Real Life Learning Program:

• Engages students in analytical, critical and creative thinking tasks
• Creates on-going opportunities for students to develop, practise, refine and share their thinking skills
• Provides students with the tools to manage, organise and record their learning
• Promotes productive thinking, moving beyond memorization and simple recall to synthesis and evaluation
• Encourages students to apply thinking tools and strategies in everyday situations and in solving problems they encounter in the real world
• Assists in the transfer of skills as tools for life-long learners.

Literacy circles, Guided Reciprocal Reading and Genre studies for writing and spelling all form part of a structured Literacy Program.  Explicit teaching in small groups and problem solving across all Mathematical strands forms the basis of the Numeracy Program in Year 5 and 6.

Individual Learning Plans for students ‘at risk’ or achieving above the expected level are developed and signed by parents.  As well Ardoch Volunteer Support continue to provide more individual program support for students in the Middle Years.

Students participate in goal setting and reporting their progress to parents at the mid year parent teacher interview.  Each child’s progress is closely monitored through ongoing assessment and the Achievement Improvement Monitor (AIM) informs teacher judgements in relation to Year 5 student achievement.

Developing our senior students with the capacity and skills, as well as providing many opportunities for them to make contributions to the school and its community as active leaders and advocates of positive change, is our goal.

The Real Life Centre
Our journey from traditional curriculum to innovative middle years curriculum.

We began in 2004 through the Innovations and Excellence Blueprint imitative.

In 2004 an I&E Cluster coordinator was appointed to work with 8 schools to determine whether real life Experiential Learning would improve student well being, attendance and most importantly learning outcomes.  

• Because we had a diverse range of schools in our cluster, each individual school initiated their own programs around this one goal – to develop real life learning programs and connections to community.  Sharing projects from each school and learning from each other were also important components of the I & E project.
  
• 2004 was the first year we combined Year 5/6 composite classes from a straight Year level structure. We had three grades of 28 to 30 students.

 
2005

At St Kilda Primary School we developed our Pilot Project in one classroom around Robotics and imovie. The focus was project based learning where learning is framed within the context of a real world problem or issue.  A close partnership was formed with the CoPP through the Community School Yard Project which supported new learning project links with community agencies.

Student interest in this style of learning increased dramatically in the grade and across the year level, and the constraints of the traditional timetable became apparent- larger blocks of time were needed.

At a meeting in Term 2 we asked ourselves the question: How does learning in OUR Year 5/6 classrooms look, feel and sound different to the learning that took place in these classrooms 20 years ago?  If parents who went to school here came to visit how would they know the learning was different?  We are working in a new climate where curriculum innovation and risk taking is being embraced by the system supported by a ‘we cannot fail’ approach by the school.

Term 3- Students brainstormed areas of interest for their first Real Life learning electives, narrowed the choices down to Cooking, Forensic Science and Robotics/imovie making and then chose the area they would most like to work in.  These programs ran from 11.00 to 3.30 on two days each week for approximately 8 weeks.

Real Life Learning culminated in an Expo where all Year 5/6 students retaught or explained to others their understandings and knowledge acquired In the evening students presented the Expo for parents and the wider community.

Also in Term 4 we realised the importance of the practical application of knowledge gained throughout the year in maths. Therefore we developed real life maths investigations involving hands on projects like The Block- designing, building and budgeting their own house.

2006

In Term 2 visits were made to look at the physical set up of other schools, to gather ideas on how the frustrations of programming Real Life Learning in a building that was 130 years old could be overcome. We visited Woorana Park, Coatesville and Silverton Primary Schools and planning began to open up 4 rooms in an existing LTC building to create a more flexible learning space. 

We ran the same Real Life Learning areas again in Term 3 and encouraged students to chose different areas to the previous year. Each Real Life Learning program was enhanced through tighter planning and we were more conscious of the importance of developing stronger community connections. Examples were:  visits by local police (Beat the Bell which were informal pop-ins.), a forensic scientist, mechanics, Port Phillip Eco Centre staff, CSIRO visit, Science Works excursion, PCW, Leonardo Da Vinci Exhibition, Elwood College Visits, Make Poverty History celebration, historical society visits..

To share and reinforce learning an afternoon and evening Expo was again a feature celebration for all SKPS students and parents.

Other cluster school projects were shared with us and our robotics/imovie program was shared with 2 other local schools.

Maths Real Life Learning in Term 4 involved students in designing, building and racing Billy carts, with the help of our parents and the wider community. The CoPP held a fabulous event, the Pram Jam which was very successful.  Four local schools and other community groups participated.

Stage 1 work started on the new Real Life Learning Center development on December 11th. 2006 using locally raised funds.

2007

Our exciting, new open plan learning environment was finished to support our real life learning curriculum and we moved in on the first day of Term 1.

Stage 2 work was started in the last week of Term 1 again with locally raised funds.  This work opened up access to an old canteen which is now a kitchen and multi-purpose space.  Three new toilets, a teachers work station and store room were also completed by the end of the vacation.

Both physical and human resources have been prioritised to ensure higher student outcomes for Year 5/6 are achieved. Four home groups of approx 23 students operate in the new learning space. 

Through Innovations and Excellence funding the Yr 5/6 team were able to meet on a number of occasions in Term 1 to articulate our beliefs and develop our pedagogy around Real Life Learning Curriculum. 

In Term 1 children chose between the following Real Life Learning program areas- Robotics/iMovie, Forensic Science, Art Design and Animation.   Children work on negotiated contracts in these disciplines for 2 full days each week.  For the equivalent of one day, students work on a current events contract assessed through a capacity matrix.  Explicit teaching for Maths and English occurs in ability groups.  Students attend specialist programs (P.E. Japanese, Visual and Performing Art) in home groups.

We have recently been challenged by traditional planning which did not reflect our beliefs when trying to develop a two Year VELS Scope and Sequence Plan based on Inquiry Learning principles.  We consequently went back to what we believe - the importance of student input is vital. As a result we worked with a number of Year 5/6 students to guide our curriculum design into the future. 

We try to:  THINK ‘REAL LIFE’ AND INVOLVE OUR STUDENTS IN EVERYTHING WE DO.

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