These learning objectives encourage students to investigate their own identities, broaden their horizons, and become agents of positive change. So, we build our curriculum around encouraging students to ask questions, think critically, and share their ideas. Inquiry-based, hands-on, experiential curricula that foster a passion for learning are key to this goal’s realisation. Students develop a deeper understanding of who they are as individuals by identifying and pursuing their areas of interest, skill, and voice across all disciplines.
To better prepare students for the experiences and challenges they will face in the real world, the Lower School places an emphasis on an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach within the core subjects of science, mathematics, literacy, and social studies. This rigorous method of teaching encourages students to think analytically, consider other points of view, and come up with original solutions to issues.
The requirements from the current and next grade are used to create a curriculum that allows for both predetermined material and room for students’ own unique perspectives and interests to shine through. Questions that serve as frameworks for lessons and modules.
The Lower School promotes an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to the study of science, mathematics, reading, and social studies in order to better prepare children for the experiences and problems they will confront in the real world.
Rather than serving purely as evaluation tools, both informal and formal evaluations are continuous, based on research, and geared towards encouraging students’ development and learning.
Science fairs are held annually by students in grades 1-5 at the Lower School. Students spend four to six weeks working through the scientific process, from asking a question to developing a prediction or hypothesis to conducting an experiment to analysing the results.
Students at Dunes Academy not only have access to interactive classroom projectors with document cameras and other group teaching tools in every classroom, but they also participate in a variety of projects that help them develop their technology skills. Robot mazes are a popular activity for 1st graders to practise their direction and measuring skills. Second graders learn to use programmes like Google Docs and code an interactive poetry that features their name. Students in the third grade may show their understanding of the rock cycle with a programme they created and ran in Scratch. Students in grades four and five make a maths game using random number generators that the whole class may play together. Second, third, and fourth grade teachers utilise Matific to provide students individualised arithmetic assignments.
Students learn to type and use their Chromebooks effectively in grades 2 and 3, laying the groundwork for a more natural integration of technology into their education starting in fourth grade. Students in the fifth grade have utilised 3D modelling software to learn more about the human eye as part of their science curriculum.
join the success
At Dunes Academy, our educators are more than teachers; they are mentors, guides, and partners in each student’s educational journey. With a collaborative approach, we create an environment where students thrive academically and personally.