St. John Vianney's School promotes a secure, respectful and positive learning environment where students feel confident to take risks and are encouraged and validated as individual learners.
Our school is committed to providing for the individual needs of each student through explicit, targeted and focused teaching, informed by student assessment data.
Through our Inquiry Approach students are challenged to become more aware of, and responsible to the wider community.
Our ongoing programs include:
Specialist Programs
Extra Curricular Programs
Support and Intervention Programs
In addition to our ongoing programs, in 2019 we have the following curriculum initiatives.
“Open Hearts and Open Minds ”
Each year, in addition to our school Vision Statement we have a special school theme. In 2019 this is “Open Hearts and Open Minds ”, as a school community we will conduct a range of activities during 2019 that will reflect this theme
Curriculum Initiatives 2019
Classroom Structure- creation of 2 classes per level:
Enables a greater ability to mix children socially
Enables collaborative planning for teachers
Is supported by the Victorian Curriculum
STEAM
Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics
To be taught in 4 week blocks to each class by Gabbi Davoren
Aim to build knowledge and interest in STEAM
Literature Appreciation/Bookclub
Program for Yr.6 students
Working in small groups, reading the same text, discussing plot, characters, etc
Aim to build interest in reading as a personal pursuit and develop an understanding of the writers craft
You Can Do It Program
Program developed by Psychologist Michael Bernard of the University of Melbourne in the late 1980’s and has been refined continually and used in 5000 Australian schools as well as schools in New Zealand, United States, England, Romania and Greece
It’s a Social Emotional Learning Program for increasing the achievement and Well-Being of children and adolescents
Each class has a lesson per week on an aspect of Well-Being, the lesson is taught by Anna Melia and supported by the classroom teacher
YCDI focuses on 3 types of social/emotional learning that moderate the achievement and well being of young people 1) Learning Dispositions 2) Social Skills 3) Emotional Resilience
Aim to equip the students with skills and behaviours
Literacy and Data Assessment
Introduction of the Benchmark Assessment System to better identify the reading and comprehension skills of students across Prep to Year 6
Program implementation is being led by Emma Strom who is assisting teachers with the implementation phase and will then assist with teaching focus
This program is designed to build the reader’s skills in comprehension not just their ability to read the words.
School Focus Areas
Handwriting & Presentation
In our preparation days at the start of the year, as well as planning curricula for the year we also have professional development topics. One of these topics this year was based on how we can improve the handwriting and presentation skills of our students.
This session was led by an Occupational Therapist, Lara Callaghan, (one of our parents) who gave the staff very valuable input regarding the physical skills required for students to be successful writers, the breakdown of letter formation into motor function and the links between brain function and handwriting. Following this input we, as a school, are placing a greater focus on the handwriting of our students.
Numeracy
This year we are focusing on teaching Numeracy not only in the hour block per day but also across the curriculum. This will enhance the students knowledge of maths vocabulary and problem solving and connect maths to the real world. Students are all learning mathematics through units of work using pre and post assessments to monitor progress.
Religious Education
This year we are part of a collective with St.Louis de Montfort’s and St.Brigid’s schools to look at how the Religious Education curriculum can integrate with inquiry based learning and be developed alongside Catholic Education Melbourne’s, Horizon’s of Hope education framework. This collective will require our Religious Education Leader, Kerry Slater, along with selected members of staff to attend planning and implementation sessions that will hopefully help to give a contemporary face and relevance to our Religious Education Program.
