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Photo by John Waller

Term 2 Programme of Inquiry and Passion Projects

John Waller —

This is certainly not the circumstances I thought I would be writing the Term 2 overview under at the beginning of the year but the Stanley Bay teachers and students are making the most of the situation and keeping our learning journey moving forward.

The whole school inquiry focus for Term 2 is Science. We do a science inquiry every year and I am sure many of you can remember some of the amazing science learning that came out of Term 2 last year. This year the focus of the inquiry is different but the science skills will be the same allowing the students to build on and develop the scientific attitudes they worked on last year.

Junior School - Our year 0s, 1s and 2s will be looking at the central idea of: ‘Life on earth is vast and varied’

Through the lines of inquiry they will be looking at:

  • The requirements of life

  • Habitats

  • Grouping and classifying

Spending a little time whilst in your bubble discussing these words with your child will be of real benefit to them when they start talking about them at school. A quick youtube search will find you a whole host of videos you can look at to open their eyes to the extent of life on earth.

For reading, they will be working on decoding and early comprehension skills (always dependent on specific groups needs). Writing will link to the Inquiry, recording ideas using drawings and simple planning templates. They will also be recording known sounds and words, forming sentences with basic punctuation and exploring different text types. For maths, the strand focus will be measurement and number is new learning and reinforcement across all the aspects; addition and subtraction, multiplication and division and ratio and proportions. PE will be cross country and large and small ball skills.

Middle School - Years 3 and 4 will be looking at the central idea of: ‘Life on earth is vast and varied but shares common processes’

They will be expanding their understanding by looking into the lines of inquiry

  • Life is suited to environmental change

  • Classification systems

  • Adaptation

Spend some time in your bubble discussing what these words mean - Vast, Varied, Life, Change, Environmental, Adaptation - an understanding of this vocabulary will be really helpful when they return to class.

For reading, the year 3 and 4 students will be asking and answering questions, identifying features of texts and Visualising, decoding and reading fluently. In their writing, students will develop knowledge of sentence structures and punctuation, they will be planning their writing using various tools and they will be developing a sense of purpose in their writing; showing 'writer’s voice' and an awareness that they are writing for an audience. For maths, the strand focus will be geometry and they will start the term concentrating on multiplication and division. The students will have a science focus to their maths as they practice observational drawing skills of living things and they will begin cross country training in PE.

Senior School - Years 5 and 6 will be looking at science through a slightly different lens as they inquire into the central idea: ‘The Earth and its resources are what we call our planet’

They will follow the lines of inquiry

  • The Water Cycle

  • The Solar System

  • Physical phenomena

Ask your child to find a definition of the keywords. Can they draw a picture that demonstrates what they already know about these ideas?

In reading, the students will be inferencing, finding information from a text and synthesising and summarising. In writing, the classes will focus on communicating knowledge and understanding using text features and planning a piece of writing. In maths, the strand focus will be measurement and in number, they will be looking at a range of strategies for solving multiplication and division problems. The art focus will be painting techniques in rooms 9 and 10 and sculpture in room 7. All the senior students will be focused on invasion games and building cardiovascular fitness in PE.

At Stanley Bay, we base all our learning on an Inquiry Model. Educational experts agree that learning through inquiry has many benefits for the learner. One of the key benefits of inquiry-based learning is that it encourages the development of skills and attitudes. The modern world is an information-saturated environment. The recall of key pieces of knowledge is no longer the most important factor of any educational institute. The ability to find knowledge when needed, share that knowledge with someone else and to do something innovative and creative with that learning are far more important and an inquiry-based model of learning promotes all of these.

Stanley Bay's inquiry model follows the steps detailed below;

Ignite - Students during this phase need to get excited about the topic - teachers will find ways to get students interested and the student has the responsibility to be enthusiastic and curious

Explore - During this phase the student will be exposed to the breadth and depth of the inquiry focus - this is where the central idea and the lines of inquiry shown above will be broken down and explored

Collect - In the collect phase of the inquiry process students will gain new knowledge and understanding - for younger students, this will be very much teacher-led but as children mature and move up the school this will also take some independent elements - research!

Understand - Having gained and developed some kind of new learning or knowledge it is important to take time out and understand it. Teachers during this phase will support the students in synthesising new learning - at a basic level, this means putting it into their own words.

Create - Students need to be given the opportunity to do something with their new learning. Creativity is becoming more and more valuable in the real world and this part of the inquiry process helps students to develop it. For older students, this normally takes the form of a ‘Summative Task’ and they have the opportunity to share this with the community at the end of the term.

An inquiry project can be small or large. Teachers may follow the process during the course of a reading or maths lesson but equally, it could be a larger body of work spanning the course of a term. If during your time in the bubble you and your child are looking for something else to sink your teeth into you might want to consider a passion or talent project. A passion or a talent project is an opportunity for anyone to learn more about a topic they are interested in, talented at or passionate about. You can use the Stanley Bay Inquiry Process to help plan what to do.

If you think undertaking a passion Project is something your child might be interested in this link is a document that aligns key actions to the stages of the inquiry process