Learning and Teaching

At Warranwood Primary School we believe learning and teaching occurs most effectively when strong, positive relationships exist between students and teachers.  Accordingly we have established beginning of the year routines which promote and build relationships both within and beyond the classroom. 

The first few weeks of the year focus on establishing relationships with and between students and teachers, ensuring our classrooms are supportive and well managed.  Students participate in ‘getting to know you' activities and discuss how they want to be treated.  Often words like respected, considered, fairly treated etc are listed.  These words are then explored or ‘unpacked’, providing detailed examples of what these types of behaviours entail and clearly demonstrating to students how to model them.

Our school values opportunities for students across all year levels to interact and develop positive relationships.  Prep and Year 5 students develop a strong buddy relationship with planned activities during the year.  Junior School (Year 1/2) students have a buddy from Middle School (Year 3/4) and enjoy both social and curriculum based activities.  Whole school science and literacy days are held each year and involve students from Prep to 6 grouped together and working cooperatively on experiments and literature or art activities. 

At Warranwood, each double room is well resourced with computers which are used by all students during literacy blocks, maths sessions and for research and communication.  The curriculum is based on Integrated Studies units which are relevant to today’s issues, are interesting to the students and support their learning.  These topics provide the content for the Literacy work we undertake, giving meaning and purpose to classroom activities.  Mathematics tasks may fit well within these units such as working with fractions when cooking pancakes during the Junior School Munch and Crunch topic or collecting data and recording in graphs information such as daily minimum and maximum temperatures during the Rain, Hail and Shine topic. We also teach the skills and processes involved in using Information and Communication Technology effectively. 

Personal and interpersonal skills are a priority and are developed through cooperative group work, involving students in reflecting on their learning and articulating their thinking.

Students visit specialist teachers for Visual Arts, Performing Arts, Japanese and PE and are taken for library sessions in the library by class teachers.  While the needs of all students are well catered for in classrooms, Warranwood also offers additional support and extension programs. We employ a nurse to manage our Health Centre each day and have support staff who visit our school including Speech Pathologist, Educational Guidance Officer, Social Worker and Occupational Therapist.