About EYE
NMER PEAC also provides needs-based support for students in Years 1-3, through the Early Years Extension (EYE) Project.
The region’s schools are offered either a withdrawal program or targeted professional learning across their network. Schools involved in the withdrawal program are invited to nominate students, who may benefit from extension, through a formal nomination process.
Programs generally run in 2 cycles of 5 weeks parallel to PEAC courses. The annual pattern has the Year 3 program running during Round 1, Year 2 during Round 2 and Year 1 during Round 3.
Invitations to attend EYE are distributed to parents through the home school.
It must be stressed that admission to the EYE Program does not automatically lead to inclusion in the PEAC Program.
Find out more about each of the exciting programs being offered here:
EYE Program
The EYE teaching program has been designed to ensure that it is:
- supplementary to school provision;
- rigorous in content and application;
- continuously monitored and evaluated; and
- aligned to the skills, strengths and needs of the students.
The EYE project is aligned with the Western Australian Curriculum. It draws on four of the General Capabilities; Critical and Creative Thinking, Personal and Social Capability, Literacy as a General Capability and Numeracy as a General Capability. By choosing these, a program can be designed that complements rather than repeats curriculum content taught at school and gives access to skills that will enable students to be effective 21st Century learners. The teaching program is built on the Philosophy for Children approach which has evolved from the work of Dr Matthew Lipman.
The outcomes of the program include helping students to:
- learn to think before they speak and give reasons for what they say;
- value their own views and the views of others;
- learn to not take things too personally and become more resilient;
- learn respect and negotiation;
- learn not to be fearful and develop self-confidence; and
- be highly curious.
Communication with the EYE team can be made via email at: eye@northmetropeac.wa.edu.au
An evaluation of the Project using multiple sources of quantitative and qualitative data has established the following:
- the Project is highly regarded by stakeholders and represents good value for money;
- demand for the Project has heavily outweighed supply;
- retention rates are well above 90%;
- parent and student satisfaction rates are very high;
- PEAC students who have participated in the EYE Project are outperforming other PEAC students; and
- an adjustment to the model of delivery for a targeted network of 13 schools began in 2015, resulting in an increase in the overall number of students able to access the project. A significant increase in the building of classroom teacher ability to meet the needs of their most able students was also a notable outcome.
The network model of delivering Professional Learning to teachers has been extended across 3 networks in NMER.