Not only are our students guided by their classroom teachers to engage in the subject areas outlined in the Australian Curriculum, we also employ specialist staff to provide learning in the following areas:
The Arts:
Lenswood Primary School is known throughout the Adelaide Hills as having one of the highest quality arts programs available. The Minister for Education even highlighted the Arts program here at one of his recent visits to the community. Each week your child will engage in two lessons with our specialist staff to develop their artistic skills in a comprehensive program that provides choice and experiences in the following areas: visual arts, music, drama, dance and media arts.
This all comes together in a range of exhibitions, but the two that are a major highlight for the entire community are:
Whole School Theatrical Performance: Rather than host an ‘end of year performance’, our arts specialist writes and directs a full on show that includes all students from reception to year 7. The performance is written and directed to suit the current cohort of students and is something that has to be seen to be believed. The most recent performance Alice in Lenswoodland packed out our school gym for two consecutive nights and received the following feedback from The Noarlunga Theatre Company who came to see the show:
“The Hills came alive with The Sound of Musical Theatre. A huge congratulations to Lenswood Primary Schools vision in their latest school production, ‘Alice in Lenswoodland’ written and directed by the hugely talented Darly Jones. Darly motivated every child to be their own personality on stage and what a performance it was with characters beautifully costumed and some children playing more than one part. The audience loved every moment, it was emotional and funny and I must say the junior primary could give strictly dancing a run for their money. Congratulations once again to a great team of staff, students, parents & friends of Lenswood you must be so proud. While Alice had a dream in Lenswoodland, a dream came true for every student at Lenswood Primary School.
Visual Arts Extravaganza: Throughout the year students from reception to year 7 develop their visual arts skills and prepare pieces of art work to be displayed in a major exhibition that occurs in the latter stages of alternate school years. Our school gym is transformed into an art gallery and is opened to the public for exhibition evenings. The feedback on previous years has been such, that we have been invited to take the exhibition on the road and display key pieces as part of the South Australian Living Artists (SALA) Exhibition.
Physical Education:
In the early stages of his career our principal, Jess was once a PE teacher. Rather than let him sit on the office all day, we have him out with each class for two lessons per week to provide practical PE lessons. The focus is on building fundamental skills that link to a wide range of sports and activities. Not only do our students have the opportunity to develop and showcase their skills in their class favourites, but we also take the opportunity to provide lessons on less familiar sports such as archery, golf, lawn bowls, orienteering and Gaelic football. We link our PE lessons to SAPSASA and local sporting competitions, sending teams to participate in local carnivals.
STEAM:
Recent research into the changing nature of education and the workforce, has highlighted that by the time our children graduate high school many careers will require skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. We provide all students with an opportunity to participate with a specialist who targets these key learning areas in an integrated program. Our students have the opportunity to engage with technologies ranging from high tech robotics, coding and 3D printing to low tech, but equally important cardboard and tangible materials that can be used to design and prototype. In many schools STEAM is only an option for upper primary students, but at Lenswood we feel that these skills should become part of everything we do.