In the development of the Annual School Improvement Plan, the focus for all members of the school community identified the will for students at the school to perform at and above the National Mean across the Curriculum, with specific targets established to achieve this goal within the life of this plan.
In further developing the role of our students in mapping the journey towards this goal is the place of the CSPS Learning Commission.
Following the lead of schools within both ‘The Harris Federation’ and ‘Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP)’, central to the success of these models is a clear and rigorous process to engage the entire school community in framing the competencies we value, identifying specific benefits to our learners and teachers through the co-creation of practical enquiry and research (staff and students), a clear sense of the entitlements for every learner, teacher and the role of the curriculum in providing the opportunity to develop our core competencies and finally, a clear and defined ‘CSPS Design for Learning’. This will ensure that senior leaders are held responsible and accountable for realising the entitlements and that improvement plans and priorities draw on this framework for developing outstanding learning and teaching
CSPS understands the importance through ongoing partnerships with the NT Music School (BEAT), Tennis Australia, AFL NT and the Royal Australian Air Force; Casuarina Street Primary School understands the importance of collaborating with others to amplify success. As a school who have also experienced great success through a systematic and consistent School Wide Positive Behaviour Systems Approach, the role of the Learning Commission would be to connect a range of existing partner schools in the Katherine region with the importance of this work; connecting leaders with NT and Australia wide expertise, empowering our student leaders to connect with schools across the Territory and challenging the way we work to optimise our delivery to prioritise the competencies we recognise are critical to the success of our students.
Principals and Teachers from 16 schools in Katherine and Darwin including: Casuarina Street Primary School, Clyde Fenton Primary School, Katherine School of the Air, Katherine South Primary School and Macfarlane Primary School, Katherine High School, Manyallaluk School and Ngukurr School came together to establish a ‘Learning Commission’ for the Katherine and Darwin regions Learning About Learning NTLC 2017.
The Commission leaders worked together to establish the intended Role, Purpose and Legacy of the work and planned for the next steps to come and the engagement, voice and agency of Student Commissioners to co-design and learn alongside school leaders to collectively realise these aspirations.
The Northern Territory Learning Commission is an ambitious initiative designed to build an improvement in student engagement, motivation and learning across the region. It is about empowering young people and adults to work in partnership towards a key goal, to discover and share what it means to make learning both highly engaging and effective and to connect ideas and investigation to provide support and motivation for others who are seeking to support their students to meet their incredible potential.
The Casuarina Street Primary School Choir is made up of students from years 4, 5 and 6. We come together each week for 90 minutes to sing and learn about music. The choir performs at many events throughout the year including Katherine and Darwin BEATS, school assemblies, Community Christmas Carols to name a few.
Students learn how to sing as a group, sing in two parts, listen to each other and to soloist singers and learn how to work together in a fun and enjoyable environment.
The school choir is supported by the NT Music school by having a teacher assisting at each choir session.
Science Technology Engineering, Arts and Maths
Students in STEAM sessions develop confidence in designing and building solar cars with support from a visit from the solar car challenge team. We have worked with New England University on collecting data on ants within our school. We have participated in engineering competitions and celebrated Science Week with an inter-school competition at Katherine High School. Throughout the year we have continued to code, fly drones and prepare students for now and the future world. We have introduced The Arts in 2020, this will include Art, Digital Media and Drama.
Work to update and complete the CSPS Whole School Curriculum and Assessment Plan (WSCAP) occurs each year, developing the use of Year Level Plans to build integrated units across the school linking English, Mathematics and Australian Curriculum content in Science, History, Geography, Health and Physical Education across a two yearly cycle (Years A and B).
Personalised Learning Plans (PLP’s) are put in place for all students, with explicit personal targets that are developed with students and families, including regular opportunities to reflect on progress and reset targets across the year. All teaching staff participate in a number of cross- school moderation opportunities of both writing and reading judgements as well as building a complete resource of recommended texts to support the delivery of English units of work from T‑6.
Progressive Achievement Tests (PAT) for Mathematics and Reading are implemented across the school from T‑6 with these results available to students, teachers and parents. These are also included in PLP’s.Two members of staff participate in NAPLAN marking panel training each year and complete a role as assessors for student writing in Darwin, working with others at CSPS following this to deepen and improve our use of Success Criteria.CSPS maintains Specialist Teaching Teams to deliver units linking Australian Curriculum Science, Maths and English, with Health and Physical Education and The Arts also included in subject specialism within this team.
CSPS implements a whole-school approach to ‘Assessment of Student Competencies’ for the analysis of data in Early Years for trends, and in identifying ‘at risk’ students; with particular links to a Regional Data Literacy Coach to achieve this.
Personalised Learning Plans (PLP’s) are put in place for all students to include explicit targets for Numeracy established from our baseline data.
Envision Maths materials were introduced and embedded across the school to support teacher delivery of Mental/Oral starters, Sharing Learning Intentions, Teaching concepts linked to the Achievement Standard across Years T‑6, differentiated learning opportunities and reflection on achievement of the stated Learning Intention.
All members of the CSPS team have participated in ‘Visible Learning’ with leaders and experts from the Cognition Education Team. This work has been further reinforced by a ‘Statement of Intent’ which is used in planning within teams across years the school. Key elements of a personalised learning approach were established in Years 3 – 6 including: Communication Board, Class Meetings, Clinics, Educational Research Projects (ERPs) and Expos.
A Visible Learning Team is established across the school with Impact Coaches identified to support work undertaken in line with this program, participating in ongoing and high quality professional development with the Visible Learning team during the year. GradeXpert which is a data management system is implemented across CSPS locating and utilising student growth data for use in PLP conversations, Student Conferences and Assessment/Reporting requirements.
