St Francis Xavier College - Berwick Campus

INTRODUCTION

Young people making the transition from primary to secondary schooling have a thirst for the excitement, challenge and “newness” of secondary schooling.

A unique curriculum that addresses many of these philosophical issues and also provides smooth transition for students moving from primary school to secondary school exists at the St Francis Xavier College Berwick Campus.

CURRICULUM

Students come from a wide variety of feeder Primary Schools and bring with them a range of educational experiences. St Francis Xavier College believes in the importance of providing a caring and supportive environment whereby students are gradually inducted into the demands of secondary school life. A team of teachers works co-operatively in course planning, sharing resources and in evaluating learning and teaching practices.

Year 7 students are organised into Core Groups and remain together as a group, studying core subjects including Religious Education, English, Mathematics, LOTE Japanese, Science, Humanities – History and Geography – (one per semester) and Physical Education and Health (PEH) for the whole year. They also study 4 rotation units (one per term) in The Arts which include Painting, Drawing, Drama and Music and 4 similar rotations in Technology covering Food Technology, Textiles, Wood Technology and Information Technology (ICT).

This allows the students to develop skills and gain confidence within a small group of Year 7 classmates. They are able to continue relationships and extend their skills and knowledge in a relatively stable, known environment for a long period of time. It also gives the teachers who teach in cores more time to see a total development both as individuals and as a group over a whole year.

We recognise that choice is of great importance to students and while we also feel that as education specialists there are a number of areas which need to be taught as a continuum, there are other areas where choice is available.

In 2009, Year 8 students will have the opportunity to make some choices within Learning Areas. They will be placed in Core Groups and study Religious Education, English and Mathematics. They will be offered choices in other areas, except LOTE which will be teacher directed groupings based on ability. Underlying this choice is the belief that it will lead to a greater degree of control, responsibility, engagement and therefore ownership by the students over their learning program.

Year 9 students will also be allocated into Core Groups for Religious Education and English. There will also be teacher directed offerings in Mathematics and LOTE and student choice for all other areas of study with the exception of It’s your Money (Economics), which is a compulsory study.

In organising the curriculum, the commonly used ‘Key Learning Areas/Disciplines or Domains’ have been adopted.

The nine Key Learning Areas at St Francis Xavier College are:

Religious Education
English
Mathematics
Humanities (History, Geography, Economics, Civics and Citizenship Education)
Science
Languages Other Than English (LOTE) (Japanese)
Health & Physical Education (Health Education, Personal Development, Physical Education)
Technology (Food, Textiles, Design Wood, Systems Technology, Information Technology)
The Arts (Art, Dance, Drama, Media, Music, Visual Communication)