Nature and Nurture

OUR NATURE & NURTURE - SCIENCE PROGRAM

Our school’s Nature and Nurture experience cultivates an inspiring and engaging learning environment. It is an integrated nature based curriculum program which provides a wholesome, safe space for the collective health and wellbeing of our students and our community. The program creates opportunities where meaningful learning connections and sustainable healthy life habits are developed, encouraged and fostered. This is achieved through many experiential explorations of our environment, our community, our gardens and cooking with our school grown produce.

Through our integrated Nature and Nurture programs, we aim to develop;

• a sense of dignity, respect and pride
• collaborative team skills
• critical and creative thinking skills
• an understanding of cause and effect
• an appreciation for diversity and an ability to learn from difference
• an understanding of how engaging with our environment, our gardens and our food can teach us to create connections between anyone and anything. It allows us to cultivate a deep sense of place through relationships that make each of us, our families, local and global communities and environment more resilient

We have immersive gardens that include:

• Kitchen Garden & Orchard
• Sensory Garden
• Indigenous Food Garden & Meeting Place
• Outdoor classroom

Our Nature and Nurture Programs provide innovative and creative fundamental opportunities to reinforce academic learning areas through a scaffolded integration of experiential learning and the Victorian Curriculum. This provides valuable learning opportunities for students to make meaningful academic and life skill connections that can enhance their learning experiences and develop as lifelong learners.

Kitchen Garden Program

From the garden to the plate! The focus of this program is about nurturing the growth and development of the whole child through a fundamental understanding that there is so much more to wholesome food than just eating. Involving students in creative, engaging and exciting food experiences and preparations has many benefits that can develop healthy life long food habits. It nurtures a passion for fresh seasonal produce that creates a deeper understanding of food cultures, values and sustainable food systems and demonstrates what it truly means to be a protector of our global planet.

Nature Education Program

Nature Education harnesses the power of nature as an effective and compelling third teacher through cultivating the benefits of integrating the Victorian Curriculum and our natural environment. Nature inspires awe, wonder and curiosity through hands on experience which develops and strengthens our personal connection with ourselves, each other and our environment. Through these integrated and immersive learning opportunities, students make important academic connections with the world around them and develop as carers of our local and global communities and environments.

Literacy and Numeracy

The scaffolded integration of literacy and numeracy throughout all programs provides vital opportunities for students to make academic and real life connections, practicing and developing their skills and knowledge.

Science and Integrated Learning

Our natural environment provides an inviting and relevant platform for student’s lives by inspiring active sensory exploration, inquiry, reasoning, critical and creative thinking and problem solving. There is a natural integration of learning areas including science, history, geography, design and technology, arts, humanities and languages, allowing students to make meaningful and life long connections between the environment and their academic learnings.

Health and Wellbeing

Our nature and nurture experience aims to strengthen the personal, social and performance capabilities of the students within our school. Our teachers have numerous learning tools utilized to enhance success, resilience, improve relationships, reduce stresses and promote optimal health and wellbeing.

Community Partnerships

We are proud of our whole school and wider community and partner together to provide a rich and meaningful learning environment for our children, where they feel safe, develop a deep sense of place and sense of self with a global connection.