Learning

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We believe that at the heart of effective personal growth and development (which is synonymous with behaviour education/ management in the school setting) the building of caring and supportive relationships among students, teachers, parents and caregivers is essential.

With this in mind, our behaviour education policy is designed to support students to develop both the capacity and the willingness to take personal responsibility for their actions and behaviour. This involves making sure that our expectations of students are clearly stated to all concerned as well as working closely with parents, caregivers and students to solve issues if and when they arise.

The Five Keys to Success are tools we use for assisting this process, they are as follows:

  • Getting Along key (yellow),
  • Confidence key (red),
  • Persistence key (blue),
  • Organisation key (green),
  • Resilience key (purple).

There are also five rules that apply to both the classroom and the yard; since we belong to a Christian community where we strive to follow Jesus' example we all need to:

  1. Be peacemakers;
  2. Respect ourselves, others and our environment;
  3. Co-operate and work together;
  4. Keep hands off, feet off;
  5. Stay within the boundaries.

Our Commitment to Learning

At St John the Apostle Parish School, staff and students are encouraged to be committed to lifelong learning that is relevant, enriched and passionate, and which uses the best of learning energies for everybody.

This supports the understanding that learning is an individual, as well as a shared experience and that ultimately, the need for learning is the whole reason 'school' as we now know it came into existence.

Learning to be Literate: Learning to Read; Reading to Learn

Reading

At St John the Apostle School we know that reading comprehension is critical to student success at school and beyond. Reading forms a significant part of all student learning and impacts every curriculum area. Over the past 3 years there has been a major focus on professional learning about the most powerful teaching and learning practices to support reading success. This process is ongoing as more research about the science of reading unfolds. Current research identifies 6 criteria for reading success:

  • Oral language
  • Phonemic awareness
  • Phonics
  • Vocabulary
  • Fluency
  • Comprehension

These reading behaviours are not used or learned in isolation and are explicitly taught in R-6. They are also essential skills for students to develop as writers and spellers. Read on to discover the key programs we use across the school to develop the literacies of our learners and to maintain consistency across all year levels.