The Junior School offers a learning environment specifically tailored to meet the learning needs and styles of boys. Our curriculum, classroom approach, pastoral care and facilities have been designed by our Staff to bring out the best in our boys.
Research strongly indicates that most boys have different learning styles and needs when compared to girls: most boys develop mentally, physically and emotionally at a different rate to girls; their ability to master essential aspects of the curriculum involving verbal/linguistic and visual/spatial skills differs to girls; and boys’ interests, hobbies, style of games, their inclination to competitive, structured and physical activities, all these provide our Staff with an appropriate framework upon which to build a meaningful and challenging learning setting.
Such basic differences between boys and girls, brought about by a combination of hormonal differentiation, variation in the hard-wiring of the male and female brain, and the influence of cultural and environmental expectations, all impact on how boys function in the classroom. Our understanding of boys determines how our teachers design and deliver our curriculum, how we engage our boys, channel their energy and capture their imagination, creativity and enthusiasm.
And this is most pertinent in our boys’ response to our Performing Arts Program. As an all boys school, our boys have the freedom to embrace the performing arts, insulated from any sexist stereotyping which in many educational settings inhibits boys from participating in Music, Art and Drama. Our boys embrace a wide-ranging cultural program and are proud members of our Junior School Symphony Orchestra, Concert Band, String Orchestra and our various choirs; our boys respond with similar enthusiasm to our Art and Drama programs, which are specifically geared to excite the interests of boys.
A School is only as good as its Staff. At the Junior School we have a Staff committed to teaching boys. Our teachers, by choosing to teach in a boys’ only school, enjoy their interaction with the boys; they enjoy the challenge, the fun, the energy, the spontaneity which are such a part of teaching boys.
Whilst the Junior School is committed to single sex education, we value our joint co-operative programs with our ‘sister’ school Firbank Grammar School. Throughout the year, all Junior School classes enjoy shared activities with Firbank such as our Year 6 Musical and our Year 5 Barn Dance. These activities prepare the boys for further shared programs with the girls at Firbank as they proceed through the School.