Flinders Primary School is honoured to be recognised nationally as the Primary School of the Year (Non-Government) in the 2023 Australian Education Awards - the leading independent awards in the K-12 education sector across Australia.
Primary School at Matthew Flinders Anglican College is a welcoming, healthy and creative learning environment for your child to start their schooling journey.
Our expert teaching and leadership team, led by Head of Primary, Mrs Trudi Edwards, is committed to providing our Primary students from Prep to Year 6 with a vibrant scholastic life and a robust foundation for learning.
As a community, we immerse our students in a caring, values-rich, high aspiration environment and an unwavering belief in each child to realise their potential.
Strong relationships help to support a successful transition for children and families as they commence their schooling journey at Flinders.
Vision
Our aim at Flinders Primary is to nurture and develop each student’s confidence, character, fortitude in endeavour, commitment to personal improvement and sense of belonging.
With these skills and character traits, students are equipped
to be active, engaged learners who strive
for excellence in learning and life.
Wellbeing Focus
In our Primary School, students learn in an environment that celebrates kindness and curiosity, expectation and support, responsibility and accountability, enquiry and mastery, encouragement and challenge, and rigour and engagement.
The College’s core values of Compassion, Courage, Integrity and Respect are explored daily through our pastoral care program for wellbeing and our weekly wellbeing lesson.
Supported by our values lessons through daily Flinders Way lessons, RAVE lessons and Chapel services, our students are provided with a strong foundation for learning, character, connection and community that enables each child to achieve their personal best while respecting others. We call this our Flinders Way.
Junior Primary Learning Philosophy (Prep to Year 3)
We believe in the power of a strong start.
From the very first day of Prep at Flinders, we focus on enabling our youngest students to flourish. We aim to cultivate in each student a deep engagement in learning and a spirit to achieve mastery and personal best.
In the classroom, students are guided to develop positive learning dispositions so that they regard themselves as capable learners. For example, students learn to value effort, persistence, risk taking and responsibility.
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Junior Primary students at Flinders develop a high level of competence with surface or foundational skills, knowledge, understanding and competency across all subject areas, with a particular focus on literacy and numeracy.
A firm foundation relies on educators who engage in evidence-based strategies, including explicit teaching, feedback and practise. This foundation at Flinders enables our students to use their knowledge and skills to think more critically, creatively and confidently across a range of topics and subjects.
What's more, our youngest students are given diverse and extensive co-curricular opportunities through the Flinders Find My Spark program. This program is full of opportunities to try new hobbies, develop important skills, and build friendships while learning and having fun!
Senior Primary Learning Philosophy (Year 4 to Year 6)
Students at Flinders Senior Primary enjoy a seamless transition from the Junior Primary.
This positive transition is achieved through a sense of continuity, care and connectedness in both curriculum and pastoral care.
Students in Senior Primary are ready and eager to extend their learning. They are challenged in a supportive learning environment and given opportunities to deepen their understanding and competency in order to apply this to more complex problems and contexts.
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Students inquire into rich topics and concepts and have opportunities to develop their ability to question, think critically, solve problems, communicate effectively, to make informed decisions about local, national and global issues and create innovative solutions to respond creatively to current and future needs.
Senior Primary students are also encouraged to develop citizenship and ethical learning through their service to our College community. A range of leadership opportunities are experienced
When our Senior Primary students leave at the end of Year 6 we ensure their smooth transition to Flinders Middle School, knowing they depart as responsible, resilient and independent learners ready to embrace secondary education.
Discover our Curriculum
Matthew Flinders Anglican College supports students to achieve excellence by offering a rigorous and responsive academic program. The College prioritises a whole-school approach to literacy and numeracy teaching in the early years at Flinders, and proudly topped the Sunshine Coast in NAPLAN results in 2021 and 2022, both for the Primary School and Secondary School.
SIGNATURE CURRICULUM PROGRAMS: Our students are able to access academic enrichment through our signature Flinders curriculum programs, shared below.
SUBJECT FOCUS AREAS at Flinders Primary include English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Modern Languages (French and Japanese from Years 3 – 6), Health and Physical Education, Music, Visual Art, Religious and Values Education, and Digital and Design Technology.
ADDITIONAL ACADEMIC ENRICHMENT: There are also opportunities to engage in additional enrichment activities and extension programs on offer in the wider community, such as through the ICASS competitions and Maths Olympiad.
Signature Curriculum Programs
at Flinders Primary
At Flinders Primary School, our signature curriculum programs
and co-curricular programs are proven to
boost student learning engagement, outcomes and satisfaction.
LEARNER POWERS
Our Learner Powers program focuses on building five dispositions to become engaged, successful and confident learners: Collaborative, Innovative, Reflective, Resilient and Self-Motivated. To begin, students become aware of what these dispositions entail, and must then identify their strengths and areas for growth. They are then ready to set goals to work towards.
READY FOR...
Our Ready For... approach provides differentiation in literacy and Numeracy to ensure students engage with the right level of personal challenge to support ongoing achievement and progress. This approach also enables smaller class sizes, resulting in more individual instruction.
View the short video on our Ready For program here.
I-CARE & i-IMPACT
The Primary School's I-Care and i-Impact Programs empower students to use design thinking to empathise, ideate and prototype innovative solutions to cultural, social and environmental issues. Richly integrated emerging technologies assist in supporting a spirit of entrepreneurialism and social justice so that students can make a positive impact in the world.
WONDERATIONS
Wonderations (our Primary School Wonder Lessons) are taught from Prep to Year 6 and are designed to promote wonder and awe in our students. Held in our Wonderarium, these lessons involve a series of prompts, designed to provoke students' curiosity, encourage collaborative inquiry to formulate questions, finding fascinating facts, share finding and reflect on how their thinking about world issues may have changed as a result.
FIND MY SPARK AND PLAY & PROSPER
Find My Spark features cultural, sporting, musical and lifestyle activities to support students to excel in learning and life. Play & Prosper enables students to engage in more structured play during lunchtimes to develop skills in collaboration, healthy friendships, resilience, conflict resolution and other key social and emotional competencies. Both programs enable our staff to share their passions and interests with students and support the development of social and emotional skills.
THE FLINDERS WAY
The Flinders Way is an integrated aspect of the Primary Wellbeing Program. Each day, students explore different aspects of character development, values, team building and social and emotional learning to assist them to develop positive and ethically-informed character dispositions.
Design for Impact Summit
View the short video below of our Design for Impact Summit, a two-day design thinking immersion experience for Year 5 students
as part of our Flinders Primary i-Impact Program.
Co-curricular Opportunities in Primary
Beyond the classroom, the Primary School’s co-curricular program offers the Find My Spark and the Play & Prosper initiatives.
Find My Spark features cultural, sporting, musical and lifestyle activities to support students to excel in learning and life.
Play & Prosper enables students to engage in more structured play during lunchtimes to develop skills in collaboration, healthy friendships, resilience, conflict resolution and other key social and emotional competencies.
Both programs enable our staff to share their passions and interests with students and support the development of social and emotional skills.
QUALITY AND DEDICATED TEACHING
Our College provides a committed and passionate team of educators to support your child in Primary School. Our Flinders Primary team includes classroom teachers, specialist Maths and English teachers, teacher aides and the leadership team, including our Head of Primary, Mrs Trudi Edwards; Head of Junior Primary; Head of Senior Primary; Head of Teaching and Learning; Head of Emerging Technologies and Innovation; as well as the College Principal, Ms Michelle Carroll.
Our teaching approach and curriculum programs are informed by such philosophies as:
- strong focus on literacy and numeracy
- evidence-based practice
- brain-based learning
- emerging technology and innovation
- real-world learning
- design thinking and entrepreneurialism
- personalised and holistic learning
- effort dispositions for learning
- ethical learning
- student wellbeing.
TECHNOLOGY
Technology plays an important role in teaching and learning at Flinders.
The College was named an Apple Distinguished School 2022-2025, for its outstanding use of Apple technology.
Technology provides opportunities for rich and varied learning experiences while also developing essential digital literacy skills. At Flinders, we want to help our students to become masterful users of technology, with the ability to leverage their skills to support learning and life.
In our increasingly digital society, we are mindful that our students need to be equipped with a deep understanding of the role of technology in our world and a strong sense of digital citizenship. At Flinders, we provide opportunities for our students to collaborate in safe online spaces with staff and peers to learn these skills.
Students in the Primary Campus benefit from a 1:1 device allocation, working across a carefully curated collection of age-appropriate educational platforms and software applications. Specialist staff work with classroom teachers to integrate technology into the classroom in impactful ways that engage, inspire and support achievement across subjects. The use of Apple Pencils across several year levels allows students new ways to learn and create in the classroom.
FACILITIES
As a priority, Flinders provides aspirational learning spaces and sports facilities that enhance students’ wellbeing, health and learning potential. Our Primary School campus is a welcoming and creative space set amidst landscaped gardens and nature playgrounds, and bordered by rainforest. The spacious, light-filled classrooms have integrated technology and are a joy to teach and learn in.
The Flinders Masterplan is delivering exciting new learning precincts at the College, including the new Flagship Centre for our Years 5 and 6 students, which opened in Term 2021. There is also the Wonderarium, an innovative learning centre, full of wonder and joy in learning. A new Junior Primary Nature Playground opened in Term 2021 and new pathways, gardens and seating areas have been created across our Primary campus.
Our Primary students also have access to facilities across the greater College campus, including the Flinders Farm; the Flinders Performance Centre; and impressive sporting facilities, including two floodlit sporting ovals that offer three full-sized fields and two cricket pitches, the 25-metre Flinders Aquatic Centre with a Learn to Swim facility and development squads; and an indoor Sports Centre.
LEADERSHIP
One of our key goals at Flinders is to develop students with the potential to lead and contribute to a better world. Leaders enact our College values and inspire all students to do the same. Our students lead through action, not through title, and encourage effective leadership skills to be embraced
In Senior Primary, our students progress from class leadership roles (such as the Staff and Student Council and Round Square Ambassadors) towards the Year 6 leadership roles of School Captain, Sports House Captain and Music Ensemble Captain.
Students may develop leadership skills through the experience of:
- being a buddy to a new student through our Flinders Friends Program;
- helping to fundraise for a charity through our Student and Staff Council community service program;
- leading a team or helping out at a carnival on the sporting field; and
- through participating in one of our many co-curricular activities.
ACHIEVEMENT
The ethos of our College is to encourage and recognise student achievement and personal effort across a wide range of activities. Awards and certificates celebrating excellence, high achievement, endeavour, and service may be presented to students at various events and assemblies during the year.
