Secondary (Year 7-10)
Our Secondary program is a dynamic, broad based, academically rigorous, and interdisciplinary curriculum. By integrating academic knowledge with artistic and practical activities, we inspire in students a love of learning.
This period is marked by a focus on independent thinking, self-directed learning, and a balanced approach to both creative and academic subjects. Students are encouraged to explore their passions, develop resilience, and cultivate a strong sense of identity.
Our educators are experts in their field, providing meaningful, rich and wide-ranging learning experiences for all students. Our secondary teachers balance high expectations with support, guidance and warmth of relationship. Each individual student’s strengths and challenges are met with a holistic understanding of the adolescent and how best to meet their needs.
Whether exploring the natural world, engaging in artistic expression, or delving into academic pursuits, our students are encouraged to discover their unique potential. Our curriculum and the interconnectedness of our students, teachers, and parents form the heart of our Steiner education and shape the unique character of Sophia Mundi and the attributes of its learners.
The Secondary program is characterised by:
- A curriculum that balances engaging academic subjects with arts, crafts, and practical skills.
- Steady preparation for the International Baccalaureate program with an emphasis on holistic development.
- A nurturing environment that supports self-expression, personal growth, and confidence building.
- The comprehensive outdoor education program promotes resilience, resourcefulness and independence.
- A major, self-initiated project in Class 8 that is executed independently and showcased to the school community.
- Participation in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award, a prestigious, internationally recognised program that encourages personal development and community involvement among young individuals.
- Opportunities to participate in the Student Representative Council gives students a greater voice in the school and helps them actively participate in shaping their school experience.
“Our highest endeavour must be to develop free human beings who are able of themselves to impart purpose and direction to their lives. The need for imagination, a sense of truth and a feeling of responsibility – these three forces are the very nerve of education” – Rudolf Steiner
Class Seven
Developmental Stage
As an adolescent, the Class Seven student is guided thoughtfully through their inherent need to question and challenge the world around them. Students seek to assert their independence and find their place among their peers in the context of a safe and supportive environment.
Curriculum
In history, mathematics, science and art, the Renaissance thematically underlies the Class Seven curriculum. Ideals of truth, beauty and balance offer a healthy counterpoint to the young adolescent’s tendency for cynicism. Design and technology studies, music, art continue. Students embark on a raft building journey on the Murray River honing their teamwork and problem-solving skills. Challenges are met and overcome and students return from this rite of passage with new confidence and readiness for Secondary School.
Class Eight
Developmental Stage
The Class Eight student’s learning journey thus far has been preparing them for the commencement of higher learning. Class Eight themes explore working with the world’s laws and finding one’s own voice. Students experience how observation, knowledge and understanding enable them to form appropriate judgements leading to new and interesting questions.
Curriculum
The Class Eight curriculum references all that has come before while providing the foundation for the next steps forward. This year appropriately covers the Age of Revolutions through history, science, mathematics and literature, along with a continuing emphasis on the art of communication in both English and French. The physics of air, heat and water as well as electromagnetism, the physical laws of the human organism and the chemistry processes of food, enrich the science curriculum.
Physical activities, including physical education and Eurythmy, develop in the students’ fitness, health awareness, strength, social awareness, self- restraint and self-motivation. Students undertake a major project of their own choosing that they work on for the whole year, culminating in a presentation to the school community. Students learn to seek expertise and interact with adults and mentors to design and achieve their final project. Artistic subjects include water colour painting, drawing and modelling. Class 8 commences with a canoe trip down the Glenelg River, where a new level of outdoor education skills are employed.
Class Nine
Developmental Stage
Moving into Class Nine, students are expressing even more independence looking to their peers and teachers for more experiences and opportunities to extend their knowledge and understanding of the world around them. Students seek and welcome clarity of explanation. They are encouraged to show interest in the world around them and acquire knowledge and understanding through independent gathering of information. This is also a time when the world seems to present in emotional shades of black and white. Inner balance, structure in their thinking and the ability to make logical, casual deductions based on observation and understanding are developed through the various subjects undertaken.
Curriculum
In Class Nine, students collectively seek to answer questions that focus on ‘the what’. What is the world like? What is it made out of? What has happened here? What was it like before now?
Further studies include the making of the modern world and the world wars, statistics and probability, the geology forces that shape the earth, Australian history, human biology, organic chemistry, geometry, and earth science. In physics, important aspects of human invention are covered, exploring technology and the relationship between machines and humans.
Combustion and distillation processes are studied in Chemistry. In English, students explore their personal biography and practise various writing techniques and skills. An understanding of grammar is developed in French lessons. In Music, students study composition and develop practical skills.
The black and white charcoal drawing curriculum meets the student in this year of emotional polarities. Atmospheric mood is explored through tonal shaded drawing, printmaking and photography. In clay modelling, students create utilitarian vessels as well as sculptural, aesthetic forms. Design and Technology classes continue to link the raw material with the process, and students produce projects that are both beautiful and useful.
Work experience begins in the Primary Industries. In Physical Education students continue developing a range of team games and skills, working with precision and rhythm.
Because students in Class 9 are experiencing a major shift as they move through adolescence they undertake several camps in this year, learning self-reliance, cooperation, commitment and a deepened love of nature. Our extensive outdoor education program and phenomenological learning strategies are central to students’ development of initiative, resilience and confidence in themselves.
Class Ten
Developmental Stage
In Class Ten the students begin to achieve objectivity and clarity in thinking and are able to draw conclusions logically and form common sense judgments. Students sharpen their faculties of comparison, discrimination and discernment. During this year, students are likely more grounded and better suited to ask ‘how?’ They discover that issues and ideas need to be explored from many perspectives before judgments can be made.
Curriculum
How does this work? How can I change the result?
Mechanics and the laws of force and motion, trigonometry, the art and craft of poetry, the birth of literature, Shakespeare, ancient cultures, salt chemistry, human biology, trigonometry, surveying and the evolution of consciousness are studied.
The music, French, Eurythmy and physical education programs reflect the development of skills and ask the students to further challenge themselves and apply what they have previously learnt. Work experience takes place in the Secondary Industries. The French exchange provides students who are socially, emotionally, and linguistically capable with an opportunity to really spread their wings and travel and live overseas with a host family. The year 10 student moves from adolescence into young adulthood taking on more and more responsibilities.
