A Day in the Life…

K-2 children can arrive at school from 8:30am to enjoy time to connect with friends and teachers in the outdoors, prior to the formal start to the day at 8:50am. Breaks during the day include morning tea from 10:40 to 11:00am and lunch from 12:30 to 1:30pm. The school day concludes at 2:40pm for Kindergarten, 2:50pm for Year 1 and 3:00pm for Year 2.

The day begins with a whole school morning greeting under the trees near to the sandpit. This morning connection time sets a warm tone for the day and provides a chance for all K-2 classes to meet each day. Following this welcome to the day, classes move together to their various learning spaces, ready to begin another day together.

During the day children work together in a variety of groupings and spaces. Each year level, for example Year 1, forms one learning community, made up of two small classes. The children naturally move in and out of the two classes and shared spaces and are grouped and regrouped depending on the purpose of activities each session. To create a sense of security and to enable strong parent and teacher relationships, every child belongs to a home class with an identified teacher who takes primary care of your child and takes the lead on communication matters and reporting in relation to your child. Often home classes will begin the day together with a morning meeting, revisiting yesterday’s learning and sharing hopes for the day and news from home.

Learning at Highfields is active, creative and hands-on. We encourage children to play, experiment and share theories with one another. Children loan their expertise to one another as they learn together, strengthened by the diversity of skills and experiences represented by the group. Our high student/educator ratio makes this sort of learning possible as our teachers work closely with the children throughout the day – inviting them to go deeper and wider in every aspect of their learning.

Over the course of the week each class has a sport, ICT, library and music lesson facilitated by a specialist teacher. These lessons are carefully planned to widen the children’s experiences at school and offer them tools for research and expression. We also weave opportunities for extension, support and extra-curricular music into the school day.

Highfields natural landscape offers rich possibilities for our K-2 children to continue with learning and building strong relationships at break times. For example, the inclusion of a large sandpit in out K-2 playground reflects our intent to offer creative and constructive play opportunities to children of all ages. Pipes, buckets and spades, stones and blocks become the daily tools of our budding engineers and landscapers, as the children immerse themselves in creative play outdoors. It is also common to see our outdoor spaces used as learning spaces, for a range of group activities. The outdoors offers a rich context for children to think, connect and be challenged in all areas of their learning.

Although every day at Highfields is different from the next, filled with new possibilities and hopes – the common thread that connects every day at the school is the children’s love of learning, the opportunity to play and the presence and practice of engaged, insightful, creative and kind educators. Careful and collaborative planning and programming by our highly-qualified team ensure every day is filled with extraordinary possibilities.

When a day ends and our Highfielders don’t want to leave we know it has been a very good day!