English
The Australian Curriculum: English is organised under three interrelated strands: Language, Literature and Literacy.
At Milton State School we provide rich opportunities for students to develop their knowledge, understanding and skills in speaking, listening, reading, viewing, writing and creating.
Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. Our Book Week is always a highlight of the year where teachers and students love to dress up in character. It is a fun-filled week of reading and engaging with authors.
In our classrooms, we promote a love of literature and promote language comprehension through shared and dialogic discussions about texts.
In the early years (Prep to Year 2), students are taught word reading and spelling with systematic synthetic phonics. In Year 3-6, students are taught to read and understand more complex words and curriculum texts.
Our students create texts for different purposes and audiences. On our writing stimulus days, you will find some interesting objects around the school that the students eagerly write about.
Mathematics
The Australian Curriculum: Mathematics provides students with essential knowledge, skills, procedures and processes in number, algebra, measurement, space, statistics and probability.
The proficiencies in Mathematics emphasises the importance of developing students' understanding, fluency, reasoning and problem solving.
Our mathematical consultant, Ann Baker, author of, 'Unlock Your Child's Natural Maths Ability', has been working with our staff for many years supporting our teachers in building children's conceptual understanding of Mathematics through problem-solving.
In the classroom, teachers use mental routines to promote open, closed and flipped questioning in order for students to use the mathematical vocabulary aligned to the Top 5 (success criteria). Teachers use problematised situations to engage students in authentic problem-solving experiences, strategy lessons to explicitly teach Mathematics and reflect on learning with students to identify efficient mathematical strategies.
Science
The aims of the Australian Curriculum: Science is for students to explore, explain, and predict phenomena using a range of scientific inquiry methods to make informed, evidence-based decisions.
Science includes the four strands: Biological sciences, Chemical sciences, Earth and space sciences and Physical sciences.
At Milton State School, we value Science by promoting fun, hands-on learning experiences that focus on the scientific inquiry skills of questioning and predicting; planning and conducting investigations; processing and analysing data and information; evaluating and communicating.
HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences)
Humanities and Social Sciences includes the knowledge and understandings of History and Geography, and in the upper years, Civics and Citizenship and Economics and Business. HASS promotes a range of perspectives, past and present, and encourages students to develop an appreciation and respect for social, cultural and religious diversity.
"Humba mullie!" This is the Aboriginal greeting in the Turrbal language. The Turrbal people were the Traditional owners of the land Milton State School is on today. At Milton State School, we are fortunate to have Mrs Ngaire Jarro as one of our dedicated teaching staff. Ngaire has a wealth of knowledge about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures and our students across the school love hearing about Ngaire's indigenous background through storytelling and in HASS lessons.
Our classroom teachers love to engage students in meaningful deep learning experiences in HASS ranging from persuading the tuckshop to develop more sustainable practices to learning about democracy and the electoral process by representing a party of their choice that aligns with Milton State School's values and charter.
Technologies
The Australian Curriculum: Technologies includes knowledge about and practical skills of Design and Digital Technologies. Technologies involves critical and creative thinking, problem solving, prototyping and evaluating.
At Milton State School, we embed the use of technologies within our BYOD program, using iPads to support student learning. We also use a variety of robotics to support our use of digital technology. Students in Years 1-6 participate in cybersmart lessons to encourage safe practices and digital awareness. We provide Makerspace opportunities where students can tinker, explore, discover and create using a variety of tools and materials.
Health and Physical Education
In Term 1 and Term 4, students participate in swimming and water safety lessons in our school pool. All classes, including Prep, begin swimming lessons in Term 1 every year. In Term 2, the PE program takes an Athletics focus with Track & Field disciplines taught in the upper years, 3 – 6 and locomotion activities in the lower years, Prep – 2. In Term 3, the PE program focuses on a range of different sports and games, including their specific skills and strategies.
Prep Perceptual Motor Program & Year 1 & 2 Skills
The Perceptual Motor Program (PMP) is a movement-based program, which helps younger students improve their eye/hand & eye/foot coordination, fitness, balance, locomotion and eye-tracking skills. The program also assists in children's development of their visual, auditory, tactile, body awareness, spatial awareness and lateralisation skills. Gross motor (physical) skills are the main focus and include those which require whole body movement and which involve the large (core stabilising) muscles of the body to perform everyday functions, such as walking and running, playground skills (e.g. climbing) and sporting skills (e.g. catching, throwing and hitting a ball with a bat).
All Prep students participate in the Perceptual Motor Program. Our Year 1 and 2 students participate in an extension-based program, which continues to develop the aforementioned skills from their involvement in the PMP program.
Languages other than English (LOTE): Italian
Students from Prep to Year 6 participate in weekly Italian lessons at Milton State School. Italian is taught in an engaging and interactive way, where students actively participate in the program - singing Italian songs, interacting with puppets, playing fun Italian games and engaging in a wide range of interesting oral and written activities. Italian lessons are theme-based, whereby students learn Italian words and phrases within relevant and meaningful contexts. Units of work conclude with fun culminating activities which in turn, provide purpose to students' Italian language learning.
Our biennial Italian Day is a wonderful celebration – where students dress up in costumes relating to all things Italian and have an opportunity to showcase their learnings of the Italian language and of Italian culture.
The Arts
The Arts have the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich all students, exciting the imagination and encouraging them to reach their creative and expressive potential. Through the Arts, students learn to express their ideas, thoughts and opinions as they discover and interpret the world.
The Arts Australian Curriculum is comprised of five strands of study: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music, and Visual Art.
The current Arts program has been operating at Milton SS since 2007, with all students from Prep-Year 6 engaging in a term of each of the five strands of The Arts each year. Prep-Year 3 receive a half hour lesson/week, Years 4-6 receive full hour lessons/week.
Dance
Dance at Milton is an opportunity for students to explore the Dance elements and movement skills using choreography, performance and appreciation. Dance paves the way for students to use expressive and purposeful movement individually, in small groups or as a class. Dance units are devised from the National Curriculum through Early Learning Literacy, picture books, poetry and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture.
Drama
Drama is the expression and exploration of personal, cultural and social worlds through role and situation that engages, entertains and challenges. At Milton, Drama P-6 aligns closely with mainstream curriculum studies in subjects such as Science and English to create integrated units of work of study and comply with National Arts Curriculum framework standards. Experiences include, but are not exclusive to: role play, dramatic play, improvisation, scripted work, process drama, and storytelling.
Media Arts
Media Arts involves creating representations of the world and telling stories through communications technologies such as television, film, video, newspapers, radio, video games, the internet and mobile media. The elements used in Media Arts include composition, time, space, sound, movement and lighting.
At Milton State School, we focus heavily on digital media art as we include digital technology as part of the creative process. The children explore a different range of digital mediums including stop motion, photography, videography and coding.
Music
In Music students listen to, compose and perform music from a diverse range of styles, traditions and contexts. Music practice is aurally based, and involves students in music making and responding. Experiences include singing and playing classroom instruments (percussion and ukulele) in group ensembles, and collaborating with others in composition and arrangement.
Visual Arts
At Milton State School, we have our very own artist-in-residence, Meredith Macleod. Meredith is a practising artist herself: painting, drawing and printmaking and shares her expertise through creative visual art sessions with all students from Prep to Year 6. Students explore drawing, painting and mixed media and experiment with tone and shade to create marvellous art pieces.
Extension Program – Arts Club
Arts Club at Milton is open to Year 4-6 students who audition to be part of a dynamic, creative collective. Arts club builds upon and extends curriculum experiences by creating integrated arts works. Students, along with teaching artists devise and polish these pieces to share in regular public performances such as Arts Parade held each term. Arts Club has also worked with teaching artists for two full scale plays – Midsummer Night's Dream (2012) and Romeo & Juliet 4 Eva (2019). The Club has also collaborated with myriad professional performance artists as well as QUT Dance department for projects.
In 2023, the Arts Club collaborated with recording artist Elliot Gleave, aka Example. Along with his producer and videographer, they wrote and recorded their own song and filmed a music video- "Stronger Together".