Specialists
Yearly Overview

VISUAL ARTS

Our Chatham Visual Arts Studio is a colourful and welcoming space buzzing with excitement. Students dive into the captivating World of Art during weekly 1-hour visits to the Visual Arts Studio. They are supported to unleash their creativity and express themselves using a wide range of materials, techniques and practices.

From the early years to Year 6, students develop the language to discuss and appreciate art during visits to the Visual Arts Studio. This provides enriching experiences for full engagement in creativity, design, critical thinking and self-expression.

The whole-school sculpture unit centred on clay is a program highlight. These hands-on, messy and engaging sessions provide a platform for students to explore their ideas. From monster pinch pots and emoji faces to cupcakes and wall hangings, you’ll want to keep an eye out for many unique ceramic pieces around the school!

In painting sessions, our artists explore colour mixing and many essential Elements of Art, drawing inspiration from contemporary, renowned and local artists. The focus is on fostering students' abilities to create, respond to and interpret art meaningfully, inspired by their imaginations and the world around them.

Similarly, drawing skills receive focused attention. From landscapes to still life drawings, students explore perspective, depth, form and a wide range of art movements, broadening their artistic perspectives and skills.

Another focal point is the exploration of Australian Aboriginal Art. Linking in with significant weeks such as National Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC Week, students explore the unique culture and histories of the First Australians. They learn the importance of Aboriginal storytelling through art and the use of symbols and long-standing techniques within Australian Aboriginal culture. They take inspiration from various Aboriginal Art forms and artists, deepening their understanding of Aboriginal culture and The Dreamtime.

In Year 6, our emerging designers embark on a captivating project—creating their own skate deck! Provided with full-sized wooden decks, students learn all about Street Art and enthusiastically design and paint their own unique decks. These serve as cherished mementos of their time at Chatham Primary School.

Our Visual Arts program not only nurtures artistic skills, but also fosters critical thinking and creativity. In turn, this encourages students to approach challenges with inventive perspectives within their artistic ventures, as well as their academic and daily life.

JAPANESE

がんばりましょう！That means “let’s do our best” in Japanese, and our students bring their best always to learning and engaging with Japanese classes. Japanese is a highly-valued program at our school since 1993 and all students from Prep to Year 6 visit our beautiful Japanese room each week. Every lesson our students use games and songs to practice the vocabulary needed for the lesson and read a shared story together to practice the grammatical patterns used in the current learning topic. This practiced language is then used to complete a hot task such as a roleplay, animation/movie or presentation. Technology is often used to enhance our learning with our Japanese laptops and iPads however handwriting is practiced using the three different Japanese writing systems through worksheets. Each unit of work is capped off with a writing task that is collected into each student’s portfolio.

To make learning authentic, our Year 5 and 6 students engage with schools in Japan through a pen pal program as well as video conferences. We also celebrate Japanese day each year in which our whole school takes part in Japanese activities prepared by our Japanese captains. Our Japanese captains take great pride in keeping our Japanese garden looking nice and presenting on our many Japanese activities such as incursions at assembly.

Students can also practice Japanese at home through Rampant-sensei’s website https://www.spacekoala.com

PERFORMING ARTS

We have a vibrant Performing Arts program that includes classroom music across the whole school, instrumental lessons and small ensembles.

The Classroom Music is delivered to all year levels on a weekly basis. Using Kodály and Orff teaching method, students are able to experience and gain knowledge of the fundamental concepts of music through aural, kinaesthetic and visual styles of learning. Students learn a repertoire of music, they use familiar songs to build their knowledge of musical concepts and terminology in a sequential and developmentally appropriate level. Our Performing Arts room contains a wide variety of instruments from simple percussion, chime bar and glockenspiels. Older students learn and practice songs to perform on class sets of ukuleles, xylophones and marimbas.

The expansive Instrumental Music Program provides students with the opportunity to have individual or group lessons on a range of instruments; violin, saxophone, flute, piano, keyboard, guitar, bass guitar, drums, ukulele and others. Students attend weekly lessons on a user-pays system. Lessons are organised by our outside providers, Creative Music and Tuned in Kids. When students have reached some level of proficiency, they have the opportunity to perform at our school’s many performance events such as Assembly, Music Week, the Chatham Grand Fair and our school Production. We run small ensembles throughout the year for the senior students to extend their skills on their individual instruments.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Run, jump, skip, hop, throw and catch!

There is lots of movement, fun and diversity within the Physical Education Program. Students are taught the Fundamental Motor Skills and learn to play together in team games. We offer a variety of internal and external programs – P.M.P., Intensive Swimming & Dance and Hooptime Basketball.

Our school is part of the Interschool Sport Program for the Kooyong District, where our Year 6 students participate in both Summer and Winter sports. We host our own House Swimming, Cross-Country and Athletic Carnivals for Year 3 – 6 students with students progressing to District and Regional level.

A fantastic highlight are the three camps held throughout the year for our students in Years 4, 5 and 6.

As part of our extensive Leadership Program, we have eight House Captains who promote, assist and guide younger students to the benefits of a healthy approach to fair play and being active.