Our curriculum framework is organised into whole
school, year level and unit plans. Our teachers work collaboratively to plan and
implement quality units of work, which are responsive to our school
environment, learners’ needs, learning goals and content and year level
achievement standards as defined by the Australian Curriculum. The Australian
and Queensland curriculum documents are critically examined to build a primary
curriculum that is locally relevant to our student cohorts and are sequenced to
build deeper understandings through continuity and progression of learning
across the primary years.
Our
curriculum is dynamic
and responds to student needs and current educational agendas. Teachers plan the implementation of curriculum together
and monitor its effectiveness. The process is coordinated by our Head of
Curriculum who maintains a whole school view, monitors student learning and
supports teachers as they adopt new syllabus materials and teaching strategies.
We constantly shape and redefine curriculum units using the Australian
Curriculum and the Queensland Curriculum to Classroom (C2C) unit plans.
We are committed to a
collaborative approach to the planning of units of work. Teachers
are released from class each term, under the guidance of the Head of
Curriculum, to collate appropriate content and strategies to be offered
to students. This process ensures quality focused teaching and learning
is occurring in every classroom and that technology is woven into each unit in
effective, meaningful and supported ways.
We ask each teacher to
reflect on each unit of work and assess its effectiveness, relevance and degree
of enjoyment for the learner. Teachers reflect on what they learned about
themselves as teachers, on what worked well and what did not. During this
process they consider the implications for the next unit of work.
Decisions about what and
how to teach are based on the core curriculum entitlement and what we know
about our students and what they need to learn.
We seek ways to make
learning opportunities link to the world outside the school environment.
To do this we select ideas that will appeal to our students, and have
applications in real life experiences. Wherever possible we make
connections between subject areas and if we need to go outside the school
environment for the best learning opportunity, we do so. We provide
choice and develop individual student programs where necessary so that we can
maximise learning outcomes for every student.
Assessment and reporting
The purpose of assessment
Assessment is a tool to improve students learning and
is used to gather evidence to make reliable and consistent judgments about
students learning and reporting this to parents.
Teachers use a range of formative and summative
assessment processes to inform teaching and learning and provide students with
opportunities to demonstrate new skills and knowledge learnt.
We use assessments that are designed to meet three
main purposes:
- Assessment
for learning – This is monitoring and diagnostic assessments. These are used at
the start of units of work and during the unit. They are designed to monitor
and identify areas for target teaching to support student’s’ progress to meet
learning expectations.
- Assessment
as learning – This includes self-reflection and self-tracking so students can
monitor their own progress and achievement of learning goals. Ongoing feedback
and clear expectations through learning goals, and criteria sheets, and the
ability to track these goals, enable students to reflect on and monitor their
progress.
- Assessment
of learning – This assists teachers at the end of a unit or set of learning
experiences to gather evidence of student knowledge, understanding and skills
as described in the year level curriculum. This is our summative assessment.
Moderation
Student progress through units of work there are key
assessment tasks that:
- Are collaboratively developed
in term planning sessions.
- Are sometimes adopted or
adapted from C2C assessments.
- Enable students to demonstrate
a depth of knowledge, understanding and skills from each learning area.
- Can include more than one
Learning Area to create richer tasks.
- Are marked on a 5 point scales.
- Assess what has been taught.
-
Often include a criteria sheet
or guide to making judgments to support teachers to make standard-based
decisions about student work. Teacher’s award students an overall grade by
identifying the evidence for each assessment element on the guide.
Ensuring Consistency
of teacher judgement
Consistency of
teacher judgement relies upon consistent interpretation of assessment tasks and
the criteria sheets.
To ensure this,
Mooloolaba State School:
- Allocates time for Year Levels to implement the
calibration processes for key tasks to support consistency of judgements.
- Uses Year Level moderation meetings to moderate
samples of work from each class.