Curriculum
Digital Technologies
Educational technology, thoughtfully and appropriately applied, enhances the learning experiences of all students. Our teaching staff leverage technology to facilitate high quality teaching and learning, to fully engage students. Today’s digitally aware students are shaped by the learning conducted within both the real and digital realms. We allow our students to confidently develop their information and communication technology skills by supporting students to engage with digital learning tools throughout their primary education.
Students at Mt Eliza Primary School have access to a variety of technologies and access to a number of coding programs and robotics hardware such as Scratch, Bee-Bots and LEGO Robotics. Classrooms are equipped with digital boards/screens and wireless network access. Students in Prep to Year 4 have access to class sets of iPads/tablets/laptops as part of their learning. In 2023, our Year 5 students began the roll out of our new BYOD Laptop program. A fully equipped computer lab is also available for student use as part of the Library Resource Centre.
In the global environment, now more than ever, technology is enabling significant changes in teaching and learning, and equipping students with new skills. Students need proficiency in digital, visual, informational, and textual literacy while critical thinking and creative problem solving remain essential in cooperative and collaborative learning environments.
Seesaw, our Learning Management System, provides students with a dynamic platform from which to access learning resources and to effectively collaborate and communicate with teachers, peers and parents. The availability of new and improved technologies provides increasingly greater opportunities to support more personalised approaches to teaching and learning. Students also have access to digital learning tools such as Mathseeds, Reading Eggs, Mathletics, Literacy Pro and Essential Assessment.
Through information literacy, Cyber Safety sessions and a focus on appropriate research skills, students are guided to develop a responsible digital footprint. They learn skills in how to navigate the ever-changing digital landscape in order to critically discern authentic details from the overwhelming amount of information available.
2024 Year 5 BYOD Program
Following considerable research into the device that will allow our students to access the very best programs for learning, we will be continuing with our Laptop BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) program for students in Year 5 in 2024. In order to teach the 21st century skills necessary for future work, we need to provide the most effective and current devices.
As part of our BYOD laptop program in 2024, parents may choose to purchase either one of the models provided by Learning with Technologies (LWT) through their portal or provide their own laptop. Please note the requirements below.
At the beginning of Term 1 2024, the school will connect the devices to the school’s Wi-Fi and provide instructions on how to install any required software. Students will be provided access to Microsoft Office 365 through the DET account; parents will not have to pay extra for this.
2024 MEPS BYOD Parent Resources
Purchasing through the Learning with Technologies (LWT) Portal
Families can access the Mt Eliza Primary School LWT Portal page via the following web address: https://meps.orderportal.com.au/
- LWT have different payment options available
- If there is a warranty issue with the device, LWT will come to the school to fix it.
- LWT offers families the opportunity to purchase accessories, such as a protective case.
- Laptops will be delivered to the family home. Please order at your earliest convenience to ensure that the device is delivered in time for the beginning of the school year. See the portal for delivery timeframes.
Providing Own Laptop
If providing your own laptop in 2024, please note the following specifications:
- Type: Notebook with inbuilt keyboard
- Operating System: Windows 10 (not Windows 10S)
- Processor: Celeron (Pentium or better is preferred)
- RAM: 4gb
- Hard Drive: 128gb or larger solid-state drive
- Battery: 8-hour battery life
- Screen: 11.6”-13.3”
- Resolution min 1368 x 768
- Camera: Web cam
Recommendations
Irrespective of the device, it is highly recommended that all devices are brought to school with their own protective case and that you have adequate insurance for any mishap that may occur.
School Wide Digital Learning Policies
As a school, we have a Digital Learning Acceptable Usage policy which identifies the ways in which support our families. This policy provides clear guidelines on how students are supported to be responsible when using a range of devices at school. It also provides a clear set of consequences when these guidelines are not followed by students. Mt Eliza Primary School is an accredited eSmart school and has a partnership with the Cyber Safety Project.
Indonesian
Selamat Datang (Welcome)
Learning languages opens minds to differences where diversity is seen as a regular part of society. The study of languages and cultures is valued as a unique and integral part of the curriculum, enriching personal development and helping to facilitate international-mindedness. At Mt Eliza Primary School, the Indonesian LOTE program focuses on language and cultural learning with a key emphasis on speaking and listening in the early year levels. The Indonesian classroom provides a colourful learning environment where students engage in a variety of interactive activities including games, singing, role-play, puzzles and storytelling.
Learning to communicate in another language challenges children to discover more about how other people live, and opens their mind to different cultures and ways of life. This program has the added benefit of not only teaching students a second language and culture, but equally important, providing an opportunity for students to practise higher order thinking skills in a meaningful context. Learning another language fosters students’ ability to think and reflect about the workings of language and to develop mental flexibility and problem-solving strategies. It also increases opportunities to enhance academic abilities and brain development and strengthen overall literacy.
Across Victorian schools, Indonesian is one of the most widely offered languages, with one in four Government primary schools and one in three secondary colleges offering Indonesian.
Oz Harvest – FEAST Program
In 2009, Mt Eliza Primary School became an early adopter of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, embracing the Foundation’s philosophy of ‘Growing, Harvesting, Preparing and Sharing.’ Over the years, this program has provided our students with the capability and experience to grow their own foods and the skills and desire to create healthy and delicious meals from fresh seasonal produce.
With an end to our Stephanie Alexander funding in 2020, we sought to develop a purpose-built MEPS Kitchen Garden program at Years 3 and 4 that could be embedded in the curriculum and address the interests and needs of the specific cohorts. Hence, our Years 3 and 4 Kitchen Garden program was designed, led by our classroom teachers and assisted by our helpful community volunteers. In 2022, this program will expand to incorporate the OzHarvest Program, inspiring children to eat healthily, waste less and become change-makers in their local community. Like any good FEAST, it’s designed to be fun, engaging and filled with good food!
The Program is a holistic approach to learning in a safe and unpressured environment. Core curriculum subjects such as mathematics, science, reading and comprehension are naturally occurring in kitchen and garden ‘classroom.’ The positive nature of the program gives every child the opportunity to shine and results in students developing new confidence, skills and independence. In many cases this translates in positive changes at home too. The students are very proud of the delicious meals that they create and many previous dislikes become likes as a result! Children develop an understanding and appreciation of sustainability, healthy food choices and their origins, and learn how it impacts directly on both their short and long term health.
Volunteers are integral to the success of all classes and parent and community participation is welcomed in the kitchen and garden. We actively seek and encourage community partnerships to help support us and we look forward to hearing from any business wishing to become involved with the OzHarvest FEAST Program.
Literacy
Your child’s exposure to language began in utero and all of the experiences in infancy – recognising sounds, talking together, reading books and singing – provided for them the framework on which to develop their own theories around how to communicate and how literacy works. Throughout their schooling, students share their theories and combine these with more formal concepts of literacy, particularly in reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Our implementation of a systematic and structured phonics-based approach is aimed at benefiting all areas of literacy, with a particular focus on spelling. This involves explicit instruction in phonics, spelling rules and morphology (or word meanings). This approach is inspired by the Multisensory Structured Language approach (otherwise known as MSL) and it requires students to practise and apply skills and knowledge in multiple ways – using visual (sight), auditory (hearing) and kinaesthetic (touch/movement) cues – to aid memory and learning.
We are seeing significant results in the children’s spelling knowledge and application using this approach and parents will be partners in this, as we ask families to reinforce literacy at home.
At Mt Eliza Primary School, English is taught both explicitly within literacy sessions as well as through authentic contexts integrated across all curriculum areas. Our program acknowledges the language profile of individuals and builds on previous learning in ways that are positive and productive.
Our English program follows the Victorian Curriculum, which is underpinned by the belief that language development helps create confident communicators, imaginative thinkers and ethical and informed citizens. It is organised around the three Language Modes: Reading and Viewing; Writing; and Speaking and Listening.
The English curriculum aims to ensure that students:
- learn to listen to, read, view, speak, write, create and reflect on increasingly complex and sophisticated spoken, written and multimodal texts across a growing range of contexts with accuracy, fluency and purpose
- appreciate, enjoy and use the English language in all its variations and develop a sense of its richness and power to evoke feelings, convey information, form ideas, facilitate interaction with others, entertain, persuade and argue
- understand how Standard Australian English works in its spoken and written forms and in combination with non-linguistic forms of communication to create meaning; and
- develop interest and skills in inquiring into the aesthetic aspects of texts, and develop an informed appreciation of literature.
More specifically, students are exposed to rich literature and use a variety of strategies, such as the Daily CAFE system as a way to maximise student understanding of the four key components of successful reading through the use of the CAFE Menu. CAFE is an acronym for Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expand Vocabulary.
This is backed up by the use of VOICES, an acronym used to highlight the six traits of writing and the writing skills students need to learn to become proficient writers in conjunction with aspects of the Seven Steps Writing approach.
Learning Diversity
We ensure that students’ learning requirements are identified and catered for. Our expert teachers differentiate the curriculum to reflect the needs, strengths and interests of their cohorts. A differentiated classroom is a flexible and dynamic context for learning. The mode of teaching is varied to provide the most effective learning for students. Sometimes it will involve the whole class and sometimes small groups or individual students. Across the school, student grouping is flexible, depending on the goal for learning.
We acknowledge that some students will require adjustments that extend and enrich their learning. Some will require considerable support and others may require targeted support or systematic teaching to enable their engagement, learning and achievement.
Support
There may be times when a student requires additional support, beyond the scope of a differentiated classroom, to help them develop the skills and confidence required to tackle a broad range of tasks. Student support may be offered by either in-class assistance or through specific intervention delivered by expert teachers, tutors and/or learning assistants. Support ranges from personal organisation and behaviour management, to identified literacy, numeracy and language difficulties/disabilities, and/or additional aspects depending on developmental need.
Extension and Enrichment
Mt Eliza Primary School recognises that all students deserve to have their academic needs met. The school aims to provide quality whole school enrichment for students of all ability levels through varied and rigorous classroom and co-curricular experiences. Some experiences offered are:
- Australasian Problem Solving Mathematical Olympiad
- The Mathematical Association of Victoria, Maths Talent Quest
- Science Victoria, Science Talent Search
- Victorian High Abilities Program (VHAP)
- Chess Club
- High Ability Maths Tutoring Program
- High Ability Literature Group
- Writing Competitions
Performing Arts – Music, Dance & Drama
A specialist Performing Arts teacher facilitates weekly lessons for all classes, focussing on the significant knowledge, understanding and skills unique to each discipline. The lessons also support students to identify and appreciate the commonalities between the Arts.
The Performing Arts Program at Mt Eliza Primary School is designed to enhance student understanding and enjoyment of the three areas of the Performing Arts – Music, Dance and Drama. This is accomplished by building fundamental skills during The Early Years; including performance and audience skills, and by enhancing students’ awareness of the diversity of music, dance and drama available to them.
Students at all levels experience Performing Arts through games, theory and practice. They sing, play instruments, listen and respond, move, create, perform and also learn about Performing Arts from other times and other cultures.
In Years 3 – 6, we continue to build upon the fundamental skills and incorporate more formal study of music literacy (how to read and write music), dance and drama. Students in Years 3 and 4 build their music literacy skills whilst learning to play the recorder and students in Year 5 learn to play the ukulele. They continue to develop their dance and drama skills, refining each art form.
Mt Eliza Primary School stages a whole school concert, including a senior school production, every second year that involves every student in the school. These high quality productions are performed in front of an audience of over 1500 people over two nights at the Frankston Arts Centre. Most importantly, every student in our school gets the opportunity to put on full costume and make-up and be a part of this incredible event.
Numeracy
Mathematics is viewed as a global language through which we make sense of the world. The teaching of Mathematics reflects the stages a learner goes through when developing understanding; constructing meaning, transferring meaning into symbols and applying with understanding.
Our Mathematics program follows the Victorian Curriculum, which focuses on developing increasingly sophisticated and refined mathematical understanding, fluency, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. These proficiencies enable students to respond to familiar and unfamiliar situations by employing mathematical strategies to make informed decisions and solve problems efficiently.
The Mathematics curriculum is organised by the three strands of Number and Algebra, Measurement and Geometry, and Statistics and Probability and it aims to ensure that students:
- develop useful mathematical and numeracy skills for everyday life, work and as active and critical citizens in a technological world
- see connections and apply mathematical concepts, skills and processes to pose and solve problems in mathematics and in other disciplines and contexts
- acquire specialist knowledge and skills in mathematics that provide for further study in the discipline
- appreciate mathematics as a discipline – its history, ideas, problems and applications, aesthetics and philosophy.
It is exciting to see Mathematics approached in consistent ways throughout our school. The 8 Key Factors have been developed as a result of whole school research into what makes a difference in the teaching and learning of Mathematics.
The 8 Key Factors are;
- Teach Mathematics as a Language: Talk about Mathematics using Mathematical Vocabulary
- Teachers understand and focus on the ‘Big Ideas’
- Teach Mathematical concepts using Children’s Literature and ‘Real Life’ Mathematics
- Topic based approach: Approximately 3 to 6 weeks per topic (eg; Addition)
- Pre and Post-Test Topics to ensure students are taught concepts that meet their individual needs
- Teach Automatic Response
- Teach the 9 Problem Solving Strategies using the MEPS Problem Solving process
- Student Reflections and Evaluation
Mathematics at home
Use some of the questions below to ask your child/ren how the 8 key Factors are being implemented in their classroom.
-Have you read a picture story book in a Maths lesson? What was it about?
-What Maths words have you learnt?
-What Maths topic are you learning about at the moment?
-Are you working on a Maths Investigation? If so, what is it about?
-What strategies do you use for solving addition, multiplication, subtraction or division problems?
Physical Education
At Mt Eliza Primary School, every student is given the opportunity and encouragement to achieve their potential in a wide range of physical activities. The Physical Education program is designed to provide positive physical activity experiences that support the development of healthy, active children. All students from Prep to Year 6 take part in one session a week with a specialist physical education teacher. Prep to Year 2 students focus on developing a strong understanding of the core fundamental movement skills and applying these in structured activities and games. In Years 3 to 6, students begin to transfer these skills into more complex, sports-specific environments.
The Physical Education curriculum is informed by the Victorian Curriculum, and promotes the attributes required for students to become positive and inclusive members of sporting communities.
RRRR
Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) is a government initiative that supports schools to promote and model respect, positive attitudes and behaviours. Respectful Relationships is about embedding a culture of respect and equality across our entire community, from our classrooms to staffrooms, sporting fields, fetes and social events. This approach leads to positive impacts on student’s academic outcomes, their mental health, classroom behaviour, and relationships between teachers and students.
STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
The acronym, STEM, stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. STEM education is far more than just sticking those subject titles together. It’s a philosophy of education that embraces teaching skills and subjects in a way that resembles real life.
The learning and doing of STEM helps develop technical skills and prepare students for a workforce where success results not just from what one knows, but what one is able to do with that knowledge. Thus, a strong STEM education is becoming increasingly recognised as a key driver of opportunity. Jobs in the real world are interdisciplinary; at MEPS, we are educating children in how subjects integrate and work together.
Through our inquiry units, children develop diverse skill sets and a passion for exploration. Our STEM approach aligns with the way children’s minds learn and work from a very early age. We encourage our students to be curious questioners, to explore and to play – to engage deeply in their learning which, research shows, plays a crucial role in how children are then able to think critically, evaluate information, and apply knowledge, research and skills to solve real life problems.
At MEPS, our learning program provides opportunities for children to have practical and relevant STEM precepts embedded throughout their educational experiences.
Visual Art
All students participate in weekly Visual Arts classes facilitated by a specialist teacher. The Visual Arts program follows the Victorian Curriculum guidelines and is grounded in the belief that the visual arts has the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich the lives of students, encouraging them to reach their creative and intellectual potential by igniting informed, imaginative and innovative thinking.
Within the program students are exposed to a broad range of experiences that illustrate the field of visual arts, including architecture, ceramics, collage, costume design, drawing, graphic design, film, illustration, industrial design, installation, jewellery, land art, mask making, metalwork, painting, papermaking, performance art, photography, printmaking, sculpture, set design, textiles and woodwork.
Students begin to appreciate the depth and breadth of the field by experiencing visual arts created by diverse artists—locally and globally, now and in the past, by women and men, and by people of different backgrounds. Learning in the Visual Arts helps students to develop understanding of world culture and their responsibilities as global citizens.
The artworks produced by our talented students are celebrated and displayed around the school and in our classrooms.