At St Mary's College we offer a unitized curriculum for Year Nine and Ten Boys. This curriculum builds on the outcomes of Year Eight and has a more specialized focus. A core curriculum of particular units or choices of units ensures that all boys participate in essential learnings and are extended by study of optional units. After a review of the curriculum, we have changed all units to semester units. This allows greater continuity of teaching and learning and provide better opportunities to further develop student-teacher relationships. It will also allow greater opportunity to explore topics at depth.
The provision of choice and multiple pathways in choice of units remains a feature of this curriculum. The pathways are designed to ensure that all boys are engaged in a core of essential learnings and at the same time to accommodate a variety of interests, needs and future study and work pathways.
This is the result of a long period of reflection, discernment and dedication of the teaching staff and represents our cumulative improvements as a result of experience in offering this curriculum structure. It has been designed so as to provide your sons with a curriculum that meets their needs in an ever-changing world. The reasons for the development of this curriculum are to provide your sons with a curriculum, which is inclusive of all and student centred in the best way that we can. While this has always been our purpose we believe that this structure will allow us to meet the needs of individual students more effectively.
We aim in this structure to:
- Ensure that students undertake studies, which are relevant and suitable in terms of student abilities, readiness and interests.
- Provide opportunities for students to participate in all those learning experiences that we as a community believe are important for them as life-long learners.
- Encourage a partnership among parents, students and staff in planning programs of study so that the individual needs of students may be better accessed.
Our handbook details the units to be offered to your sons in the next two years. It represents an extraordinary achievement in its own right and is a tribute to the creative professionalism of the staff of St Mary’s and their ongoing willingness to reflect on teaching practice and curriculum offerings so as to best meet student needs.
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