Our Middle School curriculum is designed to act as a catalyst for students to explore the possibilities and realms of learning. Our six school terms follow Living School’s keystone themes of identity, nature, life and living, civilisation, phenomena and service. These provide a lens through which we explore, analyse, interpret and contribute to our world.
Our term times are purposefully designed to facilitate improved learning and teaching experiences. Having shorted, sharper blocks of time creates more focus and better retention. Each of our semesters begins with a challenge week, exploring the PQ, IQ, XQ and EQ of each student, and concludes with a celebration of learning for the entire school community.
Term One – Identity (7 Weeks)
Term Two – Nature (6 Weeks)
Term Three – Life and Living (7 weeks)
Term Four – Civilisation (7 weeks)
Term Five – Phenomena (6 weeks)
Term Six – Service (7 Weeks)
When students care about their learning, they are more engaged, active participants. However, we also want their learning to emulate care in, and for, our world. This is achieved by aligning our keystone themes with threads of sustainability (Halve IT), social justice (SDG design, social entrepreneurship) and our universal qualities for success (VAST). This is reiterated in our school’s focus on kindness.
Creation allows us to engage and harness our power skills; critical thinking, problem solving, rationalising and designing. Our inquiry led, project based learning process provides the platform for creation by engaging our Living School Design Process, highlighting purpose and audience as key elements. This ensures composition is key to our curriculum with a focus on languages and the arts.
With a mission to make learning authentic and contextual, our curriculum is delivered through integrated units, allowing natural synthesis between subject areas with our transdisciplinary approach. We work with community, industry and global connections to build, maintain and contribute to society. Our excursions are key to this as we gather, explore and share, with a particular emphasis on cultural appreciation and understanding.
The beginning and end of our design thinking framework, students are asked to firstly consider context to determine purpose. This is often linked to a Sustainable Development Goal as part of our SDG based learning. The authentic audience for each project will be revisited again when it is time to make our product public. Considering this prior to beginning our work, ensures our work is intentional and meaningful.
Once the audience and purpose has been identified and contextualised, students are now better equipped to empathise with these groups to determine their needs, limitations, advantages and prior innovations. This links with the CARE pillar.
After collecting a variety or quantitative and qualitative data, students use the define stage to collate and analyse this data. This allows a specific core problem to be identified and clarity around the goal of the learning process being undertaken is gained. This links with the CARE pillar.
With an identified goal, students are now able to commence the generation of ideas that lead to solutions. This requires open communication, critical thinking skills and creativity. Students are supported to develop these ideas. This links with the CREATE pillar.
Prototyping brings solutions from the abstract to the tangible. Students experience failure and success, engaging resilience and excellence to revisit previous stages of the design thinking process to finalise their innovation. This links to the CREATE pillar.
During this stage, students are bringing their innovations into context, to determine the effectiveness of their product or service in addressing their identified problem. This process allows students to see their poject in action, without it being finalised, to allow for further modifications and enhancements. This links to the CONNECT pillar.
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The Living Middle programme has a big picture focus – with excursions, experiences, and academic development via the internationally renowned Project Based Learning programme.
