A strong focus on Early Years Literacy including:
Reading
Writing
Speaking & Listening
· Show and tell
· Sharing work
A strong focus on Early Years Numeracy including:
Specialised Subjects
In the middle years (Grade 3-5) at Mortlake College we focus on extending and consolidating the skills learned in the junior years. We promote independence, responsibility, organisation, resilience and cooperation as key values to success. Students also participate in a weekly session called ‘Positive Education’ where they learn strategies and skills related to understanding and regulating emotions, how to develop respectful relationships and looking after our own health and wellbeing. Student wellbeing is an integral part of student learning and of upmost importance.
Our Literacy curriculum consists of daily ‘Sounds Write’ (phonics) sessions, the explicit reading instruction to the whole class followed by small group guided reading sessions. Our writing sessions have a strong VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers, Punctuation) methodology. Reading in Grade 3-5 is centred around developing skills that will help with the comprehension of text such as predicting, connecting, questioning, clarifying, inferring, determining main idea and author’s purpose etc. We use a balance of independent and co-operative tasks as well as the use of hands on activities and games to make learning engaging.
In Numeracy, students are provided with opportunities to be hands on, investigate, work independently and in small groups to further develop their mathematic knowledge. We begin our sessions by practising the fluency of instant recall of number facts followed by explicit instruction and then activities and reflection time. The activities are open-ended or differentiated to cater for the range of abilities within the classroom so extending or enabling prompts are provided. We promote student’s ability to articulate the range of strategies they use to solve problems.
Discovery learning (inquiry-based) which covers the Humanities and Science curriculum allows the Grade 3-5 students an opportunity to explore a range of topics and develop new knowledge, team work, project work and presenting skills.
SAKG (Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden) program is a very popular weekly lesson which the students look forward to. Students are involved in cooking a meal for themselves to eat consisting of 4 different recipes. They use vegetables from the garden which they plant, maintain and harvest from.
The Grade 3-5 students get the opportunity to attend a 3-day school camp and also experience a number of excursions throughout the year. Students also participate in the Bike Education program and there are a number of other extra-curricular activities for the students to be involved in Eg/ Lego Club.
Students have a Chromebook which the use of is strongly integrated throughout all areas of the curriculum but we also have a weekly digital technology session where we learn new technical skills including Cybersafety.
Our specialist classes include P.E (x2), Music, Drama and L.O.T.E (Aboriginal Language).
In Year 6 at Mortlake College students have the opportunity to consolidate the skills they learnt in primary school whilst getting a taste of a range of secondary subjects.
English
Students participate in eight periods of English per week. Our English program focuses on the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Mathematics
Students participate in six periods of maths per week. Our maths program is based around the areas of number and algebra, measurement and geometry and statistics and probability.
Electives
Students participate in a wide variety of elective subjects including Food Technology, Woodwork, Visual and Performing Arts, Science and P.E/Health Education. This takes advantage of our F-12 learning environment and resources. It provides the opportunity for a smoother transition into secondary education.
