Middle Curriculum

The Year 6 and 7 programs have been developed and structured in such a way as to provide a seamless transition for learners from Year 6 to Year 9.   This Middle School Program will promote and continue the development of pedagogies already established in the Early and Junior Years.   Programs will develop multi-literacies through inquiry-based learning and will engage students in the complete pedagogical process, from planning through to assessment and subsequent evaluation.

The Year 6 program has been designed as a transition year from Junior into Middle, whereby the students will experience some of the ‘Middle School’ practices, such as the introduction of lockers, LOTE, change of uniform, Pastoral Care classes, etc. In Year 6, the students will continue to work on year level programs developed by class teachers using the Australian Curriculum and Queensland Studies Authority Essential Learnings Framework.   Curriculum planning for the Learning Areas of English, Mathematics, Science and History are based on the Australian Curriculum. There are also a number of subjects taught by ‘Specialist teachers’ in the areas of Health and Physical Education, Music and LOTE (French). Currently, these are based on the Queensland Studies Authority’s Essential Learnings Framework but will move to the Australian Curriculum once these areas are released from ACARA.

The Year 7 program is moving more towards a more traditional ‘Secondary’ approach, whereby the student have their lessons timetabled at a specific time. Whilst the students have been given a timetabled lesson allocation, Xavier Catholic College has tried to keep the ‘Middle Schooling’ approach evident by having CORE teachers who teach majority of the Year 7 classes. Below is a table indicating the number of lessons taught in a fortnightly timetable. The lessons have been broken up into CORE and Specialist teacher:

In addition to this, students undertake Sport options for 2 lessons per cycle and have 1 lesson with their Pastoral Care class.

Total – 30 lessons per week.

Students in Years 8 and 9 will study a common curriculum, structured as follows:

In addition to this, students undertake Sport options for 2 lessons per week.

Total – 30 lessons per week.