Learning Innovation

The Enrichment/Extension/Learning Opportunities program endeavours to provide units of work that allow for the development of higher order thinking and/or reasoning skills or have been identified as being more capable academically. The activities undertaken in this program involve the further development of a variety of skills including:

• independent working skills
• research skills
• collaborative skills
• self-regulation
• problem solving skills
• self-confidence
• intrinsic motivation

Selection Process

Students are identified using the following data sources:

• PAT-Reading
• PAT-Maths
• AGAT (ACER General Abilities Test)
• Teacher recommendations and judgements
• Student self-nomination

All students in Years Two to Six complete the PAT R and PAT M adaptive tests and AGAT (ACER General Ability Test) in Term Four of the previous school year.

Current Learning Opportunities throughout the year that students are able to represent the college in;

• Cluedunnit Kids (Law Society of Western Australia)
• Maths Olympiad (APSMO) – Yr 5 & Yr 6
• Maths Games (APSMO) – Yr 5 & Yr 6
• Maths Explorer (APSMO) Yr 3 & Yr 4
• Broome Region Interschool Spelling Bee
• Broome Region Interschool Poetry Slam
• Broome Region Interschool Maths Competition
• Tournament of the Minds (TOMs)
• Write A Book in A Day (WABIAD)
• STEM Science

Intervention – Literacy and Numeracy

St Mary’s College provides a diverse approach to teaching and learning, to cater for all of the unique needs of our students. The intervention programs support the needs of students in the areas of Literacy and Mathematics across all year levels.

The Intervention Team delivers intervention programs to accelerate identified students. Collaboration and communication with classroom teachers is an important part of this process. In accordance with best practice, early intervention is our priority, however, assistance is offered throughout all year levels.

Current programs offered at St Mary’s are:

LanguageLift

LanguageLift is an early intervention program designed to be delivered to a small group of children in years Pre Primary and Year 1 who would benefit from additional support in the development of their oral language skills. Teachers work with small groups of children for using the carefully structured lessons, stories and materials to engage and encourage lots of oral language.

MiniLit

MiniLit is an intensive, effective early literacy intervention program for small groups, offered in Years 1 to 2. It is a synthetic phonics- based program aimed at students finding reading and writing difficult. Within the program, students are taught to identify all 44 sounds in the English language and use the sounds to read and spell with accuracy.

MacqLit

MacqLit is an explicit and systematic reading intervention program for small groups of older low-progress readers. As with MiniLit, it focuses on students recognizing and using the 44 sounds in the English language to read and spell words and builds on learnt skills to break multi-syllabic words apart. It also includes all the key components necessary for effective reading instruction: phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

Levelled Literacy Intervention (LLI)

LLI is an intensive, small-group program for students who are able to use their phonic knowledge to ‘decode’ words but often read slowly and without reading for meaning (comprehension). Within the lessons, Teachers and Education Assistants model fluency for our students, reading a range of quality texts, both fiction and non-fiction, alongside teaching comprehension strategies and questioning during the reading process.  

Learning Leaps

Learning Leaps is in class support that provides an intensive learning program to address the area of need through a Learning Leap. Learning Leaps are evidence informed teaching points that are designed to target the student’s needs through regular ‘hits’ over a short period of time. Very close communication between the classroom teaching team ensures progress and targeted teaching.

EMU – Extending Mathematical Understanding

EMU is a research-based intervention program developed by Dr Ann Gervasoni of Monash University. The aim is to improve children’s knowledge and confidence with mathematics. The program offers a series of intensive small group learning experiences, designed to meet the individual needs of each child who is experiencing difficulty in learning mathematics in the early years and beyond.

Bond Blocks

​Bond Blocks is used to help build a strong foundational number sense. It is a system of over 100 sequenced activities to comprehensively teach Addition and Subtraction, including application to word problems and related algebra. Student work in small groups to revisit lessons to fill the missing links to help students move from concretely counting by ones to abstractly adding with numbers and symbols enhancing mental computations.