Junior School

Burgmann Anglican School is committed to providing an educational environment that challenges and inspires each child to achieve personal potential in intellectual, ethical, aesthetic, emotional, social and physical development. It meets individual and common needs by providing a creative and balanced curriculum which aims to produce excellence with a Christian framework.

The school’s philosophy centres around the belief that children are unique individuals created by God with their own strengths, weaknesses, gifts and needs. The staff endeavours to get to know the children entrusted to their care so that they can successfully meet their needs, provide opportunities to extend their gifts and assist them with their weaknesses.

The curriculum of the Junior School years (Years 2-5) is based on an integrated approach to learning. The integrated areas are SOSE (Studies of Society and the Environment), Health Education, Technology, Science, the Arts and Civics and Citizenship. These are underpinned by a rigorous approach to Literacy and Mathematics and specialists programs in Indonesian, Physical Education, Music and Christian Living.

The classroom programs are differentiated and therefore designed to cater for the individual. Planning is based on the Bloom’s Gardner’s matrix.

Other programs, designed to enhance and support the child’s learning, include:

  • Bounce Back, a program designed to develop resilience, is taught in alternate years;
  • Thinking Skills, a program that develops the child’s ability to think critically and creatively as both an individual and as part of a group, is taught in the alternate years to the Bounce Back program;
  • Enrichment staff use a wholistic approach to support children who are experiencing difficulties;
  • extension work is provided for children who are excelling in a particular area;
  • Numeracy groups provide children the opportunity to work with peers who are at a similar level;
  • Chapel services and Christian Living classes allow children the opportunity to understand and explore Christian values;
  • a violin program is taught to every child in Year 2;
  • music lessons include every child learning the recorder in Year 3;
  • Rock and Water, a program that uses a physical/social approach to increase self confidence, self respect, boundary awareness, self awareness and intuition, is taught in Year 5;
  • Learning Connections, a program designed to support learning and help children realise their potential, is taught explicitly in Year 3 and used throughout the Junior School;
  • students are able to communicate, through the use of webcams and emails, with schools in Indonesia;
  • networked computers in the classroom and the laboratories allow each child to develop ICT skills and access information;
  • the librarian and the classroom teachers work together to develop Information Literacy skills.

“Children are unique individuals created by God”