DIVINE MERCY COLLEGE
ACADEMICS
Primary School
Offers a highly structured curriculum based on very solid and systematic textbooks and resources. These textbooks are available in all subjects, from Pre-Primary to Year 10.
Starting from Year 6, all subjects are taught by specialist teachers.
Secondary School
The use of exclusive specialist teaching provides a more rigorous approach to education and marks entry into upper high education and makes entry into upper high school a natural advancement.
Starting from Grade 7 we offer: English, History, Geography, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Computing as separate subjects. Special emphasis is applied to Art, Music, Foreign Languages, Media and Physical Education.
Learning Support Team
At Divine Mercy College we focus on improving literacy and numeracy skills school-wide as well as implementing our school goal of promoting ‘Quality Differentiation.’ We track student achievement through analysis of standardised testing data to help us identify students at risk and our Learning Support team in collaboration with classroom teachers create education plans helping identify growth points for specific students. This means teachers are able to provide flexibility within their programming and teaching, providing reasonable adjustments so that all students are able to access curriculum at their appropriate level and feel a sense of achievement. At DMC, all students have the opportunity to grow and learn.
This year we have added to our repertoire of specialised reading intervention programs with the new MacQlit program by Macquarie University. Our other Macquarie University Multi-Lit programs include (MacQlit, Spell-It, Reading Tutor and Mini-Lit) to assist students in developing the English Phonic Code, phonological awareness, reading, writing and expressive skills.
All of our Education Assistants, have received quality training by the Multi-Lit team and are certified to deliver all our reading intervention programs which are proud to say this year are being offered throughout Primary and High school. Our standardised reading tests show wonderful growth in reading, phonic knowledge and comprehension. Students have responded with great enthusiasm and our team are really proud of their efforts.
Extra numeracy support has continued this year, enabling teachers and assistants to provide scaffolding and help for those students who need an extra boost with mathematics. Many of our teachers have attended many workshops provided by AISWA to assist them in promoting ‘differentiation’ and explicit teaching in mathematics which involves teaching the same concept but offering it at different levels so all students can be scaffolded to achieve their potential.
