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At Raywood Primary School, our curriculum is based primarily on the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 which sets out the knowledge and skills every student should learn during their first 11 years of schooling to become lifelong learners. Our implementation of the curriculum aims to promote learning growth for all of our students. At Raywood PS we have a strong commitment and focus on learning in both Literacy and Numeracy and this focus fulfills much of the time in the classroom. Teachers work together to develop high quality teaching and learning programs that support a multi-age learning environment and utilise contemporary approaches within their lessons.

Literacy

Raywood Primary has small class sizes which enables excellent tailoring of instruction in Literacy, allowing teachers and support staff to work more regularly with students at their point of need. Literacy lessons take place each morning and students participate in a two-block which includes both a reading and writing focus. 

For junior students, our school has selected The Little Learner's Love Literacy program as the foundation component of our learning to read program. Students in our junior room participate in rigorous literacy instruction each morning which includes a heavy focus on the development of student's Phonics and Phonological Awareness along with the development of their Oral Language, Vocabulary and Reading Fluency and Comprehension. Celebrating reading is also a focus with lots of great Picture Story Book enjoyment! Learning in our senior classroom centres heaviliy around the use of Picture Story Book mentor texts to explore different genres of texts and to continue to support students growing reading ability. Our school has selected the 6 + 1 traits of writing approach to the teaching of writing and we have seen student enjoyment in writing really develop because of this. Spelling is a focus in both classroom, alongside handwriting.

We have fortnightly visits from the MARC Van library.  Karen, our library teacher, is able to speak with the students about appropriate reading material and also supply another range of books to borrow and take home.

Numeracy

At Raywood PS, Numeracy is taught for at least one hour a day at all year levels. This usually occurs after the recess break to allow Literacy to occur in the morning. Our teachers use a range of assessments and data sets to ensure students are able to receive tailored and individual maths learning.

A variety of approaches are used by teachers and include targeted teaching; skill building games, investigations and technology. Increasingly we are moving towards a more expicit instructional model for the teaching of mathematics at our school. There is a strong emphasis on problem solving and students are given many opportunities to use and apply mathematics in real life situations. Teaching is differentiated to suit student learning needs and our priority is to develop numerate life-long learners who love Maths.

The Mathematics curriculum 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 and see connections and apply mathematical concepts, skills and processes to pose and solve problems in mathematics and in other disciplines and contexts. A focus for staff at Raywood PS is the development of students proficiencies in Maths. This means a student's Understanding, Fluency, Problem Solving and Reasoning as these are fundamental to learning mathematics and working mathematically and are applied across all areas of numeracy.

The Arts

Students attend regular sessions that focus on both Visual Arts and Music. Students experience hands-on activities and learn new skills and techniques that inspire creativity. Some of the activities include drawing, painting, modelling, construction, fabrics and collage. Individual and group projects are completed. There are lots of opportunities within other curriculum areas for our student to make and create pieces of art work that relate directly to our current areas of study. For the teaching of Music, our school utilises The Amplify program, an online program that supports our classroom teachers to deliver contemporary music experiences in the classroom.

Physical Education

Active students and the acquisition of fundamental motor skills is a high priority at our school. Students take part in daily fitness activities as well as special programs such as Swimming & Water Safety, Athletics Sports, Cross Country and a range of Sports via the Sporting Schools Program. 

LOTE - Auslan

Our school has selected Auslan as our Language Other Than English and our students participate in a 30 minute lesson each week in this important curriculum area.

Digital Technologies/STEM/Science

Students participate in STEM learning each week with a dedicated specialist lesson along with integration of this curriculum area across many other areas of school learning. Our tailored program provides engaging, hands-on learning experiences in both the digital and analogue world that connect to real-world problem solving experiences. Through a carefully sequenced program across the primary years, we equip our students with the strong foundations and importantly, the skills needed for future success in STEM.

In addition to classroom learning, we regularly pursue opportunities to expose our students to the wider STEM world. In the past 12 months this has involved excursions to Scienceworks and Quantum Education in Melbourne, the Discovery centre in Bendigo and also participating in the Discovery Centre's outreach science program which involves online science lessons delivered through Zoom.

Sustainability

Raywood PS has a growing commitment to sustainability education, supporting our students to learn and care about the world around them. Students participate in fortnightly sustainability lessons which include everything from being out in the garden, studying local water supplies, researching and designing sustainable community solutions all the way through to cooking in the kitchen which we do regularly through our partnership with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program. 

Our sustainability program is closely linked to the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 and addresses a variety of learning areas in every unit, with a particular focus on scientific hands-on learning at all levels of primary school. We are lucky at Raywood PS to have a developed, student-led garden and also backyard chickens through which to see our sustainable practices in action and for students to implement their own ideas and see how they work out.