Here at Colac Primary School we aim to encourage and develop positive attitudes towards lifelong health and physical activity. To implement our PE program we have access to excellent facilities such as our full size stadium, football oval, outside basketball court and mini rings. Other facilities within walking distance to the school that have been used are the Colac Lawn Tennis Club and Botanic Gardens.

We also have a range of equipment that ensures a variety of exciting new experiences each session. Various lunch time and after school coaching/sporting programs are also offered throughout the year.

All students in Grade Prep to 2 at our school are taught the basic locomotor and non-locomotor skills such as rolling, balancing, sliding, jogging, running, leaping, jumping, hopping, dodging, galloping and skipping. Object control skills such as bouncing, throwing, catching, kicking and striking are also incorporated into our sessions.

Students in Grades 3 to 6 continue to build on these skills through ‘game sense’ units whereby they start to perform these skills under pressure in a range of sports and ‘skills based’ games.

The STEM program at Colac Primary School encourages curiosity, creativity and problem solving in an enjoyable and supportive environment. Students learn by doing, investigating questions, testing ideas and improving their thinking along the way. There is no single right answer and students are encouraged to persist, reflect and try again.

Across Prep to Year 6, students explore the four areas of STEM through hands on learning experiences:

Biological Science (Term 1): living and non living things, life cycles, habitats, plant growth and caring for the environment.
Physical Science (Term 2): forces and movement, toy and vehicle design, electricity and simple circuits.
Chemical Science (Term 3): materials and their properties, states of matter and observable changes.
Earth and Space Science (Term 4): Earth’s resources, sustainability, day and night and the Solar System.

Students use a variety of tools and technologies including construction materials, measurement equipment and digital devices. Collaboration is an important part of learning and students regularly work together to share ideas and explain their thinking.

All students participate in a weekly STEM lesson in our dedicated learning space. Student learning is celebrated through classroom displays and whole school events and often connects to real world situations and our local community.

The Visual Arts program at Colac Primary School is designed to encourage and challenge students to achieve their artistic potential in an enjoyable and supportive environment – There are no right or wrong answers! Students develop their creativity, imagination and problem solving as well as refining their practical and fine motor skills. They learn to make choices when experimenting with materials, tools and techniques and the importance of the elements of art – line, colour, value/ tone, shape, form, space and texture.

Students at Colac Primary School get the opportunity to explore a wide variety of different art mediums such as drawing, painting, printmaking, collage, clay, sculpture, construction and textiles. Students learn to communicate through their art, respond to the artworks of others and gain an appreciation for well-known artists.

All students have 1 hour of Art per week with their class in our large and well equipped Art Room.

The artworks produced by our talented students are celebrated and displayed at our annual Art Exhibition at Colac Otway Performing Arts and Cultural Centre (COPACC). Students also have the opportunity to help create artworks for the Colac Kana festival which is a wonderful way to engage with our local community.

The Library program at Colac Primary School encourages a love of reading, curiosity and lifelong learning in a welcoming and supportive environment. Students learn that books can inform, inspire and entertain and that everyone can be a reader.

Students develop skills in choosing books, understanding different text types and building comprehension strategies. They explore fiction and non fiction texts, learn how information is organised and practise responsible use of library resources.

Across the year students participate in shared reading, literature discussions and activities that support classroom learning. They are introduced to a wide range of authors, genres and formats and are encouraged to discover their own reading interests.

All students attend a weekly Library session where they can borrow books and spend time reading. The library is a calm and engaging space that supports both learning and enjoyment and student reading is celebrated through school events and activities across the year.

Meg are industry leaders in providing schools with Mandarin foreign language programs designed specifically to meet the needs of our school.

Using video conference technology, our students connect to a China-based language instructor who is broadcast into the classroom at the same times each week for live and interactive lessons.

The program is also supported by our classroom teachers who get to develop their own Mandarin skills while the students get the excitement of speaking Chinese to a native speaker, live from China.

The use of live video-conferencing technology also means our students are able to see the streets of China in real time and have important context around why they are learning the language.

The Meg program is designed to inspire our students and staff to become contributing global citizens.