Balwyn North Primary School
At Balwyn North Primary School, we strive to provide a nurturing and challenging environment that empowers students to reach their personal best, both academically and socially. We have a diverse and inclusive school community, with an enrolment of approximately 560 students, with many families from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. We have an SFOE index of 0.1516 and 51% percent of our students identify as having a LBOTE. Due to our diverse community, the school employs a multilingual Multicultural Aide, and an EAL teacher.
In 2017, Balwyn North Primary School achieved authorisation as an IB World school and we now implement the International Baccalaureate (IB) Primary Years' Program (PYP). The PYP focuses on the total growth of the developing child, touching hearts as well as minds and encompassing social, physical, emotional and cultural needs in addition to academic development. We have a student centred philosophy to teaching and learning, where student driven inquiries go hand-in-hand with explicit focused teaching, to offer learning experiences that are truly meaningful to each child. Students are encouraged to have agency in their learning and pursue new knowledge and understandings that are personally relevant to them.
Also in 2017, as part of the School Strategic Review, analysis of NAPLAN, teacher judgment, and Student, Staff and Parent survey data revealed that while our students were achieving at high levels in literacy and numeracy, their sense of challenge, agency and engagement with learning, was an important area for potential growth. We designed the goal of building a rich, challenging and stimulating learning program that meets all students at their point of need. Through this staged work, the school set about developing a series of whole school approaches in Mathematics, Writing, Reading and Spelling. These were consultative processes, where the development of a shared philosophy, language, pedagogy, resourcing and the building of teacher capabilities went hand in hand.