Academic Excellence

The curriculum at St Bernard’s School is directly aligned with the NSW Board of Studies. Specific outcomes, appropriate for the stage of a student’s development, are targeted as the focus for teaching and learning in each of the Key Learning Areas throughout each term and student progress is assessed against the identified outcomes. Read more about the Key Learning Areas in the pages underneath Teaching and Learning.

At the beginning of each year, curriculum notes are sent home for every grade. These notes provide an overview of the teaching focus in all Key Learning Areas and any other relevant information such as excursions and special events in the grade for the year.

Parents Guide to the new NSW K - 10 Syllabuses

Classroom Support Information 

At St Bernard’s we believe every student can learn. Learning is innate, ongoing and fundamental to being human. Each individual student enters the classroom with a variety of experiences including cultural, emotional, spiritual and social. As educators, it is our role to engage, challenge, affirm and support the growth of the whole child. Next year we will be known as a Dyslexic Friendly School, catering for all needs and delivery high quality programs. Our Classroom Support Team work with the whole class, small groups and/or individual students within the classroom environment to support students’ needs. Please see below a list of Programs that are offered to improve student outcomes and engage our learners.

Choir

The choir is often open to students from Years 2—6 and meet at lunchtime each Wednesday. They have opportunities to perform at events such as Seaside Carnivale and Carols by Candelight. As part of our community service the choir also visit and perform at Retirement Villages.

Excursions

Excursions are an extension of classroom learning and are directly linked to the classroom teaching program. The destination may be varied so that the excursion genuinely supports learning outcomes.

Junior classes (Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2) all participate in a day excursion during the school year.

Year 3   Day excursion to Bingi Dreaming Track.

Year 4   Travel to Canberra for two days and one night.

Year 5   Spend three days and two nights at Birrigai Outdoor School.

Year 6   Spend three days and two nights at Cooba Sport and Recreation Centre.

Kinder Buddies

Kinder and Year 5 students participate in a buddy program. Each kinder child has a Year 5 buddy who assists them with activities during buddy sessions, sits with them at Mass and helps them to settle in to life at ‘big school’.  For Year 5 students time with their Kinder buddy provides opportunities to be positive role models and share their story of life at school.

Makerspace

The Makerspace provides students with an opportunity to have creative time and space to build prototypes, explore questions, fail and retry, bounce ideas off one another and build something together. It has a variety of digital technologies to cater for the different levels of experience. Students use MaKey MaKeys, Arduino's Rasberry Pi's, Coding and Robotics. A lunch time Makerspace club has been formed for interested students from K-6. There are direct links to classroom activities, specifically targeting students who are capable of, but failing to, reach the highest bands in NAPLAN. Our focus is to increase student engagement and achievement through an inquiry based model, fostering creativity and critical use of technology.

Public Speaking

Students from Years 3-6 also have the opportunity to represent the school in public speaking in the Souther Region Catholic Schools Public Speaking Competition.

Student Representative Council 

The SRC at St Bernard’s School is a proactive student group which meets weekly to discuss issues brought up in class meetings. It is comprised of two school captains and four SRC representatives from Year 6. The position is held for the school year.