Welcome to Andamooka Primary School & Children's Centre

School Philosophy

Andamooka Primary School is a South Australian State Government school situated in Far Northern South Australia. Servicing Andamooka, the school offers small, mixed-age classrooms for R-6 students with a focus on achieving growth for every student in every class across the school.

Our staff and families foster a culture of broad horizons and opportunity which values individual students' search for knowledge and growth in skills and authentic learning. Providing students with access to hands-on activities and allowing adequate time and space to use materials that reinforce lessons, creates an opportunity for construction of knowledge to occur. By knowing our students as individuals, and our impact on their learning as educators, we build and develop the students to be assessment-capable learners who know the intention of their education and how to measure their achievement. Andamooka Primary School delivers a literacy and numeracy-rich curriculum, aligned with the school vision “inspiring our community to become powerful life-long learners and positive global citizens.”

Wellbeing

APS has a whole school wellbeing approach which is fully integrated into our school philosophy and is a focus for all staff and students. We also actively implement the Play is the Way program for our students, to promote wellbeing, resilience and social development. The school maintains high expectations of the entire school to look out for each other and this expectation is embedded in our school values. We collectively understand that without high levels of wellbeing and sense of safety that opportunities for learning are too often impaired.

Literacy

Developing literacy skills in every student is a key focus for APS, as aligned with our School Improvement Plan. Basic literacy skills are fundamental for learning in all curriculum areas, and our students are engaged with teaching and learning English in the form of a literacy block, which is informed by the Australian Curriculum. Differentiation and contextualisation of the English curriculum affords all students growth in reading and writing, promotes rigorous learning in multi-age classrooms, and promotes a positive attitude towards schooling.

All students in Junior Primary engage in the Read, Write, Inc. Phonics program four days a week. This highly specialised reading and writing program has proven results for improved student outcomes, and our staff passionately engage the students in small, targeted groups, at their point of need. Students in the Primary cohort access targeted intervention in Read, Write, Inc. four days a week also, as determined through testing and engagement. Our staff are also trained in Jolly Phonics, Mini-Multilit, Seven Steps and Big Write, demonstrating a high level of pedagogical knowledge and strategies to increase student achievement and engagement in English.

Numeracy

While we don't fully understand what the future will hold for our children, we do know there is a clear trajectory towards high skill jobs that increasingly require strong numeracy skills. At APS, we understand that strong numeracy skills require strong literacy skills, particularly in the fields of problem solving and applied maths. Coupled with the need to embed mathematical basics that underpin all sequential mathematical learning, at APS we focus on ensuring students develop these skills and also have regular exposure to problem solving opportunities to develop the investigative thinking skills and a love for challenge in their learning. Through explicitly teach Big Ideas in Number, working through Trusting the Count, Place Value and Multiplicative Thinking, we develop students' sense of number, increasing student achievement in Numeracy.