Inspired by: Where The Forest Meets The Sea - Curriculum Objectives

The curriculum objectives for pupils engaging with "Where The Forest Meets The Sea" by Jeannie Baker encompass a multifaceted approach to literacy development, focusing on both reading and writing skills. Pupils are encouraged to enhance their vocabulary through the understanding of root words, prefixes, and suffixes, as well as by recognising and reading exception words with atypical spelling-sound correspondences. The educational goals also emphasise cultivating a positive attitude towards reading by exposing students to a diverse array of literary forms, including fiction, poetry, plays, and non-fiction. They are taught to use dictionaries to verify word meanings, discuss and perform written works, and identify thematic elements and literary conventions within various texts. Additionally, students are expected to independently comprehend texts by asking pertinent questions, inferring characters' emotions and motives, predicting outcomes, summarising key points, and understanding how language contributes to meaning.

In writing, pupils are taught to plan, draft, evaluate, and edit their work. They learn to organise their ideas and structure their writing, whether crafting narratives with settings and characters or non-narrative texts with organisational devices like headings. The importance of varied sentence structures, rich vocabulary, and appropriate grammar and punctuation is stressed, with proofreading for errors being a key part of the writing process. Handwriting also receives attention, with a focus on increasing legibility and quality through consistent letter formation and spacing. Grammar education includes understanding and using different types of conjunctions, verb forms, and punctuation, such as commas after fronted adverbials and possessive apostrophes. As part of their studies, pupils explore themes of conservation and change, research the Daintree Forest, engage with poetry and Aboriginal stories, and develop their descriptive and narrative skills through various writing exercises, including retelling stories in different tenses and perspectives.