At Gympie Central we believe that every student has
the capacity to succeed at school and become healthy, active citizens equipped
with the knowledge, skills and confidence to effectively participate in the
community and economy. This approach will help us realise our vision of turning young children into lifelong learners.
Our school has three clearly defined priorities:
- Reading
- Numeracy
- Writing
These areas are underpinned by a strong focus on
school improvement and achieved through a highly skilled teaching team.
Teachers at Gympie Central State School are equipped with the knowledge and
skills to effectively analyse and interpret student data and then use this to
implement targeted teaching programs which address our students’ learning
needs. The ability of our teachers to effectively navigate student data and
respond to these needs in an engaging and deliberate way, allows us to address
the three school priorities listed above.
Reading programs
Our reading programs provide opportunities for both
extension and intervention where necessary. We focus on our phonics program in
the early years, and this helps our students develop the ability to read for
understanding and comprehension in the upper years. Our Reading Support and
Intervention Program adopts research-based practices that are carefully
sequenced and structured to ensure our students can translate words on a page
(decode) and transform spoken language into written text (encode or spell). The
Reading Advancement and Extension Program provides our students with access to
curriculum experts that will extend and challenge their current skills and
abilities.
Reading support and intervention
Students who are not meeting age appropriate
reading levels are able to access our ‘Reading Support and Intervention Program’.
We use ‘Daily Rapid Reader’ and ‘Reading Links’, which provide tailored one on
one support to ensure students make literacy gains that allow them to more effectively
access the curriculum. For more information please see the ‘Support &
Services’ tab, or arrange to speak with one of our school’s curriculum leaders
or support teachers.
Reading advancement and extension
Students who demonstrate significantly
high reading levels are able to access our ‘Targeted Reading Advancement
Program’. This provides small group, focused tuition to ensure that students
are challenged in meaningful ways, and gain the opportunity to extend their
knowledge and understanding of texts. For more information please see the
‘Support & Services’ tab, or arrange to speak with one of our school’s
curriculum leaders or support teachers.
Numeracy
Gympie Central State School works with a
cluster of other schools in the region forming the Gympie Maths Alliance. This
group draws on regional expertise, and implements current research to
facilitate the 4 strands of the Mathematics curriculum: Understanding, Fluency,
Problem-solving and Reasoning. Schools collaborate to write ‘Show Me’ papers,
which reflect the Australian Curriculum and act as a tool for diagnosing
mathematical misconceptions. From here teachers work with the school’s
curriculum leaders to implement engaging mathematical warm-ups and open ended
tasks. These are designed to build students’ conceptual understanding and
mastery in Mathematics.
As a result of the work we have conducted
with partner schools in the field of Mathematics, Gympie Central State School was
recently inducted as a Showcase Award Regional Winner for excellence.
Writing
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Writing at Gympie Central is based on
the ‘7 Steps to Writing Success’. This is a sequential, explicit writing
program which involves the deliberate teaching of skills essential to
effective writing of all kinds. Like Reading and Mathematics, our teachers carefully
analyse children’s writing ability and skills in order to target their needs
successfully.
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