DISCOVER
Years 5 and 6 at St Margaret’s
• Experience the community of a faith-based school
• Lead the entire primary school of over 400 students
• Participate in Brisbane’s premier primary school sports association
• Enjoy Year 6 rites of passage
• Access whole school facilities
• Benefit from a spiralling curriculum through primary and beyond and specialist teachers
• Star in the Arts Spectacular
• Make magical music through whole class and specialist ensembles
• Vertically integrate with younger and older students through buddy and house activities and the extracurricular program
• Access an exciting and diverse range of extra clubs and activities
• Travel to Canberra and beyond
• Opportunities to board
Whether you commenced at St Margaret’s in the earlier primary school years or are joining us for the first time in Year 5, the final two years at St Margaret’s primary school not only represent the peak of your primary school years, but they also provide you with the best springboard to soar into secondary school. Let’s explore Years 5 and 6 at St Margaret’s and discover what you can look forward to.
A faith-based community
As a school of the Society of the Sacred Advent, St Margaret’s is a a faith-based community in the Anglican tradition, although welcoming of all faiths. Regular religious and values education classes and opportunities for worship and quiet reflection in special prayer spaces add a powerful connective thread to the school’s culture where, in the spirit of this faith, members live the St Margaret’s values and the St Margaret’s Way every day.
Leadership
Remember the leaders you looked up to when you were little? Well, you are about to become one of them – a leading light! Years 5 and 6 are all about stepping up and taking on more responsibilities. In Year 5, you will learn what it means to be a leader. In Year 6, you will be a House Leader, as well as have the chance to nominate for Primary Captain or sports leader positions.
As a Year 6 leader, you will be student leader of the whole primary school – from Pre-Prep to Year 6. That’s over 400 students, who come from all over Brisbane, Queensland and even the world!
You will be a role model to all the younger students, and more specifically, will be buddied up with a Prep student to help them navigate the early years of primary school.
You will also become an important ambassador for the school, taking on the role of tour guide on Open Morning and Open Day.
These leadership experiences are all incredible opportunities for personal growth that give you the chance to step outside your comfort zones, help build independence and resilience, expand your world, push the boundaries, and boost your confidence: you will be ready to take on your secondary schooling years with courage and self-assurance.
Rites of Passage
Being in Years 5 and 6 at St Margaret’s brings a wealth of magical experiences and milestones.
One such rite of passage is the transition to wearing the esteemed Panama during break times in Year 6. It’s time to retire your play hat and embrace this iconic symbol of St Margaret’s that you’ve eagerly awaited. Plus, you get your Year 6 shirt. The doors of the senior library await your entry, as do the doors of QPAC, where you may get the chance to walk across the stage on Speech Night to receive academic, sporting, musical and citizenship awards and even strive for Primary Dux.
If you have been at St Margaret’s since Prep, you will receive a lifetime friend badge and a very special bear, which is presented to you on assembly. You will also enjoy a special morning tea with your early years’ teachers and the Head of Primary.
You are also given the online key to Learning Analytics: you are now entrusted to track your progress and set your academic goals, helping to get you in the swing for your secondary school years and beyond.
Whole School Facilities
At St Margaret’s, while the primary school has its own distinct area, students can still take advantage of the whole school facilities right on their doorstep – like our amazing sports precinct including the pool and gym, beautiful new green spaces like The Forest, and soon to open Canopy Café – our brand new tuckshop. And don’t forget our incredible art room in the secondary school arts building.
Strengthening your learning foundations
Language
In Years 5 and 6 you can continue (or commence) your language learning in Chinese or French, strengthening your skills and helping you to seamlessly transition to the secondary school languages, right up to Year 12 and beyond. St Margaret’s language specialists teach across the primary and secondary schools, ensuring you are best prepared to advance your learning skills into the secondary years.
It’s not just the language teachers that teach across both schools. We ensure that teachers in a range of subject disciplines are across the primary and secondary school curriculums to ensure continuity of learning across the two schools. This ensures you have all the right tools in your tool kit, ready for the next big step in your learning journey.
Core Plus Cluster
You’ll know about our unique core plus cluster program if you’ve been with us for a while. This unique approach to differentiated learning continues in Years 5 and 6 where you will take a more active role as an independent leader of your own learning in readiness for your secondary schooling.
Ready, Set, Secondary
By Year 6, your teachers, including our specialist learning enhancement staff, already know you well. They will work with St Margaret’s secondary school staff to ensure you are ready and set-up to have the best chance of a successful start to your secondary schooling years.
The EXTRAcurriculars that make the experience
EXTRA special
Arts Spectacular
Our spectacular Arts Spectacular is one of the most favourably anticipated and fondly remembered event of Years 5 and 6. Of course, it’s not just one event. It’s months of exciting planning and learning in what is a truly immersive creative process, including all the visual and performing arts, before proudly performing for your parents and the whole school. It’s one of a kind and unforgettable!
Music Making
Did you know the music making can help with all areas of your growth and development – even your brain development! All students in Years 5 and 6 learn how to make music. You might have been part of our Years 3 and 4 strings program that all students become involved in. In Year 5, all students take part in the band program, run by specialist conductors. You are matched with a suitable instrument, develop your skills, and then perform on stage.
St Margaret’s has an amazing music ensemble program that runs through the primary and secondary schools. The program allows for vertical grouping so that every young musician will find a suitable ensemble no matter what their standard. And if you excel at your instrument, you may even find yourself performing with some of the top ensembles with secondary school students while you are still in primary school!
With all this music preparation, including singing in choirs, you might be thinking you’d like to audition for our amazing biennial secondary school musicals. Maybe one day you could be playing Morticia in The Addams Family, or Maria in Sound of Music!
A local school with a global outlook
While we are a local school in a beautiful green enclave in suburban Ascot, our global outlook prepares you for the world beyond the school gates.
In Year 6 you will go to the nation’s capital – Canberra – where you get to apply the curriculum and really start to know how the nation ticks. With the debating skills you’ll learn in primary school, one day you might be running the country.
Every two years, the primary school conducts a trip to Japan. This is a great preview for what participating in our Year 10 Global Exchange Program might look like, giving you the confidence to apply to spend a term abroad, including Japan, when you are older.
Boarding
We welcome boarders in Years 5 and 6, so whether you are a boarder or become friends with the boarders (we all do), this city/country cultural exchange offers many enriching and unique experiences for all.
Sport
Our primary students participate in the Andrews Cup competition, a training ground for the premier school girls’ sporting competition in Brisbane – the Queensland Girls School Secondary Sports Association (QGSSSA). Andrews Cup now includes 11 sports and our Years 5 and 6 students can try out for all of them: swimming, netball, athletics, artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, soccer, tennis, touch football, basketball, cross country, cricket and even AFL! Our track record is pretty impressive in Andrews Cup competitions, too! If you have serious sporting aspirations, Andrews Cup might just be your springboard to gold medal glory!
Years 5 and 6 students continuing on to St Margaret’s Secondary School can join a range of exciting community club sport offerings including club water polo, club swimming and club netball. These community oriented sports, commencing in the primary years, provide a fun and developmental opportunity that continue to engage students throughout their senior years.
Clubs and Activities
At St Margaret’s primary school, you have the chance to explore and experience a wide range of extracurricular interests that include both free and user pays activities, from Maggies podcast to mindfulness, debating and eSports, and even Japanese. Exciting opportunities await!
The leap into Secondary School
After completing Years 5 and 6 at St Margaret’s, starting secondary school here won’t feel like a scary leap: more like a confident stride. You will have the full toolkit of skills you have developed in the primary school to take the secondary school by storm! You will also make new friends and help them settle into St Margaret’s until it feels every bit as much like home to them as it does to you.
With more boarders entering the school in secondary school you will expand each other’s horizons – helping them to settle into their new home and many will have the chance to see a completely different view of Australia as they show you their home on our special day/boarder long weekend.
You will also stay in the same House – your House – a House you will probably barrack for the rest of your life!
But do you know who is also barracking for you? The amazing St Margaret’s community.
Members of our community care for all St Margaret’s girls. They really see you, they already know you and are your biggest cheerleaders throughout your schooling years and beyond.
You could even be mentored by some of our past students, and perhaps one day, come back and mentor a St Margaret’s student. The community bonds are enduring and one of the strongest connections you will make in your lifetime starts here – at St Margaret’s.
St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School 11 Petrie Street Ascot QLD 4007 Australia
Telephone: +61 7 3862 0777
Facsimile: +61 7 3862 0701
mail@stmargarets.qld.edu.au www.stmargarets.qld.edu.au
St Margaret’s School Council Ltd ABN: 69069684019 CRICOS Code: 00511K A School of the Society of the Sacred Advent