Willmott Park Primary School provides an English as an Additional Language Program for our students requiring additional support in learning to speak, write and read English. Students from across the school work in small groups with students from their year level. They participate in 50 minute sessions a number of times each week. Students are supported in their learning of English through games, as well as activities that support the learning in their classrooms.

Willmott Park Primary School also runs a ‘New Arrivals Reception Program’ to support the increasing number of new arrival families to our school.

MiniLit is our English Tier 2 Intervention Program developed by MultiLit and Macquarie University. At Willmott Park Primary School, MiniLit overseen by our English Learning Specialist, Tom Kristof and teacher Jade Priest and is designed for students who require additional support in Reading. MiniLit is an evidence-based and researched-backed Reading Intervention Program that is responsive to contemporary knowledge of how children best acquire the English language and learn how to read.

Children that participate in MiniLit work in small groups of four or five, meeting four times a week for as long as they require the support of the program. Designed especially for students in Grades One and Two, the content of the program focuses on Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Reading Sounds and Words, Orthographic Mapping, Fluency Practice and Text Reading (Accuracy and Fluency using decodable texts).

We are incredibly excited to be launching Australia’s premier Reading Intervention Program at Willmott Park in 2024.

The Victorian Government have allocated funding towards a tutoring program for 2021, known as the Tutor Learning Initiative (TLI). This program, enables schools across Victoria to engage qualified teachers as tutors to work with small groups of students and support their learning. This initiative is consistent with Australian and international evidence, which shows that small group tutoring is one of the most effective educational interventions to support students to progress in their learning.

At Willmott Park Primary School, this program is known as the “Learning Lab”. It is a highly intensive curriculum program based on a range of assessment. While attending the Learning Lab, students may focus on Reading, Writing or Mathematical skills alongside peers with similar abilities.

The Learning Lab is overseen by the highly experienced, Mr Mitchell Pink.