Mawson Lakes School is a Reception-Year 7 school with a co-located childcare centre and preschool. We are situated in a fast-growing new housing development 12 km north of Adelaide. We aim to develop lifelong learners who positively influence our community in a global context. This is being achieved through providing a high quality, challenging curriculum that connects student learning to the environment and fosters independent, motivated and engaged learners. To support this, staff professional development focuses on raising the quality of teaching and learning, particularly in literacy, numeracy and science. We focus on anti-bullying and all classes implement 'Program Achieve'. Specialised physical education, arts and Japanese lessons are taught from Reception to Year 7. Many other opportunities for intensive high quality learning are offered with student involvement in sports (team) games and athletics, swimming, aquatics, dance and music programs. We have highly successful choir and jump rope teams who perform to a range of external audiences. Our values are cooperation, pride, quality and respect. We have students from over 42 nationalities and host several international students, making our school culturally rich and diverse. Collaboration with the nearby Mawson Lakes Campus of the University of SA further enhances student and staff learning. Some buildings within the school have traditional self-contained classrooms whilse others are open plan to facilitate collaborative teaching, planning and learning. Our library is off-site and is shared with the local community. We have a multi-purpose building onsite, also shared with the local community. This includes a gymnasium, two classrooms and two community rooms. Dry Creek separates the two main campuses of the school. This provides unique environmental learning opportunities for our students. An active governing council strives to ensure wide community participation in the school's day to day operations and futures planning.