Teaching and learning

At Our Lady Help of Christians Parish School, we present a diverse, interesting and comprehensive curriculum.

We build a culture of learning based on a partnership between students, teachers and families. The teaching and learning reflects our commitment to the development of each individual child, spiritually, socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually.

We support families in the care and education of their children, within our Catholic Parish School and our wider community, by providing stimulating, challenging and contemporary teaching and learning experiences. We affirm and celebrate the academic and social contributions, efforts and achievements of our students in a variety of ways across the many settings in which learning takes place at our school.

Our learning programs help to build the foundations for an inquiring mind and a commitment to good citizenship.
We foster a classroom culture of thinking: the ability to reason; to make good judgements; to evaluate information critically and to solve problems creatively.

At Our Lady Help of Christians we plan student learning programs, assess student progress and report to our parents according on the essential learnings from the prescribed content and common achievement standards set out in the Victorian Curriculum.

Our Lady Help of Christians provides a balanced approach to learning and teaching that sees students engaged in explicit instruction in core learning areas of Literacy and Mathematics as well as explicit and exploratory learning in subjects such as Religious education, History and Geography, Science and Technology, Civics and Citizenship and Economics and Business. At OLHC it is important to us that students build knowledge and understandings AND skills and dispositions they can apply to learning, and to life.

We utilise resources from evidence and research based providers such as Inquisitive and when planning for learning. Beginning with hooking into students' wonder and experiences, and progressing from surface to deeper learning, with skills and competencies built sequentially in an age and stage appropriate manner.

Currently our staff are engaged in professional learning in explicit instruction and phonics as part of a structured literacy based approach to teaching reading and Literacy.

‘There is an overwhelming body of research supporting an explicit, sequential approach to teaching reading and literacy, of which phonics is an integral part, as the most effective method.’ - Tom Sexton - Director, Catholic Education Ballarat

Specialist Program

Students at Our Lady are supported to learn in all areas, and opportunities to build skills in specialist learning areas such as the Arts, Information and Communication Technologies, Sustainability, Physical Education and Health are provided.

We are fortunate to have extensive grounds in which students can learn, play and explore, including a footy oval, cricket nets, basketball courts and a Gaga Pit.

We also have purpose built library and technology spaces, visual arts room, and music/dance/drama room.

All students engage in weekly specialist learning classes.

AUSLAN

At Our Lady Help of Christians School, children in Foundation to Year 6 participate in Teachers as Co Learners Auslan classes each week.

The Languages curriculum aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to ensure that students:

  • communicate in the language they are learning
  • understand the relationship between language, culture and learning
  • develop intercultural capabilities
  • understand themselves as

The Communicating and Understanding Strands are intimately linked. Communicating in a language other than English allows learners to reflect on language as a system and gain cultural insight. In turn, Intercultural knowledge and language awareness can provide cultural guidelines for effective communication.

Communicating in a language other than English, students learn the knowledge, skills and behaviours relevant to the specific language being studied.

INCURSIONS, EXCURSIONS and CAMPS

Students at Our Lady Help of Christians engage in a wide variety of additional learning opportunities. These include cultural, sporting, social justice and community engagement incursions and excursions.

There is a strong camp program at OLHC that begins in Foundation with an after school picnic towards the end of the school year, continues with a long stay afternoon in Grade One, a special event for Grades 2, a one night, two day camp in Grade 3/4, and culminates in a two night, three day camp for Grade 5/6 students.