Students at Milgate Primary School use an Inquiry Based approach towards learning. Within the curriculum domain of English, students are supported through the inquiry process using Milgate’s Inquiry Cycle and Fountas and Pinnell’s comprehensive and systematic literacy design for high-quality instruction. This provides vital learning engagements for students that are differentiated and underpinned by the learning outcomes of the Victorian Curriculum to provide a rich, authentic and meaningful curriculum that meets the needs of today’s new generation of learners. This provides authentic contexts for students to explore language learning through units of inquiry. English is taught through the language modes of Reading and Viewing, Writing and Speaking and Listening. They are interrelated and each mode supports and extends the learning within the other.
READING
Through our units of inquiry, students reading fluency, accuracy and comprehension are developed. During daily Reader’s Workshops, the Milgate Reading Wheel is used as an indispensable instructional tool that reveals the many simultaneous, coordinated thinking activities that go on in a reader’s head. There are three ways of thinking about a text while reading:
Thinking within the text involves efficiently and effectively understanding what’s on the page, the author’s literal message. Thinking beyond the text requires making inferences and putting text ideas together in different ways to construct the text’s meaning. Within the System of Strategic Action of Thinking about the text, readers analyze and critique the author’s craft. Reading is thinking and a student’s talk about what they’ve read is evidence of that thinking.In Thinking about the text, readers analyze and critique the author’s craft. Reading is thinking and a student’s talk about what they’ve read is evidence of that thinking.
Reading instruction at Milgate Primary School is differentiated to meet the individual needs of our students, all student learning engagements are designed thoughtfully through the use of data to inform teaching practices and extend student learning outcomes.
WRITING
Students engage in their learning through a Writer’s Workshop developed in consultation with Matt Glover who is an international literacy consultant, author and educator with over 30 years of experience as both a teacher and principal. Milgate Primary School’s approach to the teaching and learning of Writing promotes students as active participants in their learning. They express themselves through book making and creating texts that are shared within their writing communities and celebrations of their learning celebrated with families and friends.
SPEAKING AND LISTENING
Speaking and Listening is embedded through a transdisciplinary approach at Milgate Primary School where students communicate and develop sophisticated modes for relating and responding to others and the world around them. Students explore and inquire into how individuals and groups use language patterns to develop, create and express their ideas. As they engage in this process students naturally form opinions. They can then express, defend or promote their ideas and points of view through the phases of “...designing, rehearsing and delivering spoken and written presentations and by appropriately selecting and sequencing linguistic and multimodal elements” (IB Primary Years Programme, Language Scope and Sequence). Milgate Primary School provides an inquiry based environment to support, enhance and enrich students ‘inner speech’ (Vygotsky, 1999) to ultimately construct deeper meaning as reflective communicators who can thrive as global citizens.
Our Mathematics program focuses on the areas of:
At Milgate we encourage students to view mathematics as a way of understanding the world around us. We move beyond process driven activities and provide rich, open-ended experiences for students to solve authentic, real-world problems using numbers. Students develop habits that enable them to be risk takers, open-minded and persist through mathematical challenges. Each student is supported at their individual level of need and provided with opportunities to create goals that direct their learning.
MATHS ACTIVE SCHOOL
We are extremely proud to have been awarded the prestigious title as a Maths Association of Victoria (MAV) Maths Active School. There are only a handful of schools within Victoria that have been bestowed with this honour.
This accreditation indicates that Milgate PS is a leading school in Victoria in demonstrating effective learning and teaching practices in Mathematics.
Our accreditation as a Maths Active School indicates that Milgate PS:
Our outstanding student outcomes in mathematics and our state leading results in the MAV Maths Talent Quest are clear indications of our excellent mathematics teaching and learning program. We are extremely proud of our innovative approaches in teaching and learning mathematics and the comprehensive program we offer our students.
Congratulations to our entire learning community on being recognised as a MAV Maths Active School!
For further details please visit the website for The Mathematical Association of Victoria [click on logo below].
MATHS TALENT QUEST (MTQ)
The MTQ is an annual event at Milgate PS. Each class throughout the school has the opportunity to participate by submitting an Individual, Group or Class entry to the competition.
Our students are encouraged to investigate a mathematical problem. They are then required to select a topic, pose questions and to demonstrate their findings using a booklet, model, posters etc.
Submissions are presented to a State level of judging. Prizes are awarded to Group, Individual and Class entries and some entries may qualify for National Awards.
Milgate PS is one of the leading schools nationally in this event. We have groups and individuals who have won both the state and national competitions.
MATHS OLYMPIAD
Selected Year Five and Six students participate in the Australian Primary Schools Mathematical Olympiad. Teams of 30 students participate in five Olympiads throughout the year. Each Olympiad is a series of five problems, challenging team members to work individually to find a solution within the allowed time.
The problems challenge students’ knowledge of Maths and their ability to transfer this knowledge into practical activities. At the conclusion of the Olympiad each student is recognised for their participation, with students who achieve exceptional results receiving special awards of recognition.
