LAKES ENTRANCE PRIMARY SCHOOLCASE STUDY | snapshot June 2021 |
Lakes Entrance Primary is a government school situated in regional Victoria. They have approximately 233 students and the class structure consists of Prep as a straight class and composite classes (1/2,3/4 and 5/6) for the remainder of the school. Lakes Entrance Primary School has a dedicated STEM specialist teacher. Digital Technologies is taught within the STEM classes, sometimes in the form of stand alone topics and other times integrated into the Science or Design and Technology curricula. These classes operate from Foundation to Year 6 on a weekly basis. The Digital Technologies curriculum has been reported on for 3 years. Over the course of this time, digital devices have increased in the STEM room. There is a dedicated STEM trolley that has a bank of 1:1 Chromebooks. 3-6 classes have access to 1:1 iPads. DigiTech tools include Bee-Bots, Merge Cubes, micro:bits (including inventor kit) and Dash bots. Common software used to teach the Digital Technologies Curriculum includes Scratch, Code.org and Grok Learning. Our biggest success Lakes Entrance Primary School secured a large grant to support the implementation of the Digital Technologies Curriculum. This grant enabled the purchase of new equipment to support development and growth of the STEM program. The school has developed a selection of additional programs - Girls STEM Club, Minecraft Club, eSports Club. These programs have been well received by the students. The biggest success is building on enthusiasm for critical thinking and independent learning, using the Google Workspace tools as a foundation. Our biggest challenge Shifting the mindset of the students to grow their confidence to explore and problem solve independently. This generation is fed so much instant feedback, critique and judgement through social media and technology. They are a generation moving away from Teacher-led to Student-led but with hesitation. The biggest challenge is to embrace a “give it a go” attitude or using resources at their fingertips or around them to solve problems independently. |
CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION In lieu of standard year level overviews, the following documents summarise learning taking place in each year level band.
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GOING FORWARD What we identified for development Formally implementing the Digital Technologies Curriculum further and across all year levels.3 things we would avoid or do differently
| INPUT FROM DLTV and ACS NOTE: This advice is relevant to this school snapshot as at June 2021, with documents provided at that time. starting out > building practices > consolidating practices Lakes Entrance Primary school has been in a period of exploration and investigation of STEM and Digital Technologies-related tools, resources and learning approaches. A passionate and enthusiastic STEM leader among the staff has been instrumental in students engaging positively with technology. So far, students have been exposed to an excellent range of tools and resources, both in classes and in extracurricular clubs and groups; a Girls STEM club, Minecraft club and eSports club, as well as STEM-related competitions. An important next step is to begin grounding and connecting the learning with content descriptors and achievement standards from the Digital Technologies curriculum F-6. A scope and sequence will help to ensure that an appropriate range of skills and knowledge is being addressed at each Year Level band, especially in the areas of digital systems, data collection and data analysis. * Note that feedback provided to the school is directed only at the documents that were provided at the time. There may be other concepts and topics taught at a different time. |
CONTACT School contact: Maria Etheridge, STEM Specialist Phone: (03) 5155 1812 (school office) Email: lakes.entrance.ps@education.vic.gov.au, subject line: ‘Attention: Maria Ethridge: DT Implementation’ |
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