Early Years
Welcome to the Early Years at Kadina Memorial School, where we provide a play-based curriculum that invites children to explore, learn, and grow. Guided by the interests of our learners, we actively support and cultivate qualities such as curiosity, confidence, and persistence. Our nurturing approach fosters a strong sense of belonging, ensuring every child feels valued within our school community.
Our Early Years classroom begin each day with Purposeful play; an opportunity for children to connect with staff, their peers and families. The gentle start to the day supports our trauma informed practises, preparing them to be confident and capable learners
English
The literacy program at Kadina Memorial School offers a comprehensive and structured approach to literacy development, carefully tailored to meet the diverse needs of our students.
Our program places a strong emphasis on the Big 6 components – oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension – ensuring that every learner receives targeted support and rich learning experiences to build essential literacy skills.
Reading
We are committed to ensuring that every child learns to read. Proficient reading is a vital skill for success at school, enables active participation in society, and fosters a lifelong joy of reading. Our approach is grounded in rigorous, evidence-based research, known as the Science of Reading.
Guided by this evidence, we teach explicitly and systematically using InitiaLit to ensure the success of each student. Regular monitoring of reading progress is implemented to determine each student’s development and provide targeted interventions for those not meeting year level expectations
InitiaLit
This is an evidence based program that focuses on foundational literacy skills. It is designed to support early reading and writing development through explicit instruction in phonics, vocabulary and comprehension.
Intervention
Targeted at students who require additional support, our literacy intervention program has been designed by the Education Department’s Literacy Guarantee Unit (LGU). It is an intervention program that provides intensive instruction to reading through short, regular systematic and explicit teaching. Run by highly skilled teachers and SSOs our aim is to build confidence and competence in literacy.
Decodable readers
To support the implementation of InitiaLit our school uses decodable readers. Initially, these are short texts that support student’s emerging skills for segmenting and blending words using known (already taught) letters, words and sentences. Decodable texts allow students to gradually master their decoding skills and progressively challenge them through the series of InitiaLit readers. Alongside the use of decodable books, students become familiar with ‘tricky words’.
These words include examples such as ‘was, one, said, you’ and are explained by the class teacher, as well as provided with booklets to practise at home.
Maths
In Mathematics we explicitly teach concepts through hands on learning, providing opportunities for children to extend and challenge their thinking in multiple ways.
Each class participates in daily Maths reviews ensuring consolidation of previously taught skills, as well as, engage in problem solving activities. Common assessments are used to support teaching and learning across each year level.
Speciality Subjects
At Kadina Memorial School, we offer a broad curriculum that includes HASS, Health, PE, Science, Pastoral Care, The Arts, and Technologies.
Specialist teachers deliver engaging lessons in these areas, guided by both the South Australian Curriculum and our site learning plan.
We warmly welcome learning opportunities within the community, as these experiences help foster meaningful connections and cultivate a strong sense of school pride that continues with our learners throughout their educational journey and beyond.