Students in the Chinese Bilingual Program learn to write in a variety of text types, including:
We adapt the whole-school “Talk for Writing” approach to suit the bilingual context. This helps students to orally rehearse, plan, and confidently produce written work in Chinese.
Unlike English, Chinese is not a phonetic language; its written form is based on characters. Learning Chinese characters is essential for developing reading and writing skills. With many years of experience teaching students from non-Chinese-speaking backgrounds, the RWPS bilingual team has developed a comprehensive Chinese Character Curriculum, supported by effective strategies and age-appropriate resources tailored to young learners. To support literacy development across both languages and avoid confusion with English phonics, Pinyin is introduced in Grades 3 and 4.
RWPS has a strong reading program in both English and Chinese, based on the Gradual Release of Responsibility model. This includes shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading. Many of the reading strategies taught in English are transferable to Chinese. These include:
These strategies support students in developing deep understanding of texts and becoming confident, capable readers in both languages.
Listening and speaking are the foundation of the Chinese Bilingual Program at RWPS. Research shows that developing these skills is the first and most essential step in language acquisition. By listening to and speaking Chinese, students begin to understand its sounds, vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structures—laying the groundwork for reading and writing. These skills are embedded in everyday learning, helping students grow in both confidence and fluency over time.
The Performing Arts Program involves a combination of music, dance, drama and mixed media.
Richmond West Primary school presents a whole-school production annually to celebrate our performing arts program.
All classes perform regularly at our weekly assemblies and many instrumental students also perform for the whole school at assembly.
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths) – all students enjoy the opportunity to complete a range of STEM challenges each week. The STEM program is well resourced, with students engaged in coding and robotics, developing design solutions and a broad range of Science experiments and investigations.
Each year all students participate in a whole school science night to showcase their learning and to celebrate their excitement about science with parents and carers.
We offer a dedicated and well appointed Visual Arts learning space in which students are encouraged to explore their creative skills, build their Art knowledge, and challenge their technical abilities. In a multi-arts approach to creativity, classes encourage students to:
Students explore the artistic concepts of line, shape, colour, pattern and texture.
Classes offer fun and practical drawing, painting and construction activities that not only explore the artistic concepts of line, shape, colour, pattern and texture, but also include the study of art history (old and new masters) and its significance to many world cultures.
We are so proud of our students’ artistic efforts that every year the school holds an art show to showcase their creations, talents, and abilities.
The PE program encompasses age-appropriate movement, fitness, skills, games and sports using a variety of equipment, in accordance with Victorian Curriculum. Our PE teacher plans the program and all students are expected to participate in PE sessions to the best of their ability, increase their fitness and show acceptable sporting conduct. The development of leadership skills in teamwork and sportsmanship are also integral part of our Physical Education program.
The program includes:
Students in Years 5 and 6 participate in summer and winter inter-school sports gala days competing against local primary schools.
Our students go on to represent the school at district, zone and state levels in swimming, cross country running, athletics and team sports.