"The Small School with the Big Heart"
St Bernard State School is a school that celebrates our performance, achievements and improvements of all students. We encourage our students to challenge themselves as learners and people by taking on feedback and reflecting on how they can improve. We use the 5 Questions for Students to guide our students in their learning.
1. What are you learning and why?
2. How are you going? (using a scale)
3. How do you know?
4. What can you do to improve?
5. Where can you go for help?
These questions not only provide support for students but also provide opportunities for students who are excelling to thrive beyond the expectation, showing there are always next steps in our learning. Our school has been ranked second in the South East Region for student results in the Australian Curriculum and featured as one of Queensland's Top 50 and Gold Coast Top 10 (#4) most improved schools in NAPLAN results. These results prove that not only do State schools = Great Schools but Small Schools = a better quality, holistic learning environment where students can thrive.
St Bernard State School's long history of high academic performance can be attributed to the experience, expertise and relationships that our staff have with students. We focus on each child and teaching to the Australian Curriculum and what individual students need to learn – not to a test. Our experienced teachers and innovative teaching team are led by our Principal, Head of Department – Curriculum and STLaN who teach and learn alongside our staff and students, as well as working with some of the country's top educational researchers – including Tony Ryan – an educational futurist and Author of “Generation Next". Our school's curriculum is contextualised to our students and community providing authentic, genuine and meaningful learning experiences, linked to our students lives. In 2024, we will begin implementing Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum including Critical and Creative Thinking to provide students with a continued world class education. We implore families to look out for information sessions and workshops that will be provided by the school to support families to better understand how, why and what their children are being taught and assessed.
We encourage all of our students to achieve their best by not only offering support and intervention programs but academic excellence programs as well. We partner with Tamborine Mountain State High School to provide a targeted Year 6 Academic Extension Program where 6 students each semester attends TMSHS each Wednesday to complete an elective subject and health with Year 7 students, being taught and assessed at a Year 7 level by High School specialist teachers. This program is unique to the Gold Coast area, let alone the mountain.
