Offsite Schooling
You may have heard of child-led and play-based, but have you heard of place-based?
Place-based learning is an educational model that takes advantage of a school’s unique surroundings and community as a framework to expand the learning environment.
A Walkable Neighbourhood
When the whole neighbourhood is the school, learning happens everywhere, including homes, school buildings, the river, library, and parks. Our world map shows how our local community provides a unique learning environment that takes advantage of the landscape and leverages local assets to provide immersive learning opportunities and experiences.
Our offsite school model provides students an expanded learning environment where they spend one whole day per week at a local community location for the duration of a term. Locations include The Swan River and The South Perth Zoo, where we are able to partner up with local experts to deepen our knowledge through hands on experience.
River school on the Derbarl Yerrigan
We run on the riverbank. It makes our heart (Koori) beat faster. Our feet (djena) sink into the white, wet sand (balyoonga). We feel happy (djoorap).
The water is very cool (karnal-djil). My teeth (ngoralk) chatter and my body shivers when I get out of the water (kep).
Bush school
I like to climb the trees. The Peppermint trees (Wanil) are the best for climbing. The bark (yowala) is worn smooth where other children have climbed (koolangka djandang). I try to climb to the top (yira).
zoo school
We are looking at the big map and I have my little paper map, it tells us where to go. We see the entrance where we come in and out. We are thinking about which animals we would like to see and record them in our book.
I am checking my map again to see where we are.
“I can see a chameleon”
“Was it camouflaged?”
Look a snake, “It’s a carpet python, they are not poisonous”,
I remember snakes smell with their tongues.
We have morning tea with the pelicans,
we sing a silly song,
“A pelican’s beak is bigger than its tummy…,”
“A pelican’s wings are longer than my arms…”
