Transitioning to the Australian curriculum has been an easier process for teachers at Queensland’s Clarendon State School thanks to ORIGO Education resources.
Clarendon State School initially adopted ORIGO Education’s resources to help their small cohort of multi-age classes better adapt to the State Government’s Curriculum into the Classroom (C2C).
C2C is a range of materials to be used as starting points for school curriculum planning, based on Education Queensland’s perspective of the Australian curriculum.
Clarendon State School teacher Prudence Bower effectively overlaid ORIGO’s Stepping Stones program with C2C to ease the school’s transition to the Australian primary school mathematics curriculum.
“We have been using the Queensland C2C and it was just too overwhelming, too much, and too hard for a multi-age perspective,” Prudence said.
“ORIGO was chosen because it’s a one-stop-shop. It really eased that transition over to the Australian curriculum and it was much easier from a teacher’s perspective in regards to planning and resourcing.
“With C2C, you look at what identifiers it’ll be addressing in that unit, and you align it for when those same units are getting identified in ORIGO, so there’s a correlational crossover.”
Prudence believes Stepping Stones’ theoretical approach to maths learning is engaging and consistent, and specifically, that the approach effectively helps concentrate student thinking and prepare their transition between grades.
“I generally like the step in, step up and step ahead. I also really like how you’ve got access to teacher guides and ideas you are able to implement. This is particularly important if you are a new teacher to a year level – it’s really good,” Prudence said.
Prudence is particularly fond of ORIGO Education’s Number Cases.
“I can just pull that out and everything is in one little pack to help with the concept that we’re learning that day. That’s definitely quite handy,” Prudence said.
Ultimately, Prudence considers Stepping Stones’ range of digital resources a highlight, which sparked the school’s initial and ongoing interest in ORIGO Education.
“We initially bought into it was so we could have the digital side of things – that has made our lives a lot easier because it’s all on there.”