Curriculum in a Catholic school aims to challenge learners to explore and consider deep questions, and big ideas. These questions centre around key issues, enabling learners to interpret and make meaning of their lives, the world and their social contexts as well as their religious traditions, responding with openness and empathy to others. This integration of life, culture and faith, in today’s globalised context is understood to be at the heart of the meaning-making process.”Horizons of Hope Curriculum in a Catholic School, Catholic Education Melbourne 2016
Discovery – Grade P-2
Discovery is a play based learning program that integrates areas of the Victorian Curriculum (listed below) with a focus on oral language and inter-personal skills. Each interaction that our students have within their discovery time is planned and purposeful, including opportutnities for students to interact with print and apply skills from other areas of the curriculum.
Investigations – Grade 3-6
Investigations involve the integration of the following Victorian Curriculum areas to help the learner to make sense of themselves and the world they live in.
- Science
- History
- Civics & Citizenship
- Geography
- Economics & Business
- Health & Physical Education
- Design & Technologies
- Capabilities
These curriculum areas are combined over a 2-year cycle into the following topics:
Year A Sustainability
Explores the following:
- Scientists seek to improve their understanding and explanations of the natural world
- Earth is a diverse planet, home to a huge range of living organisms.
- Living things depend on a healthy environment to survive
- Earth is subject to change over time
- Earth is one part of a larger cosmos
Year A Innovation
Explores the following:
- How technologies play a crucial role in enriching and transforming societies.
- Design and systems thinking and design processes to investigate ideas, generate and refine ideas, plan and manage, produce and evaluate designed solutions.
- Needs and wants and recognise that choices need to be made when allocating resources.
- The role of consumerism drives design and innovation and calls for people to collaborate and become entrepreneurs.
- Identifying problems and creating solutions
Year A Traditions and Change
Explores the following:
- Australia’s development as a nation within the Asia-Pacific region.
- Significant people, events, movements and developments from the past have brought change and shaped the present in Australia
- Personal and family histories
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their history, their identity, and the continuing contribution and value of their culture
Year A Healthy & Active
Explores the following:
- Health information to make healthy, safe and active choices.
- Their own personal identity and environments and factors that influence their own and others’ health, safety and wellbeing.
- A sense of community and ownership of their personal health choices and the possible effects of these choices.
Year B Discovery
Explores the following:
- scientific discoveries and how they influence our understanding of the world
- scientific discoveries that have lead to improvements and advancements in our world
- physical, chemical and technological processes that explain the behaviour of material things
- use the scientific inquiry method to conduct experiments, collect data and hypothesise
- explore forces and their effects on other materials
- features and functions of materials
- historical and cultural contributions to science
Year B Environment
Explores the following:
- Environmental characteristics of a place over short to long time periods.
- places in which we live are created, changed and managed by people.
- effects of change on the environment – natural disasters, climate change, decisions and actions of people and organisations
- locations and how they are used and managed
- the environment supports and enriches life e.g. food, resources, habitats
- different environments have different characteristics and hazards
- people and places are interconnected in a variety of ways
- cause and effect of environmental and human processes e.g. water cycle, environmental changes
- sustainability: the capacity of the environment to support life in the future
Year B Traditions & Change
Explores the following:
- Australia’s development as a nation within the Asia-Pacific region.
- Significant people, events, movements and developments from the past have brought change and shaped the present.
- Cause and effect implications of historical events.
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, their identity, and the continuing contribution and value of their culture.
Year B Citizenship
Explores the following:
- shared values of Australian citizenship
- the diversity of Australia as a multicultural and multi-faith society and factors that shape identity.
- roles within the community
- democratic values such as freedom, equality, responsibility, accountability, respect, tolerance and inclusion
- laws, rules and rights of Australian citizens
- Australian democracy, forms of Government and the electoral system
