At Ocean Reef, our visions and belief help us focus on meeting the needs of each child.
School Vision
Ocean Reef Primary School’s vision is to provide an educational experience for each child that enables them to reach their full potential and equip them to adapt and succeed in their chosen endeavour in a continuously changing world.
Our Beliefs
- Relationships with students and families form the basis for a positive, safe, nurturing and respectful environment catering for the whole child.
- Learning is challenging, engaging, motivating, relevant and provides opportunities for each child to succeed.
- Teaching is explicit and includes effective modelling, differentiation and reflection to improve teaching impact
- Leadership is shared and is focused for students, staff and the community./li>
- Resources are targeted to reflect current research, educational best practice, integrating technology and involving the whole community.
More broadly, the Framework supports that goal that all young Australians become:
- Successful learners
- Confident and creative individuals
- Active and informed citizens.
The key document for us is the Early Years Learning Framework – “Belonging, Being and Becoming”
Fundamental to the Framework is a view of children’s lives as characterised by belonging, being and becoming. From before birth children are connected to family, community, culture and place. Their earliest development and learning takes place through these relationships, particularly within families, who are children’s first and most influential educators. As children participate in everyday life, they develop interests and construct their own identities and understandings of the world.
Building those partnerships, at Ocean Reef, is very important to us; we have worked to make them grow and sustainable over the past four year. The partnerships between the school and home is at the heart of helping you “Belonging, Being and Becoming” part of our school community. As a leadership team, Peter and I have an open door approach, we’re always happy to chat if you see us, give us a ring or send us an email. Our classrooms are open in the morning from 8:30. This is an opportunity for staff to interact with the children and a chance for you to share in some of the learning. We are looking for ways for parents to become involved in the learning processes throughout the day, and more details will follow in the new year.
A key part of the process is communication. All information related to the school is located there, although all day to day communication and information about events is sent via ClassDojo. Their purpose is to provide an easier location where you can find the information that you are after, letters that get lost in the bottom of the bag will be located there, a calendar of events and other key messages. The website also has the most up to date Parent Planner with key dates and events for the term.
Class Dojo is a free app that sits on your smartphone. We are trying to make the classroom and learning ‘visible’. That’s school speak for allowing you to see your child has been learning in class. I hope that this will be something that we can build into the review of communications that the school, with the support of the School Board, is working on. Teachers and the school post messages and reminders to you. You can also use this tool to communicate with the teacher.
In 2019 the school introduced QKR. This app allows you to make payments for school and P&C events really easily. The app is managed through the Commonwealth Bank and Mastercard.
Throughout the year we have some ‘formal’ opportunities for you to find out how your son or daughter is doing. In Term 1 we hold a parent/teaching evening. At the end of Term 2 you will receive a written report and then there is an end of Year report. But, if you have a concern in between please make an appointment to speak to your teacher or send them an email.
The P&C
At Ocean Reef Primary School, we are very lucky to have the ongoing support of a wonderful group of parents that form our P&C. Our school P&C have been very successful in fundraising for school resources and regularly providing support at school events throughout the year.
“At the end of the day, the most overwhelming key to a child’s success is the positive involvement of parents”
The P&C support the school by running many fun events throughout the year. Some of the events are to raise money, others are simply to support us in creating an enjoyable environment for the students.
Over the years, the P&C have supported the school with the purchase of iPads, play equipment, building outdoor play areas and classrooms, additional reading and learning resources, as well as running discos, special lunches and morning teas.
One area that they also support the community is by selling second-hand uniform. Our new shirts last very well and many people donate them to the P&C when their child outgrows them. The P&C has a stall in their room every Friday morning where these items can be bought.
We are very fortunate to have such an amazing auxiliary crew.
Supporting Your Child
As a school we recognised that at different times in their school career, your child may need support. The support may be academic, health or emotional. As part of our school we have a Student At Educational Risk Team, comprising of the Principal, Associate Principal, School Psychologist and Chaplain. We also use our education assistants to provide support when it is necessary. We don’t use a ‘cookie cutter’ approach but rather manage each circumstance to match the needs of the individual. You may find that your teacher contacts you to speak about putting them onto a documented plan; this is not unusual. The plan is just to say, “we’ve noted that your son or daughter needs some additional support, we want to include you in the discussion, this is what we are proposing”. At any point in the year, 20% of our students could be receiving some form of additional support. I know that in the early years, that can often take the form of external support through speech or occupational therapy. Included in your pack is the parent handbook for SAER and, if you have specific concerns please contact the Bridge and we can have a talk to see what plans we can put in place for next year.
Kindergarten Curriculum
The Kindergarten Curriculum Guidelines draw on the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF, Commonwealth of Australia, 2009) to focus on the Kindergarten year in Western Australia. The curriculum is centred on belonging, being and becoming. At Ocean Reef, much of the curriculum is taught through intentional play.
At Ocean Reef much of the curriculum is taught through intentional play. Intentional play differs from free play as the teacher has set up learning activities with a specific learning goal in mind. Sometimes these activities can take place during in the classroom or at recess and lunchtime. The intentional play aim is to develop your child’s social and emotional, cognitive, physical and creative learning, as well as more traditional academic areas.
