Educational Excellence

McAuley Community School has taken the Australian Maths and English Curriculum and uses them in alignment with the National Literacy and Numeracy Learning Continuums. These are deliberately designed to be viewed as a continuum of learning.

We have identified the Core Maths and English learning concepts in each of these continuums. Core learning concepts are defined as the foundational and functional building blocks that learners require mastery over to support success in life. With this focus on mastery, Core concepts have rigorous assessment processes set by the school to ensure learners are making progress.

The educators use this Core learning to effectively develop a learner’s Literacy and Numeracy. The educators in the Learning Neighbourhoods develop their Core Maths and English learning program around the needs of each learner for their year level.

McAuley’s Specialist learning plays a very important role in learners’ development and is offered to provide a wide range of real-world experiences and connections, so they develop valuable life skills and broaden their life experience in each learning area of Art/Design, Music, PE, Italian and Japanese.

This creates a range of engaging, challenging and fun learning experiences that:

• connect learners to a wide range of experiences that help them explore and build on their dreams, curiosities, and interests in each of these curriculum areas;
• learn real-world working skills in each curriculum area; and
• build a range of quality skills that enable learners to perform, make, create, and design in each area.

As learners move through this program, they go from engaging in broad classroom experiences to have increasingly more choice over their experiences as they develop. This aligns with their growing skill development and understanding of themselves as a learner. 

McAuley Community School is committed to inclusion and valuing differences. We meet the needs of individuals by taking positive action, so that each learner has an equal opportunity to be successful.

This does not mean we treat all learners in the same way. We take account of their varied life experiences and learning needs and make appropriate adjustments in our teaching and support.

The following principles inform and guide our practice so that each learner is successful and has a sense of belonging:

• the needs of each learner are recognised, understood and addressed;
• learners have access to appropriate support;
• learners with identified additional needs are supported to access learning activities specifically related to their Personalised Plan for Learning (PPL), which is formally revised each term with parents;
• professional development activities help educators to respond positively to diversity amongst learners; and
• pastoral and behaviour support policies are linked to curriculum development and learning support policies.

At McAuley Community School Inquiry-based learning is an interdisciplinary whole-school approach to develop in-depth understanding and critical and creative thinking.

Units of Inquiry are designed to connect learning areas and key capabilities and trigger a learner’s curiosity and actively engage them in their own learning. A Unit of Inquiry focuses on a key concept or big idea and assists them to:

• develop their own questions to guide research
• explore current issues and interests
• develop connected learning
• understand content and communicate it effectively
• reflect on what they have learned.

Inquiry-based learning is used to develop a learner’s understanding of STEM - a term used to refer to a transdisciplinary approach to science, technology, engineering and mathematics that increases a learner’s interest in STEM-related fields and improves their problem solving and critical analysis skills. At McAuley, learners have access to programs and initiatives such as digital technologies, robotics, coding and environmental sciences to develop these skills.

See here for further information about McAuley Community School’s Yearly Learning Planner and Inquiry Framework.

More information about the Living, Learning, Leading Framework can be found here.

At McAuley Community School, assessment is designed for equity and excellence:

• as a tool for gathering evidence about learning and to inform improvement;
• to provide information about where learners are in their learning and their depth of understanding;
• to develop and demonstrate learners’ knowledge, understanding, skills and capabilities; and
• to report growth, achievement and progress effectively to parents.

The information educators collect about learning is used in their planning and teaching. Educators meet to ensure consistency in judgements and that learners are attaining expected standards.

At McAuley Community School, we report regularly with parents about the learning progress of their children as part of the connection between home and the school. The reporting occurs through:

• regular communication with parents about their child’s learning
• parent learning conversations at the end of Terms 1 and 3
• formal reporting on each learner’s progress at the end of Terms 2 and 4
• end of term community celebration and showcase of learning