Connected Curriculum
At Allendale Primary School, we know that our students learn best when the teaching and learning program is carefully curated to connect content across different learning areas, where applicable. We believe that every minute at school counts, and where possible integrating knowledge-building curriculum content into our English block saves valuable time in our timetable and allows our students to have more quality opportunities to engage with the learning. We know that when our students have repeated exposure to the consistent content across different contexts/learning areas for a prolonged period of time they are more likely to transfer this learning to their long-term memory.
Our Connected Curriculum Document has been developed to inform our teachers what curriculum content to teach and when to teach it. It has been developed to display all of the learning areas taught by classroom teachers (English, Maths, HASS and Health) on one page of the document and then those taught by our specialist teachers (Technologies, The Arts, Physical Education, Languages and Science) on the opposite page. This document allows all teachers of all classes to see the learning happening each term for those students and to make meaningful connections where possible.
The Knowledge Project
Our school has partnered with Serpentine Primary School and others to create “The Knowledge Project Coalition“. The Knowledge Coalition is a collaborative project where the purpose is to address the ‘knowledge gap’, an often-neglected issue identified by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (and more recently, Natalie Wexler) as a critical factor in the achievement gap. Hirsch explains the significance of building world knowledge for achieving social equity, emphasising the power of a robust knowledge foundation to empower students, particularly those in low-income communities.
Throughout their primary years, students delve into a diverse array of topics, including ancient civilisations, modern history, politics, and Greek mythology. These rich knowledge units are intended to equip students with a broad understanding of the world, enabling them to draw upon this knowledge when engaging with complex texts and topics in High School and beyond.
Within our Connected Curriculum, students from PP to Year 6 engage in x2 Knowledge Units per term for 5 weeks each. In PP- Yr 2, the units are Literature-Based Knowledge Units where the units have a curriculum content focus (to HASS, Science, Technologies or Health) but are based around high quality picture books. In our Year 3-6 classes, each term will generally have one Knowledge Unit which is curriculum focussed (usually a connection to HASS) and one unit which is a Novel Study (linked to Language Arts). Where possible, the novel is chosen as it has age appropriate themes with links to the curriculum or Aboriginal Perspectives.