Specialist programs
Learning beyond the classroom comes alive through hands-on discovery, creativity, and connection with the natural world. Our specialist programs are designed to spark curiosity, build confidence, and nurture every child’s unique strengths.
Visual arts
The visual arts program at BNWPS engages students’ visual and tactile senses, and creative expression. Through play and exploration of materials, techniques and processes students experience a wide variety of creative opportunities. Drafting multiple ideas for projects, solving problems, building vocabulary, working collaboratively, identifying features of students’ own and others’ artworks, all help develop flexible, critical, and creative thinking skills. Studying and discussing how artists from different cultures and contexts communicate visually, inspires and encourages students to explore ways that they can express their own ideas and feelings through art.
Performing arts
The Performing Arts program encourages all students to express their personalities and connect with world experiences in a creative way. Students receive a one hour Performing Arts lesson each week from Foundation to Grade Six, with links being created between what is being explored currently in the classroom as well as relevant world events. Students learn about different cultural practices, disciplines and traditions on a personal and global level. Performing Arts encompasses the four disciplines of Music, Dance, Drama and Media Arts. Our school community is filled with many creative experts who work together to support our students to be composers, musicians, experimental artists, circus performers, dancers, puppeteers, comedians, yogis, actors and above all confident dreamers. As a community we share the enjoyment of the performing arts together and celebrate our self-expression through the year with various small and large events. Several community members offer after-school individual and group instrumental music lessons including singing & songwriting, keyboard, guitar, banjo, and drums & percussion.
Physical education
The Physical Education program at BNWPS has three main goals: improve students’ fundamental motor skills, develop teamwork and cooperation, and, most importantly, have fun! Students begin by focusing on developing the basic Fundamental Motor Skills which include running, jumping, dodging, throwing, catching, striking and kicking. These skills are the stepping stones for almost every sport that we play and as students move through the school into the older year levels, we begin putting these skills into practice during modified match play. During PE classes emphasis is placed on our students’ social and emotional development. Through games that focus on teamwork, cooperation and communication, we are able to manufacture scenarios that help students develop these essential life skills and develop responsible behaviors, skills in self-reflection, problem solving and social learning.
Indonesian language
At BNWPS we learn Indonesian communicatively, starting from where students are at and providing differentiated tasks to cater for their academic needs and allow for self-expression. We learn by playing games, singing songs, creating art works, craft, stories and role plays, as well as cultural explorations, and collaborative problem solving. For F-2 classes, the focus is on spoken Indonesian, in Years 3-6 we add to this work with written skills and reflect on the workings of Indonesian compared with other languages, particularly with English. All year levels learn how culture and environment interact with language. Where possible we link the content of our classes to what students are learning about in their classroom inquiry, but always with an eye on spiralling out with our vocabulary– we are constantly reusing and building on vocabulary learnt in each new topic and context from year to year.
Science
The Environmental Science program at BNWPS is outdoor/garden-based and is designed to develop a sense of wonder, curiosity and connection with the earth. Our weekly lessons cover: designing and carrying out experiments, learning about life and matter cycles, Indigenous practices for land care, gardening knowledge and skills, food literacy, food preparation and cooking skills. We aim to prepare students for life’s important challenges with knowledge and social, practical and critical thinking skills.
