St Paul's Primary School Karratha

St Paul's Primary School Karratha We are a caring community where Kindy to Year 6 children are known by name, inspired to learn, and guided to grow in confidence, character, and curiosity.

This is the official page for St Paul’s Primary School Karratha. We use this space to share updates, celebrate our students, and connect with our school community. For any classroom or school concerns, please contact your child’s teacher or the school office directly at [email protected]. This page isn’t monitored for formal discussions.

30/08/2026

Our teachers are so much fun and they definitely embraced the magic of Book Week! There were plenty of laughs, smiles and surprises around the school.

We love showing our students that books are worth celebrating and that reading can take us anywhere.

A big thank you to our wonderful staff for getting into the spirit and making Book Week the BEST for our students!

In our Early Childhood classrooms, our learning centres are co-developed with our students. Our teachers listen carefull...
26/08/2026

In our Early Childhood classrooms, our learning centres are co-developed with our students. Our teachers listen carefully to student’s ideas, interests, questions and wonderings. Together, students and teachers design the learning spaces, select resources and develop ideas for play. As students explore, investigate and discover, these spaces continue to change and grow with their learning.

Behind each centre is thoughtful and intentional teaching. Teachers observe closely, introduce new materials and vocabulary, ask questions, model ideas and create opportunities that extend student’s thinking. At other times, they step back and allow students to lead, problem-solve, collaborate and take their learning in new directions.

Through these rich learning experiences, our students are building language, literacy and mathematical understandings while developing creativity, curiosity, independence and the confidence to share their thinking with others.

When students have agency in their learning environment, they become active participants in their learning. Their ideas matter. Their questions matter. Their thinking helps determine where the learning goes next.

At St Paul’s, our Early Childhood learning environments are responsive, intentional and continually evolving, reflecting the wonderful learners who inhabit them.

QCE Awards 2026 – Support St Paul’s Primary School! We are excited to share that St Paul’s Primary School Karratha has b...
25/08/2026

QCE Awards 2026 – Support St Paul’s Primary School!

We are excited to share that St Paul’s Primary School Karratha has been nominated for the QCE Awards 2026 for our initiative, Building Collective Teacher Expertise Through Inquiry.

The QCE Awards recognise outstanding programs and initiatives across Catholic schools in Western Australia that support Christ centred, student focused and engaged learning environments.
We would love your support! Please take a moment to vote for St Paul’s Primary School Karratha by clicking the link below.

Every vote helps recognise the incredible work of our staff and the positive impact we have on our students and our wider community.

Thank you for supporting our wonderful St Paul’s community!

Over the past few weeks, our Year 3 students have been exploring the Staircase to the Moon, a spectacular natural phenom...
25/08/2026

Over the past few weeks, our Year 3 students have been exploring the Staircase to the Moon, a spectacular natural phenomenon that is unique to the Pilbara region.

Students have been experimenting with the sgraffito technique, layering light and dark oil pastels before carefully scratching through the surface to reveal colour, line and texture underneath.

Through this project, students have also been learning about Ngarluma Country, where the Staircase to the Moon can be seen along our beautiful Pilbara coastline. Their artworks celebrate the colours, textures and natural beauty of our local environment.

At St Paul’s, we acknowledge the Ngarluma people as the Traditional Custodians of the Country on which we live, learn and create, and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture.

Mathematics Action Research at St Paul’s This week, our teachers continued their 2026 Mathematics Action Research journe...
21/08/2026

Mathematics Action Research at St Paul’s

This week, our teachers continued their 2026 Mathematics Action Research journey, with Mathematics taking centre stage across both our Professional Learning Community (PLC) and two days of classroom walkthroughs.

During our PLC, teachers worked alongside our CEWA Mathematics Consultant to explore what effective Mathematics teaching looks like and, importantly, its impact on our students. We revisited the goal of school Mathematics: developing students who are confident and creative users of Mathematics, who can solve problems, reason, make connections and communicate their mathematical thinking.

Teachers also explored what it means for Mathematics teaching to be informed, intentional and impactful. We use data and research to understand our learners, respond purposefully to their needs, and consider the impact our teaching is having on student learning.

A powerful part of our PLC was digging deeply into our own student data. Teachers explored cohort- and item-level data to identify strengths, patterns in student understanding, and concepts needing further attention. This allowed us to move beyond simply looking at results and instead ask: What is our data telling us about our learners, and what does this mean for what we teach next?

This connected beautifully with our current Action Research. This year, each teacher has selected an area of Mathematics pedagogy to investigate, trialing and refining their practice, gathering evidence and continually asking:
What have I changed in my teaching?
What are students now doing differently as a result?
What evidence shows that this change is making a difference?

Across the week's classroom walkthroughs, we saw this work in action. We focused on mathematical reasoning: how our students explain their thinking, justify strategies, make connections, prove their ideas, and convince others.
Across classrooms, we saw students selecting and sharing strategies, using different representations, discussing multiple solution pathways, collaborating, engaging in productive struggle and, most importantly, doing the mathematical thinking themselves.

This aligns strongly with the research explored during our PLC, which reminds us that Mathematics is about much more than knowing procedures. Students need opportunities to investigate, experiment and solve unfamiliar problems. They also need to collaborate and communicate their mathematical thinking. These experiences build confidence, curiosity and persistence, helping students become capable problem-solvers and lifelong learners.

The PLC, data analysis and classroom walkthroughs are all part of an ongoing cycle of professional learning at St Paul’s. The evidence gathered now becomes the springboard for our next conversations: What is having an impact? What are we noticing about our learners? Where are our opportunities for growth? And what do our students need from us next?

This work reflects our commitment at St Paul’s to being a community of learners, where our teachers continually inquire into their practice, learn alongside one another and use evidence to determine what our students need next.

A huge thank you to our CEWA Mathematics Consultant for her outstanding and ongoing support. Thank you for continuing to challenge, encourage and celebrate our teachers and students as we learn, reflect and grow together as a team.

Keeping Nano’s Lantern Alive Recently, three of our St Paul’s student leaders had the incredible opportunity to attend t...
21/08/2026

Keeping Nano’s Lantern Alive

Recently, three of our St Paul’s student leaders had the incredible opportunity to attend the Presentation Sisters Student Leadership Conference at Iona Presentation College. The experience brought Nano Nagle's story and legacy vividly to life.
The primary educators at Iona went to extraordinary lengths to recreate the world Nano lived in. Our students stepped into three dramatic learning spaces, cold, dimly lit and filled with smoke, designed to transport them back to 18th century Ireland.

In one space, they explored the Presentation Sisters’ values and the beliefs that drove Nano’s work. In another, they experienced what it may have been like for Nano to educate children in secret. At a time when the Penal Laws severely restricted Catholic education in Ireland, Nano quietly established schools for poor Catholic children, risking serious consequences to give them something she believed could change their lives: an education.
In the final space, an educator brought Nano’s story to life. Born into privilege, Nano chose a very different path, walking the dark streets of Cork by lantern to visit the poor, the sick and the vulnerable. That lantern became a powerful symbol of bringing hope and light into places of darkness.

Our students then joined secondary students from Presentation schools across Australia for a Think Tank challenge centred on one important question: How do we keep Nano Nagle’s lantern alive today?

Students who had only just met were given just 90 minutes to collaborate, develop their ideas and present them to a large audience of students and educators from across the country. The challenge at the end was clear. Take these ideas home and turn them into action.

That is exactly what our leaders have begun to do.

On returning to St Paul’s, they gathered for a Leaders’ High Tea, where they reflected on the experience and filled the whiteboard with ideas for bringing Nano’s lantern to life in our own community.

Their ideas included creating a Lantern Week around Presentation Day, facilitating an immersive Nano Nagle experience for our own students inspired by what they loved so much at Iona, introducing a Faction Friend Day to strengthen connections across year levels, developing positive behaviour rewards linked to the prestation sisters values, creating murals and positive affirmations around the school, learning more about the Presentation Sisters and their stories, and even designing lantern keyrings and merchandise.

Importantly, their thinking also focused on legacy. They discussed preparing our Year 5 students to become our next leaders, creating traditions that can continue long after they leave St Paul’s, and eventually passing the lantern on.

Our leaders presented their plans to Father Peter and our Leadership Team, clearly articulating what they wanted to achieve and what they would need from us to turn their ideas into action.

From stepping into Nano’s world, to collaborating with students from across Australia, to returning home determined to make a difference, this was student leadership at its best.

The lantern has been passed to them. Now they are deciding how they will carry its light. Iona Presentation Foundation

Our Kindy and Pre-Primary students had some very special visitors today when our local police officers came to St Paul’s...
21/08/2026

Our Kindy and Pre-Primary students had some very special visitors today when our local police officers came to St Paul’s!

The visit provided a wonderful opportunity to bring the children’s learning to life. After exploring the role of police officers through dramatic play in their classrooms, the children connected their play with an authentic experience. They climbed into the police car, tried on parts of the uniform, tested the speed laser and asked plenty of curious questions!

At St Paul’s, our Early Childhood pedagogy recognises that play is a powerful vehicle for learning. Through purposeful play, hands-on experiences and meaningful connections with our community, students build language, curiosity, confidence and a deeper understanding of the world around them.

We cannot wait to see how this week's experience inspires and enriches the children’s learning back in the classroom!
A huge thank you to our local police officers for giving our students such an engaging and memorable learning experience.
Western Australia Police Force

One of the greatest compliments we can receive as a school is when someone from outside St Paul’s walks through our clas...
18/08/2026

One of the greatest compliments we can receive as a school is when someone from outside St Paul’s walks through our classrooms and immediately recognises the consistency in how we teach, the language we use and the high-quality practices our students experience every day.

Recently, visiting curriculum consultants commented on the incredible consistency they saw across our classrooms, in lesson structure, instructional language, and current best practice.

They noted that schools often adopt purchased programs to achieve consistency across classrooms. At St Paul’s, we have taken a different path.

We have built that consistency together.
Over the past six years, our teachers have engaged in an inquiry-driven Professional Learning Community model centred on collaborative action research. Each year, we identify an area of teaching to investigate deeply, informed by student data, contemporary research, CEWA’s Vision for Learning and the Literacy and Numeracy Position Statements. Teachers then take this learning into their classrooms, trial strategies, gather evidence, reflect on impact, and share their learning with one another.

Our journey has explored Data-Informed Practice, Effective Reading Pedagogy, High Impact Teaching Strategies, Writing Pedagogy and this year, Mathematics Pedagogy. Along the way, our staff have worked alongside CEWA consultants, participated in coaching and classroom walkthroughs, observed one another and shared their action research through our PLCs.

This collective learning continues to shape our evolving St Paul’s Pedagogical Handbook, supported by classroom exemplars, modelled lesson videos, planning tools and practical resources. For a regional school, this is particularly important. It means our collective knowledge is captured, shared and strengthened as new staff join our community.

We can see the impact in the shared language across our classrooms, the consistency of high-impact teaching practice and, most importantly, the learning, engagement and progress of our students.

We are incredibly proud of our staff and the professional culture they have created. Consistency at St Paul’s has not come from asking every teacher to follow a script. It has come from teachers learning together, challenging one another, sharing expertise, engaging with research and collectively taking responsibility for improving outcomes for every child.

That is something worth celebrating.

LOST PROPERTY - If any of the below items belong to your child they can be collected from the front office. Any item not...
17/08/2026

LOST PROPERTY - If any of the below items belong to your child they can be collected from the front office. Any item not claimed by the end of the week will be donated to St Vinnies. All labelled items that were in the Lost Property bin will be returned to students today via the class basket.

A busy start to Term 3 in Science! Our little scientists have been exploring materials, solids, matter and how things ca...
10/08/2026

A busy start to Term 3 in Science! Our little scientists have been exploring materials, solids, matter and how things can change through lots of investigating, building and hands-on learning.

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Karratha, WA

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 3pm
Tuesday 8am - 3pm
Wednesday 8am - 3pm
Thursday 8am - 3pm
Friday 8am - 3pm

Telephone

+61891857500

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