The Victorian Curriculum F–10 sets out what every student should learn during their first eleven years of schooling. The curriculum is the common set of knowledge and skills required by students for life-long learning, social development and active and informed citizenship.

Our curriculum is also devised to cater for the many different needs of students, particularly with literacy and numeracy.

English

We believe highly developed literacy skills have never been as important as they are today and as crucial to our planet’s welfare. We are always striving to deliver a Literacy program that is tailored to each student’s current needs and abilities. Language skills are explicitly taught and developed within our Units of Inquiry and in real life contexts. Our students learn language, learn about language and learn through language.

Students have many opportunities available to share what they have learned with other students, families and in wider community contexts. Students enjoy expressing their ideas in plays, debates, storytelling and poetry readings. Digital resources are used to creatively publish written work and perform presentations in visual mediums.

Students discuss and explain their learning with their peers and families in forums such as open mornings, student led conferences, three way conferences, assemblies and community events.

Literacy Support

Each year, students from various year levels who may be experiencing difficulty learning to read and write, are selected for a series of Literacy Intervention sessions. The Literacy Intervention enables children to be given small group oral language support to become active and independent readers and writers, better able to join in the daily literacy activities of the classroom. One of the key ways in which students are selected is through our early assessment and data collection which is shared within our collaborative planning times with classroom teachers and our Literacy Learning Specialist.

Mathematics

The implementation of a concept based approach to the teaching and learning of Mathematics empowers our students to make connections between ideas, facts and processes; encouraging flexible thinking and risk taking when working mathematically.

Through our personalised program, students take ownership of their learning as they inquire into the number system and its operations, patterns and functions. Children are assessed at each stage of their learning and their understanding made explicitly clear to them. Goals are set in partnership with the teacher and strategies and methods for developing their understanding of the unknown forms the basis of their learning in class.

Focus groups are key to developing these strategies and for helping the student make further connections with teacher support and guidance.

‍Learner Agency
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The aim is to make our Mathematics program enjoyable and relevant to our students interests and capabilities, providing them with tools and strategies for inquiring into the goals they are aspiring to achieve.

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‍Problem solving/ other areas of maths

‍We encourage our students to be problem finders and problem solvers; as such we run dedicated sessions whereby students apply their skills and understanding to the Problem Solving Process. At Dingley we aim to develop, in our students, a comprehensive understanding of Mathematics; assisting them to organise and make sense of their world and establish the skills necessary for bright and productive futures.

Numeracy Support

Similar to our Literacy Intervention Support, students who need extra support are identified early each year through rigorous assessment and moderation by our classroom teachers and Numeracy Learning Specialist within collaborative team meetings. This data is collated and shared with our Numeracy Intervention Support Leader who works with selected students to help solidify the foundation skills required in Numeracy. Small group sessions occur twice a week involving hands on, explicit teaching and exploration of the basic number facts to support the learners needs in each group.