Auslan
At Mount Rogers Primary School, students from Kindergarten to Year 6 learn Auslan (Australian Sign Language), the language of the Australian Deaf community. Through engaging and interactive lessons, students develop their receptive (understanding) and productive (signing) skills to communicate visually using the parameters of sign — handshape, orientation, movement, location, and expression (HOLME).
Students explore aspects of Auslan linguistics, including how these parameters combine to create meaning and how Auslan grammar and sentence structure differ from English. They build their language skills progressively — beginning with greetings, everyday signs, and simple conversations, then expanding to more complex communication, grammar, and storytelling.
In addition to language, students explore Deaf culture, identity, and history, gaining awareness of how Deaf people connect, communicate, and contribute to the community. Our Auslan program fosters respect, inclusion, and appreciation for visual language and cultural diversity.
SEED (Science, Environmental Education & Design)
At Mount Rogers Primary School, students participate in the SEED program. Students study the biological sciences, the earth and space sciences, geography, and design, all through a lens of sustainability.
A core part of the subject is engaging students with the environment through practical lessons in the SEED Vegetable Garden, the school orchard, and the Bush Garden. In the vegetable garden, students participate in seasonal plantings each term and care for the garden by watering, weeding, fertilising, harvesting, and sowing. In the Bush Garden, students care for Country by planting and tending endemic species from the Ngunnawal plant guide. They learn about First Nations peoples, cultures, and histories, and how they have been custodians of the land for thousands of years.
In addition to the learning in the classroom, families collect vegetables at Open Gardens throughout the term and participate in working bees to increase habitat and biodiversity within the school. SEED is a subject that teaches a hopeful, practical, and curriculum-aligned approach for students to respond to the environmental challenges of our time.
STEM (Science and Technology)
At Mount Rogers Primary School, our STEM program inspires curiosity, creativity and problem solving as students explore the world around them through Science and Technology. We encourage students to ask questions, investigate ideas and develop a sense of wonder about how things work, from the natural environment to the designed world.
In Science, students are encouraged to think like scientists. They achieve this by making predictions, conducting experiments, and drawing conclusions from their observations. Through hands-on investigations, they explore topics such as forces and motion, the properties and uses of materials, life cycles and habitats, Earth’s changing surface, and our place in space. Lessons are designed to build curiosity and confidence as students work collaboratively to test ideas, communicate findings and discover the joy of science.
In Technology, students explore the process of designing and creating solutions to real-world problems. Our program balances both digital and design technologies, allowing students to develop their creative, practical, and critical-thinking skills. They learn to plan, test and refine their ideas through both digital and hands-on experiences. In digital technology, students utilise Chromebooks, Micro:bits, Spheros, 3D design and printing, and other digital devices to engage with the key concepts of digital systems, coding, and computational thinking. In design technology, they follow the design process by investigating problems, generating ideas, prototyping solutions, and evaluating outcomes.
By engaging in both Science and Technology, students grow as inquisitive thinkers, capable designers, and future-ready problem solvers.