At St Francis Xavier Primary School, we believe that children learn best by doing and what better way to immerse children into the world of digital technology than to provide a range of experiences designed to challenge and inspire them to go further.
STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — using an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Rather than teach the four disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications.
We know that many of the jobs of the future will require people capable of collaboration, innovative thinking and problem solving. They will require people that are able to not only use computers, but also those capable of communicating directly with them. People that can code.
The school has recently undertaken an extensive Technologies ‘upgrade’ making us one of the leading schools in the region. We provide students with the most up-to-date equipment thereby ensuring learning is a hands-on experience. For Junior students we have programmable drones that can be safely flown indoors. These drones introduce students to coding. ‘Sphero’, a small, programmable sphere takes coding further for our Middle Years students. 3D printers used by our Senior students change the way they engage with STEM, enabling an approach that demonstrates the design and technical principles they have been studying.
In addition to this, children can now be taken on full 3600, 3D, immersive, expeditions with a class-set of 3D goggles. This enables a teacher to conduct virtual excursions to famous galleries, historical sites, remote jungles, exotic locations and even space!
An additional lunchtime Robotics programme supports students to further develop their coding and problem solving skills. These students have recently competed in local, State and National competitions. In 2019, one of our teams placed second at the National Robocup Junior, Line Rescue competition.
