Curriculum Policy

Mary MacKillop Catholic Community Primary School fosters spiritual growth and academic success in an environment that celebrates excellence. The school effectively integrates faith and learning without compromising either.

The school’s goal is to nurture the ‘whole child’ by offering a wide variety of experiences and opportunities. The school maintains a dynamic learning environment that has been purposefully constructed to allow each student to thrive spiritually, academically, socially and physically.

Every aspect of our curriculum is developed and refined to reflect the real needs and interests of our students and first hand experiences are embedded in classroom activities to intrigue, engage and support constructive learning.

While the teaching-learning program provided is innovative and constantly evolving, the educational philosophy of Mary MacKillop places strong emphasis on the basic skills of literacy and numeracy. Strong literacy and numeracy skills enable students to gain further knowledge through research and inquiry based learning.

We believe that all students need to become independent learners who are able to meet all new learning experiences with confidence. The students are encouraged to take responsibility for their own learning, always endeavouring to apply maximum effort to each learning experience.

The classroom teachers are responsible for planning and implementing challenging academic programs with the emphasis on the individual student and meeting their specific needs. Small group activities offer opportunities for children to collaborate, negotiate, question and problem solve, as a means of acquiring and refining their skill base, knowledge and understanding. The inviting and well-resourced classroom environments lend themselves to the facilitation of these cooperative and constructive experiences.

Academically, what we are striving to achieve is:

1. For each student to develop a genuine love of learning; and

2. To teach students how to learn.

Visit the school and you’ll experience a community of young learners who regularly display confidence, creativity, optimism, faithfulness and compassion.

Mary MacKillop provides differentiated programs that are appropriately challenging for all students. Students with different learning needs are accommodated through effective personalised learning facilitated through small group teaching and support, alongside explicit teaching instruction.

Specific learning in relation to emotional and social needs are further supported by access to Social Worker and School Psychologist services.