Teaching and learning

 

Curriculum

At Myponga Primary School, the majority of the Australian Curriculum is delivered to students by their classroom teacher. We are also able to offer specialized subjects including technologies, the arts, health (including the child protection curriculum) and physical education.
More detailed information about all curriculum areas can be accessed via the link below.

Australian curriculum

As a school, our staff have collaborated to form literacy and numeracy teaching and learning agreements. These are reviewed and modified each year.

Intervention

In every class there is a broad scope of abilities, and classroom teachers gather data and evidence from each individual child to cater for their personal needs. The majority of interventions occur in class on a daily basis, and are determined by the class teacher as new content and skills are introduced and covered.
At Myponga Primary School, we use several individual and small group interventions:

  • Big Ideas in Number
  • Multilit
  • What’s the Buzz
  • Social/emotional enrichment program

Jolly Phonics

At Myponga Primary School, the junior primary classes learn through Jolly Phonics.

What is Jolly Phonics?

Jolly Phonics is a fun and child centred approach to teaching literacy through synthetic phonics. With actions for each of the 42 letter sounds, the multi-sensory method is very motivating for children and teachers, who can see their students achieve. The letter sounds are split into seven groups as shown below.

Letter Sound Order

The sounds are taught in a specific order (not alphabetically). This enables children to begin building words as early as possible.

How does Jolly Phonics work?

Using a synthetic phonics approach, Jolly Phonics teaches children the five key skills for reading and writing. The programme continues through school enabling the teaching of essential grammar, spelling and punctuation skills.

The five skills taught in Jolly Phonics

1. Learning the letter sounds

Children are taught the 42 main letter sounds. This includes alphabet sounds as well as digraphs such as sh, th, ai and ue.

2. Learning letter formation

Using different multi-sensory methods, children learn how to form and write the letters. 

3. Blending
Children are taught how to blend the sounds together to read and write new words.
4. Segmenting
Identifying the sounds in words, listening for the sounds in words gives children the best start for improving spelling.
Tricky words

Tricky words have irregular spellings and children learn these separately