Curriculum
Our teaching and learning is guided by our philosophy of developing confident, resilient and independent learners.
Literacy And Numeracy
Our Approach to Teaching and Learning
At Blackburn Primary School, our teaching is guided by the Victorian Curriculum and grounded in evidence-based practices. We know that students learn best when new skills are explicitly taught, which is why our classrooms feature high-quality instruction tailored to meet individual student needs.
Our educational philosophy balances direct instruction with the time and space needed for students to practice, explore, and solve problems. Supported by excellent resources and frequent classroom assessment, our expert teachers ensure every child is recognised, supported, and extended to reach their full potential as curious, confident, and resilient learners.
Literacy
Our English curriculum covers Reading, Writing, and Speaking and Listening. From Foundation to Grade 6, we utilise a systematic, evidence-driven approach to ensure students continually build on their skills in a supportive environment.
From their very first year, students are explicitly taught phonics, reading, and writing skills. Because every child arrives with unique needs, our teachers set individualised learning goals to ensure all students are appropriately supported and challenged. Beyond the mechanics of reading and writing, we deeply value creativity. By engaging with rich literature, presenting to peers, and writing for distinct purposes, we aim to develop imaginative thinkers and strong communicators who can both critically consume and create high-quality texts.
Numeracy
Our Mathematics program is designed to develop curious, engaged, and critical-thinking mathematicians. We strongly encourage problem-solving and collaboration to build essential lifelong skills.
Our teaching approach relies on a gradual release of responsibility: Whole Class Focus (I Do), Guided Practice (We Do), and Independent Practice (You Do). Teachers conduct regular checks for understanding to identify misconceptions and guide their next teaching steps. Furthermore, daily retrieval and fluency practices consolidate prior learning, building mathematical confidence and efficiency. As students move towards mastery, they apply their knowledge to rich tasks and investigations, deepening their understanding and making connections in new contexts.
Art
Blackburn Primary School’s Art program strives to celebrate the wonderful creativity of our individual student’s skills and artworks. Throughout the school year, every class from Foundation to Year six enjoys a weekly lesson in the purpose built Art room. We explore elements of art such as line, shape, colour through a variety of activities such as painting, collage, modelling and construction. In Art classes, we do not have right or wrong but personal creative responses and expression using a foundation of learnt skills. The Art program usually makes links with integrated topics in the classroom as well as links with major exhibitions at the National Gallery.
Mandarin
你好 (Hello), everyone! The Mandarin program here at Blackburn Primary School provides a respectful, interesting and interactive language-learning environment for all students. Our goal is to make the language learning experience engaging and enjoyable. Learning a new language can improve children’s cognitive skills as well as enhance empathy through exposure to different cultures. To facilitate this, we run traditional Chinese dance lunchtime sessions, have links with sister schools in Beijing and Nanjing and celebrate Chinese Day across the whole school annually.
Physical Education
The Physical Education program at Blackburn Primary School promotes a healthy and active lifestyle for all students. Fundamental Motor Skills are being developed in the early years (F-2) and then further refined in senior years (3-6). Students are constantly developing physical health as well as an understanding of teamwork, sportsmanship, rules and strategy. Students from Grade 3 onwards have additional opportunities to be actively involved in District Competitions, such as House and Inter School Activities, Elite Sports trials, Tennis, Swimming, Cross Country and Summer & Winter Sports.
Digital Technologies
At Blackburn Primary School, we believe in equipping our students with the knowledge, skills and capabilities they need to thrive in an increasingly digital world. Alongside strong foundations in reading, writing and numeracy, we develop students’ skills in Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, and Digital Technologies.
Digital technology is used purposefully to enhance, rather than replace, high-quality teaching and learning. We recognise that technology is one of many tools available to students and teachers, and its use is carefully considered according to students’ age, developmental needs and learning goals.
From 2027, Blackburn Primary School will operate with a device ratio of approximately 1:3 from Years 1–6, with access and expectations differing across year levels:
- Foundation: students do not routinely use digital devices during their first year of school. Instead, our focus is on developing the essential foundations for learning, including oral language, reading, writing, numeracy, fine and gross motor skills, social skills and learning through hands-on experiences.
- Years 1 and 2: students have limited and purposeful screen time throughout the school day. Students use iPads for short periods, particularly when developing skills and knowledge from the Digital Technologies curriculum.
- Years 3 – 6: students continue to develop their digital capabilities using MacBook Neo devices, with device use limited to a maximum of 90 minutes per school day. Technology is used when it adds genuine value to learning and provides students with opportunities to create, collaborate, communicate and solve problems.
Across the school, digital devices are considered a learning tool, not the learning itself. Students continue to learn through discussion, explicit teaching, reading, writing, hands-on activities, collaboration, physical materials and real-world experiences.
We use platforms including Showbie, Google Classroom and Apple Education tools to support learning, collaboration and communication. These platforms also help us manage devices and digital learning environments safely, securely and responsibly. Each classroom is equipped with an LCD television and Apple TV, allowing teachers to explicitly model learning and enabling students to share, explain and celebrate their work with their peers. Students also develop computational thinking and problem-solving skills through coding and robotics, using age-appropriate digital tools, websites and physical technologies such as Blue-Bots.
Safe and Responsible Use
Blackburn Primary School is proud to be an eSmart school. We are committed to developing a school culture that promotes the safe, smart, responsible and respectful use of technology. Students from Foundation to Year 6 participate in explicit cyber safety and digital citizenship learning. As students’ progress through primary school, they develop an understanding of online privacy, respectful online communication, personal information, digital wellbeing and their digital footprint.
Our goal is for every student to leave Blackburn Primary School not only with strong digital skills, but with the knowledge and judgement to make safe, responsible and informed choices when using technology. Through this balanced approach, we aim to prepare our students for their future while ensuring that strong relationships, foundational skills, creativity, curiosity, collaboration and hands-on learning remain at the heart of their primary school experience.
Music
Blackburn Primary School has a rich and strong history of music. Starting from Foundation, students attend weekly music lessons which are based on the Orff Schulwerk and Kodaly approaches to music education. Engaging and structured music activities combine music, movement, drama and speech appropriate to the student’s age. Students are provided with performance opportunities during class, assemblies and school wide events to continue developing their skills. There are several opportunities across the school available for students to develop their musical talents further, such as the BPS band.
A Culture of Wellbeing
At Blackburn Primary School, student wellbeing and welfare are at the heart of our culture. We explicitly teach skills to enhance emotional understanding and literacy in order to develop our students into resilient young members of the community. Our values are a core part of our teaching philosophy, complimented with the Resilience, Right and Respectful Relationships program as well as Smiling Minds which focuses on building gratitude, empathy, mindfulness, resilience and a growth mindset.
We strive for a culture of respect and equality across our entire school community in all aspects of school life, whether it be in classrooms, the staff room, sporting or social events. We believe that by enabling each student to understand their emotions and feel positive emotions will allow them to lead a healthy lifestyle which will positively affect their academic outcomes and relationships with their peers and teachers. Our staff participate in frequent professional development to support wellbeing of students at Blackburn Primary School.
Support Networks
As a school community we provide access to several external support programs for our students. These include:
- Student Support Services (Psychology, Social Work & Speech)
- A School Wellbeing Officer (two days a week)
- A Mental Health and Wellbeing Leader
- Kids Hope Mentors and Peaceful Kids courses
- A student led peer mediation program
We also maintain strong links with community programs such as the Men’s Shed, The Fathering Project and Breakfast Club. All staff have had professional Learning which has focused on developing a trauma informed classroom approach and applied behaviour support for students, which adds to our calm classroom environment that we foster and enjoy at Blackburn Primary School.
We at Blackburn Primary School also strongly believe that students deserve an opportunity to voice their ideas and opinions of what is important at school, and practice these skills being taught through our wellbeing and inquiry led program. Our Junior School Council works alongside school captains to voice and action ideas which is aimed at making changes to our school that benefit everyone. Junior School Council works in project teams, focusing on different areas of the school, such as sustainability, lunchtime clubs and fundraising. All initiatives are student driven.
In addition to these offerings, we run and facilitate a variety of clubs before and after school and lunchtimes. Some of these clubs include chess club, science club, coding, dance, taekwondo, karate, netball, tennis and soccer, knitting, games.
