Our Primary Years Classes
A Composite Class Structure
Classes
Prep–Year 2 – Wisdom Garden
Year 3– Year 4 – Friends on The Path
Year 5 – Year 6 – Noble Guides
Wisdom Garden
Wisdom Garden is the name given to our Foundation to Year 2 class. Children in this class are given the space and a range of provocations to immerse and discover the world around them and to get to know each other through a child centred program.
Foundation Year Learning Approach
At our school, children learn through a balance of explicit teaching, experiential immersion and purposeful play. Teachers directly teach literacy, numeracy, inquiry, and social skills aligned to the Australian Curriculum. Children then practise, apply, and deepen these skills through practical experiences, investigations, and play.
In the early years, play is not separate from learning – it is how young children make sense of the world. Our experiential approach reflects Buddhist values of mindfulness, compassion, curiosity, connection, and respect for the whole child. We aim to nurture not only academic growth, but also wellbeing, empathy, and joyful learning. In this classroom they will begin the journey of Inquiry based learning as the vehicle for their curiosities, explorations and projects.
Since 2022 we have used a systematic synthetic phonics approach to teach the reading and spelling of words to these year levels. Across their first 3 years of full time school, children in the wisdom garden room will be learning about identifying, consolidating, reading and spelling age appropriate text that can scaffold them into being proficient readers and writers.
Friends on The Path
The Friends on the Path class comprises Years 3-4 students who are nestled in the centre of the school. They are friends guiding younger students on the path of social, emotional and academic progress whilst developing the leadership qualities necessary to progress into the senior years of primary school.
In this class we use the Australian Curriculum that is interwoven with the awareness development of the Australian Dharma Curriculum. This program provides students with the opportunity to engage in social-emotional learning, with whatever may be arising for them, whether it is a positive, negative or a neutral experience. We view our students as capable learners, who with the right tools are able to make wise choices in progressing their education in all facets of their life.
Teaching in the Friends on the Path classroom is supported by a balance of both explicit teaching and Inquiry based learning. Evidence based teaching is informed by assessment and is a cornerstone of their effective learning. Students are also provided with opportunities to use self assessment as a tool for learning which compliments the formative and summative assessment conducted by their teacher. Students are supported to reflect on their learning and set challenging and achievable goals as they move forward. This is achieved at a whole class level and also through one on one conferencing and contributes to the positive learning environment experienced by the students.
Noble Guides
Our Noble Guides class is indicative of the role our Years 5-6 students play in our school and the way in which they are supported to develop leadership skills and become invaluable mentors in our community.
Students take on meaningful responsibilities within the school and the wider community, enabling them to develop specific skill sets that are aligned with our students’ leadership aspirations.They engage in project-based learning where they are challenged to ask questions in thoughtful and provocative ways around an important theme or issue. These questions open up unique directions of inquiry that are led and directed by the students themselves. Students are encouraged to follow their interests and passions as they delve into concepts, tease out real-world implications, and continuously share back and reflect on their learning through supported peer-based feedback processes.
Through project-based learning, our students engage in dynamic forms of problem solving, critical thinking and collaboration. These are all highly relevant skills for engaging with our world through purposeful action. Our curriculum areas are seamlessly integrated, rather than taught as separate components, and it is the teacher’s role to facilitate and assess these rich links across the curriculum.
Our Noble Guides run our school assemblies, take on leadership roles within the Student Action Team, support younger students in the playground and participate in a rites of passage transition from Year 6 to their secondary school education.