Environment
Physical Environment
The school was built by parents in 1989 on land belonging to the Department of Natural Resources and administered by the Pine Rivers Shire Council. The surrounding area was planted as a food forest, with all the trees being food trees. We have a beautiful little veggie patch and a worm farm.The kids love to plant vegetables which are then used in cooking or to simply help themselves to the fresh produce thoughout the day. We often grow cherry tomatoes, eggplants, parsley and shallots, to name a few. One year we even grew wheat, which the kids then husked and ground, and turned into bread!
Equipment
Pine provides a variety of literacy, numeracy, science, music, health and physical education and arts resources. All classrooms have computers and access to laptops, safe filtered internet and educational apps using the Google Education Suite. We also have a school library, a kitchen, an extensive collections of Lego, robotics, blocks, building, sandpit, craft and construction materials, a playground and school oval with a small orchard to support our children’s learning experiences.
Learning Environment
The learning environment is considered flexible to include indoor work areas along with outdoor locations. In addition to the school building and the natural environment, use is made of community facilities such as libraries, art galleries, museums, local community hall, parks and sporting facilities.Meaningful excursions, related to the students’ interests are an integral part of the curriculum. Various excursions, incursions and camps are essential learning experiences that develop social skills, self-esteem, responsibility and group cohesiveness.
Human Resources
The school has a number of qualified teachers, teacher aides and learning support teachers, who function as co-ordinators, facilitators and sometimes leaders of learning experiences, rather than as authority figures. Parents and community members are welcome as co-educators in the school in order to enrich the curriculum.