Private Primary School in Melbourne with Top Junior School Programs
Laying the Groundwork for Academic Excellence
As a leading private primary school in Melbourne, Oakleigh Grammar offers a Junior School (Prep – 5) program that sparks your child’s passion for learning. Our approach blends explicit teaching with inquiry-based learning, creating a strong foundation in literacy and numeracy that equips our students for Middle and Senior School, all while encouraging inquisitive and imaginative thinking.
Junior School Program
Our Foundation for Academic Success
At Oakleigh Grammar, our private primary school builds on the strong foundation established by our Early Learning Centre, where the Junior School Quartet approach begins. This method ensures that students receive a personalised and engaging learning experience from the very start. As they progress, they continue to grow their understanding and skills in a way that feels both natural and stimulating.
As your child moves through their Junior School years, they continue to benefit from our personalised approach to learning. Our private primary school offers a team of dedicated and skilled teachers who use a mix of teaching methods to cater to each student’s unique needs. We focus not only on their academic progress but also on their overall wellbeing, helping them to thrive both in and out of the classroom.
A Junior Years Curriculum that Sets Our Private Primary School Apart
The Explicit Teaching Model
Our Explicit Teaching Model ensures that every student at Oakleigh Grammar Junior School gets the best possible start, helping them engage with and master essential literacy and numeracy skills.
This research-backed approach goes beyond basic instruction, incorporating strategies for thinking and problem-solving, which helps younger students excel across all subjects.
Throughout their time in our private primary school in Melbourne, students build their knowledge and skills across a diverse curriculum. While they focus on developing strong literacy and numeracy foundations, they also explore a variety of exciting subjects such as music, languages, science, history, technology, visual arts, drama, and physical education.
In addition to their academic studies, students have the opportunity to participate in a range of co-curricular activities, including private or group music lessons, ensembles, choirs, and sports teams. They can also join various enrichment programs such as Chess Club, Games Room, Art Club, Robotics Club, Tournament of Minds, GATEWAYS, and Debating.
To connect classroom learning with real-world experiences, students engage in The Leader in Me Process and take part in camps and excursions throughout the school year.
Prep to Year 2
Engage
Students entering our private primary school, from Prep to Year 2, benefit from a teacher-directed Explicit Instruction approach. This method, rooted in traditional teaching principles, ensures that our students master essential skills through a structured framework.
Our Junior School in Melbourne, we recognise the importance of these foundational skills and create a solid scaffold to support their future success.
All students require a consolidated foundation in reading, writing and mathematical concepts, all of which are clearly and sequentially embedded within each child’s learning.
Year 3
Explain
Year 3 is a time of transition where our students will have mastered many of their early years’ foundations in literacy and numeracy and will now begin to acquire more complex understandings in readiness for Years 4 and Year 5.
Explicit Instruction continues in Year 3 and begins to Build to Inquiry. Students work towards a balanced of learning ‘explicitly’ and then applying their understandings using their inquiring’ minds.
Year 3 is a specified learning experience which acts as a ‘launching pad’ for the students as they move into Year 4 and Year 5.
Year 4 & 5
Elaborate
The final stage of our Junior School Targeted Quartet Model remains rigorous and is designed to build on our students’ previously acquired competencies and confidence as they continue to navigate their own learning, building in confidence and consolidating their knowledge and skills. Through increased application and a global lens; Thinking forward, thinking globally, students are set up for success as they transition into middle school.
The Leader in Me
Leadership development is given priority at Oakleigh Grammar, especially within our private primary school. Students are educated to recognise their own unique talents and leadership potential and are encouraged at all times to strive for their personal best.
A special feature of leadership development at Oakleigh Grammar begins in the early years. The children follow the program “The Leader in Me” which is based on “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey. This program has proven to be hugely successful in creating self-directed learners who can identify and demonstrate their own leadership capabilities. “The Leader in Me” continues throughout the Middle and Senior School as students move their focus on the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens” providing them with the abilities to expand their key leadership skills.
We are proud to be the first Independent School in Australia to be accredited as a Leader in Me Lighthouse School. We encourage our students to showcase initiative and creativity to develop the skills to find their voice and encourage others to find theirs.
Learn more about “The Leader in Me.”
