Learning at Upper Gully

Our students gain knowledge and skills through all areas of the curriculum. Our focus includes physical, personal and social growth, for all students. We provide opportunity for students to apply their learning to new and different circumstances.

The consistency of the approaches and resources at Upper Ferntree Gully Primary provide teachers with the knowledge to develop learning tasks that cater to all of our individual learners. Our teachers collaborate to plan and discuss the learning of all students in our school. Staff collaborate to ensure they are meeting the needs of all students whether social, emotional or academic.

We use a variety of resources to support our teaching and learning across the curriculum.

These resources provide a consistent approach and skills and strategies that support learning at all levels.

Junior Learning - Foundation to 2

English - Little Learners Love Literacy

Little Learners Love Literacy is an explicit, systematic synthetic phonics program used from Foundation to Year 2. It supports the teaching and learning of students through matching spoken sounds (phonemes) to written letters (graphemes) using decodable books ("no tricks") rather than guessing or memorising words as whole shapes.

The 7-Stage Sequence

The program guides children through seven structured stages:

Stages 1–4 (Foundation / Simple Code): Teaches single alphabet sounds and how to read/spell basic CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words like cat or sit.
Stages Plus 4–6 (Forging Ahead / Extended Code): Introduces adjacent consonant blending, consonant digraphs (like sh and ch), and breaking words into syllables.
Stage 7 (Fluent Speller / Vowel Code): Focuses on long vowel phonemes, alternative spelling patterns (graphemes), suffixes, and spelling rules.

Key Pillars of the Program

Synthetic Phonics: Children learn to blend sounds together to read words and segment sounds apart to spell words.
Decodable Readers: Books like Pip and Tim, Wiz Kids, and Wild Detectives only contain sounds the child has already been explicitly taught.
Heart Words: Irregular high-frequency words (such as the or my) that children learn to recognize by heart.
Multisensory Practice: Uses games, magnetic letters, sound-swapping, and handwriting to lock in memory.

More details and resources can be found directly on the Little Learners Love Literacy Parents & Carers Guide.

English Years - 3-6

Talk For Writing

The Talk for Writing approach enables children to read and write independently for a variety of audiences and purposes within different subjects. A key feature is that children internalise the language structures needed to write through ‘talking the text’, as well as close reading. The approach moves from dependence towards independence, with the teacher using shared and guided teaching to develop the ability in children to write creatively and powerfully.

Schools underpin their English work by establishing a core reading spine of quality fiction, poetry and non-fiction that all children experience and draw upon. Imaginative units of work are developed to create a whole-school plan that is refined over the years, is well-resourced and documented to release teachers from planning and preparation so that they can focus on adapting their teaching for children’s learning.

Talk For Reading

Talk for Reading aims to develop children into efficient, effective, thoughtful and strategic readers who can learn about life, discover information and deepen their thinking through considering other people’s views and experiences with a critical mind.

Essential Spelling

By growing and consolidating their phonological, orthographic and morphological knowledge, our spelling approach helps students make the right decisions when choosing how to spell words. This will benefit their writing in all curriculum areas.

Mathematics - Foundation to 6

The Victorian curriculum shapes classroom learning around three key principles:

Earlier Foundations: Concepts like percentages, algebra basics, and grid coordinates are introduced earlier in primary school to give children more time to master them.
Explicit Teaching: Under the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model 2.0, teachers use structured, explicit, small-step lessons rather than leaving students to guess the rules.
Reasoning Over Speed: Math is no longer just about finishing worksheets fast. Classrooms focus on reasoning—meaning children must be able to explain why an answer is correct or spot a mistake in someone else's working.

How We Teach Mathematics: Scaffolding, Fluency, and Real-Life Learning

At our school, we don't expect children to simply memorise shortcuts or guess mathematical rules.

Instead, we use a comprehensive approach that builds deep understanding, speed, and real-world confidence.

Our teaching framework is built on three core pillars: Scaffolding, Maths Fluency, and Hands-on, Real-Life Learning.

1. Scaffolding: The "I Do, We Do, You Do" Approach

Just like physical scaffolding supports a building while it is being constructed, educational scaffolding provides temporary support to students while they learn new concepts. As your child’s skills grow, this support is gradually removed until they can work completely independently.

Every new math concept moves through three distinct phases:

I Do (Explicit Modelling): The teacher introduces the concept, breaks it down into small steps, and "thinks out loud" on the board so students see the logic.
We Do (Guided Practice): The teacher and students work through examples together. Mistakes are welcomed as great learning opportunities, and the teacher checks every child's progress.
You Do (Independent Mastery): Once students show they understand the steps, the scaffolding is lowered and they practice independently or in small groups while the teacher provides targeted support.

2. Maths Fluency: Speed, Flexibility, and Confidence

Being "fluent" in math means more than just memorising times tables. Maths Fluency is the ability to recall facts quickly, choose the best strategy for a problem, and adapt when a strategy doesn't work.

We build fluency through daily practice that focuses on:

Efficiency: Finding the quickest, most logical path to an answer (e.g., seeing that 9 + 7 is the same as 10 + 6).
Accuracy: Developing a deep number sense so children can automatically spot if an answer "looks wrong."
Flexibility: Knowing multiple ways to solve the same problem and choosing the one that fits best.

3. Hands-on & Real-Life Learning: Making Math Meaningful

To make abstract numbers make sense, our classrooms connect mathematics to tangible objects and real-world scenarios.

The Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract (CPA) Journey: Before writing numbers on a page, students start with Concrete learning (using physical blocks, counters, or shapes they can touch). They then move to Pictorial learning (drawing diagrams or number lines) before finally working with Abstract numbers and symbols (+, -, ×, ÷).
Real-Life Application: We constantly connect classroom tasks to the real world. Whether it is measuring ingredients in a recipe, reading schedules, tracking sports statistics, or calculating changes in a mock school shop, we show students that math is a living, breathing skill they use every single day.

Why this matters for your child: By combining structured scaffolding with fluency and real-life context, we turn mathematics into a subject about logic, problem-solving, and confidence—preparing your child for success both inside and outside the classroom.

Our Outdoor Market Day is designed specifically as a leadership project for our Year 5 and 6 students, using real currency to give them an authentic, high-stakes financial literacy experience.

By working with real dollars and cents in an outdoor setting, our senior primary students bridge the gap between classroom mathematics and true economic responsibility.

? Spotlight on Real-Life Learning: Our Year 5/6 Outdoor Market Day

To bring financial literacy and leadership to life, our Year 5 and 6 students participate in our annual Outdoor Market Day. This immersive experience transitions mathematics out of textbooks and onto the school grounds, allowing our senior students to collaborate in teams to design, budget, and run their very own market stalls using real currency.

By handling actual dollars and cents, the stakes are raised, making every calculation meaningful and every financial decision authentic.

Here is how this project connects our core teaching pillars:

1. How We Scaffold the Market Day

Students aren't just thrown into running a business; we guide them through a carefully structured journey across the term:

I Do: Teachers explicitly model complex financial foundations—such as calculating production costs, setting realistic profit margins, and budgeting for raw materials.
We Do: Working in business teams, students collaborate with their teacher to design their stall, draft inventory lists, and practice calculating expenses and potential profits.
You Do: On Market Day, the scaffolding comes down. Our Year 5/6 students independently run their stalls, interact with customers, manage their physical cash floats, and track their final profits or losses.

2. Building Maths Fluency Under Pressure

Market Day acts as a high-energy workout for maths fluency. Instead of filling out worksheets, students use rapid mental arithmetic to solve fast-moving, real-world problems:

Efficiency: Calculating the total cost of multiple items quickly while a queue of customers waits.
Accuracy: Counting out physical notes and coins to give exact change (e.g., mentally navigating the change required from a $10 or $20 note).
Flexibility: Learning to adjust prices, negotiate, or create "bundle deals" on the fly if stock isn't moving fast enough.

3. Real-World Financial Literacy & Leadership

By stepping into the shoes of entrepreneurs, our senior students grapple with genuine economic concepts. They experience the reality of supply and demand, learn to distinguish between gross revenue and net profit, and discover the responsibility of managing real money.

As the leaders of the primary school, this project also builds vital soft skills like teamwork, communication, and problem-solving, turning mathematics into an exciting real-world adventure.

Digital Learning across the school

There is an expectation of limited use of technology in Primary School in Victoria.

We utilise technology as a tool that can be used to support all types of learning. We believe that there is a balance between all types of learning including technology.

We provide opportunities for all students to work with robots and coding.

We use Google Apps to support students and teach skills in Years 3 to 6.

Seesaw is an electronic learning journal where students can publish their work with photos and video to share with their families and document their progress.