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.

Following a successful pilot in 2020, Willmott Park has introduced a synthetic phonics reading programme entitled INSPIRED. With the guidance of our speech pathologist Morgan Hurst and psychologist Danielle Soliman, who both have extensive experience working with literacy programmes and research design, INSPIRED utilizes evidenced based resources to improve student success with Reading.

The programme targets a range of skills needed for English development including decoding, comprehension, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and writing. Students are assessed and placed into small groups for twelve weeks. Following participation in the programme, students are re-assessed to measure the degree of improvement and future supports if needed. INSPIRED uses sound resources and offers ongoing training opportunities to enrich our students love and passion for English whilst providing them with strategies to become competent readers.

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 2 highly experienced teachers, Mr Mitchell Pink and Mrs Bonny Baldwinson