Recapping 2021 at Larrakeyah Primary School
As the year draws to a close and our students and staff prepare for a well-earned holiday season, we’d like to take a minute to look back on 2021.
The pandemic continues to throw challenges at all of us and our school community has come together to ensure the best for our students.
As always, our focus remains on providing our students with every opportunity to excel academically, develop key life skills, and prepare for their next stage of education and beyond. Providing a safe learning environment is paramount to that goal and we continue to monitor the situation closely and strictly comply with health mandates.
The spirit and dedication of our community; staff, teachers, parents and students, has been inspiring and we should all be proud of what we have accomplished over the past four terms.
Let’s take a look at the year that was.
Starting strong with teacher focus groups
At the start of the year our teachers and school leadership put together focus groups to pool the collective knowledge and experience of our team to develop ideas, strategies and initiatives across four key areas.
- Innovation
- Literacy
- Numeracy
- Data
It’s an uncommon approach in schools; however the ability to create a shared ‘brain-trust’ to advance key areas has been highly successful in generating new and exciting developments – such as the BrightPath initiative.
School Wellbeing and Life Education programs more important now than ever
Early in Term 1, we reported on the wellbeing programs that aim to help our students develop resilience, identify and manage emotions, and create a healthier school environment for all.
In Term 4, we reported on how wellbeing programs are structured and measured, and we’re excited to continue investing in this vital area of development for both students and teachers into next year and beyond.
Emotional wellbeing and physical health go hand-in-hand and the good folks at Life Education visited our school once again in 2021. Healthy Harold’s visit marks a 40 year legacy of helping students understand themselves, their bodies, and how to care for themselves and others.
Outdoor camps went ahead
Learning extends far beyond the classroom and the practical and active experiences offered by school camps are a prime example of that.
Thankfully, school camps were able to continue in 2021 and students thoroughly enjoyed their adventures at the Territory Wildlife Park, Bachelor Outdoor Education Centre and Litchfield National Park.
Again, a big thank you to the staff and parents that volunteer their time and support to make these events possible.
We raised funds through Colour Explosion Fun Run
A day many will remember was the Colour Explosion School Fun Run which aimed to raise $20,000 to help our school invest in new technology.
The event was a complete success and a novel and memorable day of physical activity and fun.
STEAM and QUEST
Our commitment to improving STEAM outcomes has remained strong in 2021. Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Maths goes beyond ‘school subjects’ and focuses on how we can provide unique opportunities for students to problem solve and practice the 4Cs of 21st Century Learning with the support of modern technology.
QUEST is a strong example of our commitment to STEAM outcomes and the range of activities on offer through the program continues to grow.
In fact, the QUEST program has been shortlisted for the 2022 International School Awards in the ‘Pathways to COntinued and University Education’ category.
We explored other cultures with Mulan
When you can bring together shared cultural experiences, movement, dance and storytelling it creates an amazing experience for the whole school community.
Together with the support of teachers, parents and our partnership with the Confucius Institute our students put on an amazing performance for Mulan at the Darwin Entertainment Centre.
New partnerships extend learning across time and space
To prepare our students for their future working careers we understand the importance of broadening their horizons beyond our own borders. The ability to speak with, understand, and collaborate within other cultures is only going to become more important.
This year we undertook two projects with our partners at Repton International School in Malaysia and The Bay Academy in Shenzhen, China.
Both projects centre on creating shared cultural experiences between students at each school. Using the connected technologies now available to us, students at each school are able to meet each other and work together on specific projects to learn more about the other’s culture, art, and way of life.
