St Paul's Lutheran Primary School follows a comprehensive assessment cycle across all year levels. This assessment data is critical to guiding the teachers and informing the planning and programming.
Formal reports are issued via Parent Lounge to parents at the end of Terms 2 and 4. These comply with the Federal requirements. Seesaw is used to share learning and receive parent response.
Students in the senior grades may also participate in the University of New South Wales ICAS testing program in Writing, Spelling, Maths, English, Computing and Science.
The school uses various strategies and tools to assess the progress of its students. Each student in Years 3 and 5 undertakes the national benchmark testing program NAPLAN. The results are passed on to parents and are also used by the school to gauge individual progress and the success of our programs.
Japanese
こんにちは Konnichiwa,
Welcome to our St Paul’s Lutheran Primary School Japanese webpage. By gaining an appreciation of another culture and language we learn to understand our own language more fully. Research has shown that learning other languages assists children to develop flexible and creative thought patterns. With this in mind, all students Prep to Year 6 are introduced to an activity-based Japanese program.
On this webpage you will find an outline of the topics being covered throughout the year and on Parent Lounge you will find links to fun lessons, songs and activities.
さようならSayounara、
Harding Sensei
Junior Japanese Overview
| TERM 1 | TERM 2 | TERM 3 | TERM 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prep | Introduction to Japan Family (Counting) | Number 1-10 Momotaro (The Peach Boy) | Animals and colour | The Very Hungry Caterpillar |
| Year 1 | Body Parts | Number count and write 1-20 Birthdays/ age | Weather Seasons | Transport |
| Year 2 | Greetings, gestures, self-introductions | Revise numbers 1-20 Continue to numbers 21-100 Time O'clock | Shapes Revise colours | Folk Tale Kintaro/ Adjectives to describe characters |
| Year 3 | Japanese Symbols/ culture comparison with Australia | Numbers 1-100 Months | Food, likes and dislikes Particle ga, ka | Days of the Week Kanji |
Senior Japanese Overview
| TERM 1 | TERM 2 | TERM 3 | TERM 4 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year 4 | “Yuki desu ka” • Weather • Full Sentences • Sapporo Snow Festival | “Fashion Trends” • Clothing • Colours • Green Day | “Animal Kingdom” • Animals • Habitats • Adjectives & simple describing sentences • Sea Day | “Pokemon” • Body Parts • In-depth animal descriptions • Pokemon Movie |
| Year 5 | “Kurabu Katsudou” • Hobbies • Adjectives • Japanese Club Activities | “Japan at Leisure” • Leisure activities • Time words • I do … • Hanami • Golden Week (Koinobori) • Karaoke | “Where is it? Pt. 1” • Directions • Town places • Prepositions • Town Places in Japan | “Where is it? Pt. 2” • Directions • Prepositions • “Exist” verb - Describing what shops are/ aren’t in a town • Japanese Towns |
| Year 6 | “Japanese Stories and Legends Pt. 1” • Common verbs • Verb tenses • Particles • Story Telling • Japanese Folk Stories | “Japanese Stories and Legends Pt. 2” • Common verbs • Verb tenses • Particles • Story Telling • Sumo, Samurai, Ninja | “Pop Culture” • Media Types and Genres • Free Time • Likes / Dislikes • Japanese Contributions to Pop Culture | “Japanese Inventions” • Years • Particles • Presenting in Japanese • Japanese Art of Chindougu • Movie: The Wind Rises |
Arts @ St Paul's provides opportunities for your child to actively engage in a wide variety of music and drama experiences, with three diverse pathways for students to explore.
Along with classroom music and drama lessons, we offer specialised music tuition, performance ensembles, a Year 3 String Immersion Program, clubs, whole-school events and after-school programs. Students also interact with guest artists in music and drama workshops and incursions.
We trust that your child will enjoy their experience in the program and embark on a creative journey that leads to a lifelong love of performing arts.
Physical Education
Health and Physical Education teaches students how to enhance their own and others’ health, safety, wellbeing and physical activity participation in varied and changing contexts.
In Health and Physical Education, students develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to strengthen their sense of self, and build and manage satisfying relationships. The curriculum helps them to be resilient, and to make decisions and take actions to promote their health, safety and physical activity participation. As students mature, they develop and use critical inquiry skills to research and analyse the knowledge of the field and to understand the influences on their own and others’ health, safety and wellbeing. They also learn to use resources for the benefit of themselves and for the communities with which they identify and to which they belong.
St Paul’s Lutheran Primary School continues to offer numerous practical activities, as well as theoretical learning opportunities for its students:
Students develop skills, self-efficacy and dispositions to advocate for, and positively influence, their own and others’ health and wellbeing during practical and theoretical units throughout the year.
Each class attends a weekly Physical Education lesson with Kathryn Mueller, the specialist Sport teacher. These lessons are for a minimum of 40 minutes in duration.
Prep to Year 6 classes participate in swimming lessons.
Annual Athletics, Swimming and Cross-Country carnivals are held. Students with top results are then selected from these carnivals to compete at District and Inter-Lutheran carnivals. The junior school does not, participate in the swimming carnival.
House System
St Paul's has three Houses. These are named after pioneer land owners of the area. Archer (red), Gregor (green) and Jeffreys (blue) engage in house sport at various sports carnivals held each year. Lunch time competitions are sometimes organized by the House Captains. Trophies and shields are awarded to the winning teams.
All students are appointed to a house when they enrol at St Paul's. Younger siblings are placed in the same house of their older brothers and sisters. The school's sport shirts have colour panels in them to distinguish which house a child belongs to. The collar also has the house name printed on it.
House Captains are elected from the Year 6 classes at the start of the school year. They are installed at a special ceremony held in the chapel soon after their appointment. House Captains make up part of the student leadership of the school and are required to set a good example for other students in the school.
Follow this link to obtain some additional interesting history about our sports houses.
Christian education is a compulsory part of our curriculum here at St Paul's Lutheran Primary School. This includes the subject Christian Studies, weekly Chapel (parents are welcome to attend) and "School Sundays". Children also participate in daily class devotions and prayer times.
School Chapel is held for the Junior School (Years Prep to 2) each Wednesday morning at 8.35am, in St Paul's Lutheran Church, which is adjacent to the School Administration building. Senior Chapel (Years 3 to 6) is held at 9.05am on Wednesdays. The Pastor conducts the worship. All parents and family are welcome to attend Chapel at these times.
School Sundays occur when the classes at each grade level combine to lead or participate in Sunday worship at the St Paul's church once a year. People seeking to enrol at St Paul's need to be aware that they are enrolling in a school where children participate in Christian worship and study. The Christian faith and teaching are embedded in many of the practices of the School.
If you would like to know more about the Lutheran Church, we would encourage you to visit the Lutheran Church of Australia website.
eSmart @ St Paul's
What is eSmart?
eSmart is an initiative of The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, a national charity committed to protecting children from violence.
Our work towards achieving eSmart status involved the whole school community. We integrate Cyber Safety into our policies, establishing clear procedures to deal with incidents and delivering curriculum around the smart, safe and responsible use of technology. We take cybersafety seriously.
For further information about the eSmart program, visit the eSmart website at www.esmartschools.org.au.
Our Journey with eSmart
With the introduction of our iPad program in 2014 our school community felt that we needed to be proactive about how we teach and learn about being Cyber Safe.
The eSmart program allows us as at St Paul's to unite the whole school community so that everyone is working towards the safety of our students. This includes not only educating students but also parents and teachers. eSmart has resulted in us focusing on many areas of our school and seeing ways we can improve, including policies, curriculum and community involvement.
In 2016 we achieved accreditation and eSmart status. We will continue to grow as a community and continue to learn together about being safe when online.
Our Cyber Safety Rainbow
Our Cyber Safety Rainbow is used as a basis for all that we do at St Paul's for eSmart. Each colour of the rainbow represents a different area of Cyber Safety.
Red—Inappropriate content
Parents and teachers alike have real concerns about the images and information that is freely available to our children on the internet, this is why we need to ensure students have strategies to know how to avoid this content as well as what to do it they accidently come across this content.
Resources: Managing offensive or illegal content online
Yellow—Computer Security
Computer security includes a variety of things in terms of making sure our computers are safe, as well as, our personal details. Students need to be aware of things like computer viruses, spam emails, and hackers. We need to know what to do to protect our computers from these things.
Resources: Making decisions about your child's online shopping
Blue—Identity Safety
We all want our children to be safe but in today's world this is now part of an online reality. We need to teach children about keeping their personal information safe and not share details with strangers.
Resources: Supporting your child's online social networking
Orange—Cyber Bullying
Just like face-to-face bullying, cyberbullying is a real challenge in our children's lives. Cyberbullying can happen at any time and leave a child feeling safe and alone. We aim to teach children about this so that they can protect themselves.
Resources: Cyberbullying—supporting your child online
Green—Digital Footprint
Everything you post and do online combines to create a person's digital footprint. Therefore children need to be aware that what they are doing online now will be there forever and may affect them in the future.
Resources: Protecting your child's digital reputation
Purple—Excessive Technology Use
We believe that Technology is a great tool for learning and entertainment, however, we also believe that everything in life should be a balance. The American Academy of Paediatrics recommends children be limited to 2 hours of total media time a day, with no media in bedrooms.
Resources: Advice to help manage children's time online
St Paul's has introduced the concept of Flexible/Agile Learning we have begun a transformational journey into developing more agile spaces for the development of the learners future skills. The spaces are aimed at encouraging all students to take greater responsibility of their own learning, and grow their curiosity, creativity, collaboration, communication skills with deeper engagement with learning. Agile Learning Labs have been set up throughout the school to suit developmental needs and skill development. Families are invited to arrange a visit to see first hand how the students are thriving in this exciting environment.
According to a discussion paper released by Independent Schools Queensland (ISQ) educating students to navigate a more complex and globally connected world will require a stronger emphasis on 21st century skills in the Queensland curriculum and a re-casting of education roles to involve students as co-designers of their own learning is a critical component.
ISQ Executive Director David Robertson said the discussion paper argues that whilst Queensland has recently been rightly focused on the overcrowded content of the P-10 Australian Curriculum, there has been limited attention paid to the 21st century general capabilities which include: critical and creative thinking; personal and social capability; ethical understanding; and intercultural understanding.
“The discussion paper argues that these skills, which employers and industry are increasingly identifying as priority skills and traits, deserve overt attention and teaching in ways that engage students by connecting their learning to real world issues.”
DEVELOPING THE FUTURE JOB MARKET
Children in Prep this year will be entering the workforce in 2030, and we need to make sure they have the best chance at picking up the technical skills and personal attributes that will help them succeed.
St Paul's offers both Learning Support and Learning Extension.
- Learning Support assists students and teachers, where there are learning difficulties or disabilities (BOOST Program)
- Learning Extension addresses the needs of Gifted and Talented students (RISE Program).
Learning Enrichment meets our students’ diverse needs through a wide range of exciting learning opportunities. Here are some examples of Learning Enrichment in action:
