Teaching & Learning

The philosophy of teaching and learning at St Thomas the Apostle finds its source in our School Vision; that the way to God is through Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We are a professional learning community dedicated to providing the best possible spiritual, emotional, social and academic learning outcomes for all students.

Early Learning Centre

ELC Logo

Your child’s school journey of learning in a caring and inclusive environment begins at St Anthony’s Early Learning Centre, Wanniassa. St Anthony’s ELC provides quality preschool education in North Tuggeranong, catering for families in Kambah and surrounding suburbs.
The new centre is an exciting, innovative and collaborative facility for preschool education and long day care programs, accepting children who turn 4 years of age by 30 April the year they attend.

Chess

Students at St Thomas’ from Years 3-6 can participate in chess lessons each week. Chess involves creative planning, thinking ahead and predicting outcomes to solve problems or invent creative solutions. We describe this as ‘gymnastics for the brain’, with opportunities for interschool chess competitions.

STEM

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are identified as essential areas of learning for Australia to maintain a high quality of life. At St Thomas the Apostle we recognise that future prosperity depends on students gaining proficiency in these areas in order to foster scientific and technological developments. We have a specialist teacher for STEM who facilitates the learning of all children from K-6 in this dynamic area.

Library

Our library is a valuable resource for the entire school. Our Teacher Librarian takes each class for 80 minutes per fortnight to support and enrich classroom learning, teach research skills, cyber safety and explore the wonderful world of books.
Our library laptops are a great resource for Information Technology, providing an avenue for students to access the internet and complete research-based tasks. The library is a welcoming and quiet space open most lunchtimes. Parents also have access to their own borrowing area and book swap.

Languages (Indonesian)

Indonesian is taught to all students. Each K-2 class has a weekly, forty minute lesson and Years 3-6 class has a fortnightly, eighty minute lesson.. The aim of the Indonesian program is for the children to be able to communicate orally, in writing and to read a variety of texts. The students’ understanding of the Indonesian culture is developed using topics such as self, family, school, housing, clothing, food and eating out, shopping, the calendar, sport and leisure.