Learning partners
As part of our schools vision 'Creating Pathways to Opportunity' we focus on making the transitions for our students through their learning life as smooth as possible. With our learning partners, we connect students with learning opportunities and organisations that will best suit them.
Our partner high school, Pimpama State Secondary College, works closely with our senior school students to develop a familiar bond with high school teachers and students to ease the transition form Year 6 to Year 7.
Pimpama State Secondary College offers our students a number of programs and activities to participate in during the year.
Canon workshops
Run annually, the primary school based workshops are geared at exposing Year 5 & 6 students to practical experiences in the Pimpama State Secondary College Canon Academic Excellence Program (English and Humanities Extension).
The Canon Academy is offered to students in Year 7-9 at Pimpama State Secondary College who show an aptitude and passion for English and Humanities subjects. These workshops will provide your child with the opportunity to experience what life is like as a Canon student, and recognise the level of work required from members of this academy program.
By successfully completing this program students may even be offered early entry into the Canon Academic Excellence Program – so keep an eye out for information regarding our next workshop!
Year 5: Replicate, Reflect and Refine
This mini course will focus on creating a compressed narrative reflective of a chosen genre. The workshops will lead students through a variety of narrative genres and the ways that they can manipulate ideas and texts to suit their purpose, audience and context. Our final activity will be to publish and present an anthology of writing.
Session 1: Mystery narratives
Session 2: Sci-fi narratives
Session 3: Adventure narratives
Session 4: Publishing your work.
Year 6: Tiny TED Talks
This mini course will focus on exposing students to the power of the spoken word as they develop and create a TED-style talk. The workshops will lead students through the process of developing ideas, refining these and presenting a logical and thought-provoking speech. The final activity will be to present their talks and share the depth of their ideas.
Session 1: What do you care about?
Session 2: What are others passionate about and how do they communicate that message?
Session 3: How can you influence others to adopt your way of thinking?
Session 4: Presenting TED Talk.
The Canon Academy:
The Canon Academy is designed to challenge students through innovative and thought provoking curriculum to question their understanding of the world and become highly articulate communicators. The assessable product that students will create for each unit of work will encompass students using their knowledge and applying them to real world situations/scenarios. The assessment design and class experiences will allow for students to interact meaningfully with the subject matter and will, at times, allow for students to present information in a format that they are comfortable with.
The outcome
By participating in this program, students will be accelerated in the English/Humanities fields and will be able to process the Senior School curriculum in these fields at a much deeper and thoughtful level. This program will give students exposure to the kind of in-depth studies that are expected of Senior students and transition them into the Senior School and beyond effectively.
Attributes of successful applicants
Reading: To be a successful applicant, students must have a strong passion for reading and be capable of unpacking and making meaning of a variety of opinions presented in texts. Students who are interested in this program should want to read and engage with novels without requiring prompting. Part of the program will require students to read for pleasure and journal their reading experiences to share with peers and their teacher. Students who are not avid readers, would find this component challenging.
Writing/Speaking: Students must also have a keen desire to write and show diligence to perfect and present/publish their work. The class design is focussed heavily on sharing opinions and participating at a deep level to engage meaningfully in the learning process. Students must be confident communicators and have a flair for experimenting with the writing process to communicate effectively within the technological age of the 21st Century. Students will be expected to write in a variety of genres and explore ways of making meaning through the spoken word.