JS News: 25 May 2022

Tracey Markovic, Assistant Head of Junior School

Tracey Markovic, Assistant Head of Junior School
Tracey Markovic, Assistant Head of Junior School

The Oxford Dictionary defines an excursion as:

  • a short journey or trip, especially one taken as a leisure activity or
  • a deviation from a regular activity or course.

If an excursion is heading out of the classroom on a short journey or trip, what is an incursion?

An incursion is where an outside organisation is employed by a school to visit to run an educational activity for students.


When asked, students at Radford College described excursions and incursions as:

  • An incursion is when you don’t go on a school bus. It’s somewhere you can walk to near the Chapel. – Brax
  • An excursion is when you learn something but it is outside. An incursion is a bit like an excursion but inside – like an ‘incursion’ is when you stay at Radford. – Kieran
  • … when you go out of school and go somewhere fun. You might not have been there before. The teachers plan excursions to give us new experiences. Excursions make us think more and we learn. – Amelia & Ryker.
  • The meaning of excursion for me is where you go out of your school to learn. In excursions and incursions, kids are more interested because they get to have new experiences. – Milaan
  • … when you go somewhere and that place may be an adventure. You go to different places and learn all about the place and then you come back to school and do something about it. When you are back at school you might write about it or share your ideas and thinking. An incursion is like an excursion but you go somewhere in the school. – Harlow & Michael
  • I think that excursion means to go somewhere, in order to learn and understand new concepts and ideas. I also think that excursions mean that you are learning in a different way, instead of just learning and experiencing it in the classroom. A good thing about excursions and incursions is that they are an extremely interesting and engaging way to learn. For example, the recent Planetarium incursion, which made learning about light and the Solar systems easier to understand through its engaging circular projector shining all around us. – Sophie
The Inquiry Learning Cycle
The Inquiry Learning Cycle

Excursions form an integral part of the school curriculum. They allow students to explore, extend and enrich their learning in a non-school setting. As a PYP school, an inquiry model to learning is at the heart of our approach. Through this approach the ‘finding out’ stage supports students to develop deep understandings. Our students do this in a range of ways, through books, online resources, and conversations with others. A powerful way for students to ‘find out’ is through engaging with experts and individuals who can extend students' skills and challenge ideas and beliefs. Excursions allow students the opportunity of learning different skills by actively participating and ‘doing’.

Over the past couple of years, COVID-19 has had an impact on schools and our students’ ability to head out of the classroom and attend excursions. We are very fortunate that over the past few weeks we are seeing excursions and incursions back in our school days.

At Radford, we are fortunate to have been part of some incredible excursions and incursions over the past few months.

Geocaching on Bruce Ridge – Year 5/6 Round Square Co-curricular

A highlight of the geocaching excursion was being in and surrounded by nature. Bushland and nature is depleting from human causes so there is less bush surrounding us, so I really loved being in the beautiful Australian bush. – Sophie

Our Round Square Co-curricular group went to Bruce Ridge Nature Reserve to participate in a geocaching adventure experience. We used an iPhone to view the geocaching map, which displayed the location and distance to the geocache. We worked as a team to navigate to and then find each geocache.

Geocaching on Bruce Ridge
Geocaching on Bruce Ridge


Year 6 – Rowing (Friday Sport)

Going to rowing was a great opportunity to experience a sport we haven’t tried before. – Will

Years 5&6 – Sirens Gym
Sirens Gym is really fun. There is a lot of different kinds of equipment there. The instructors give you precise instructions and the instructors are always happy to help. – Khushi

Junior School rowing and Sirens gym
Junior School rowing and Sirens gym


Year 6 – Museum of Australian Democracy (Old Parliament House)

When asked about their excursion to the Museum of Australian Democracy, students had the following to share:

This excursion gave us a lot of ideas of what we might be able to explore in Exhibition. – Will
It helped us understand how cartoons can visually represent ideas. – Sam
It was eye-opening and showed us different issues in society. – Junyou

At the Museum of Australian Democracy (Old Parliament House)
At the Museum of Australian Democracy (Old Parliament House)


Year 2 – Visit from Tyronne, a Ngunnawal elder

Tyronne visited us and took us to Gossan Hill. We sat on Gossan Hill and he shared how Indigenous people used to use the land. We also talked about ants' nests and where other animals lived. – Harlow & Michael

Tyronne with Year 2 students on Gossan Hill
Tyronne with Year 2 students on Gossan Hill


Year 1 – Light and Sound Incursion with Dr Graham Walker

Dr Graham Walker
Dr Graham Walker, laser waterfall

I liked the ‘Laser Waterfall’. The colours mixed together and fell into the bucket. – Kieran

Dr Walker taught me all about sound and light. He taught us a little about sound and then a little bit about light. – Brax

Year 3 – Science Incursion
Dr Graham Walker showed us lots of fun experiments. Lots were about heat. Two of them were outside and they were canons that sent things flying in the air. We learned more about science and heat. – Amelia

Our Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten students are eagerly anticipating their upcoming excursions to the Canberra Museum & Gallery (PK) and the Canberra Theatre (PK & K) to see ‘Guess How Much I Love You?’

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