Video transcript
Welcome to the Familiarisation and planning series of online sessions designed to introduce curriculum leaders and teachers to the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0: English Prep–Year 6. In this second session in the series, we will be focusing on the Curriculum elements section of the curriculum. In our first session, we covered the Understand this learning area section of the curriculum and our final session in the series will address planning considerations for Australian Curriculum Version 9.0.
Acknowledgment of Country
The QCAA acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we meet today. We pay our respects to their Elders and their descendants who continue cultural and spiritual connections to Country, and we extend that respect to Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people here today. We thank them for sharing their cultures and spiritualities and recognise the important contribution of this knowledge to our understanding of this place we call home.
Learning goal and success criteria
In Session 2, our learning goal is to understand the implications of changes to the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0: English to plan for the transition in your own context.
You will know you have been successful if you have more knowledge about the curriculum elements in Version 9.0 of the English curriculum and can identify actions for planning in your school.
Session 2 outline
This recording is accompanied by a worksheet for you to record your responses to the activities and reflection points throughout the presentation.
If you have not already done so, please take some time now to download or print the Session 2 outline resource.
Outline for Session 2
We will work through these three topics in the session.
Introduction to Australian Curriculum v9.0
We began Session 1 in the series by orienting ourselves to a process we can use to engage with the changes in Australian Curriculum Version 9.0.
Let’s briefly review that process now.
Identifying actions for planning in your context
Here is the approach we proposed to assist schools in their implementation of Australian Curriculum Version 9.0.
In this second session, we are going to be looking at the specific elements of the curriculum that may have an impact on your teaching, learning and assessment.
As we consider this section of the curriculum, focus your thinking on how much you may need to refine, realign, reimagine or remove aspects of your current programs.
Organisation of English and changes
On screen now, we have the organisation of English outlining the main changes in structure between Version 8.4 and Version 9.0, which we discussed in more detail in Session 1 in the series.
Highlighted in blue, you can see our focus for this session is on the Curriculum elements and the changes that can be seen there.
Curriculum elements
We will now move onto our core focus for this session, the Curriculum elements section.
Organisation of English
On screen in the shaded box, you will see the sections that form the Curriculum elements. We will work through each of these sections throughout the presentation.
Identifying actions for planning in your context
As we work through each element of the English Curriculum elements section and the changes we can see in Version 9.0, let’s keep our process for identifying actions for planning in mind.
Here is where we can begin to audit our current programs and consider what is the same in Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 and what is different.
Pause and reflect: Similarities and differences
You may wish to construct your own note-taking template like the one indicated on screen to help you identify the similarities and differences you notice in the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 for English that may shape your planning for the new curriculum.
A table has been provided for you in the Session 2 outline resource referred to at the start of this recording.
Organisation of English
Let’s start with the level description and achievement standard in the Curriculum elements section. The level descriptions provide a high-level overview of the learning students should experience each year. With regards to the achievement standard, schools gather evidence against the relevant achievement standard across the teaching and learning cycle.
Level description — structure and content
The purpose of the level description is to provide an overview of the learning that students should experience in each year level.
When you read the level descriptions, each one has a consistent structure which can be seen on screen now.
The information in the year level description provides useful context when reading the achievement standards and content descriptions.
English: Achievement standard structure
Let’s move onto the achievement standard. It is important to note that the organisation of the achievement standard in Version 9.0 has changed.
The achievement standard now has three paragraphs:
- one for listening, speaking and creating
- one for reading and viewing, and
- one for writing and creating.
Creating appears in two places as multimodal texts can include features of spoken and/or written texts, with one or the other more prominent in specific texts that students create. The inclusion of multimodal texts in both paragraphs reflects the changing nature of how we communicate.
English: Achievement standard structure
If we read down the achievement standard for just one year level, you can see that each paragraph is similarly organised. This will hopefully make it easier to understand and use the achievement standards.
Let’s look at that organisation more closely. On screen is the paragraph describing the achievement standard for writing and creating in Year 6 — the structure has been highlighted and labelled. Take a moment to review this structure.
In addition, you’ll note that this consistent paragraph structure has been used across year levels. On the screen is an example of the achievement standard for listening, speaking and creating as seen for Years 3, 4 and 5. Understanding this structure can be used to support planning for teaching, learning and assessment across year levels. On the QCAA website there are additional resources sequencing the achievement standard from Prep–Year 6 (there is also a similar resource for Years7–10).
Pause and reflect: Achievement standards
We will now pause to reflect on what we have just heard about the changes to the achievement standards.
When you are exploring the changes, how might you approach this with your colleagues?
You may wish to use some of the strategies we have just outlined or download the QCAA resources mentioned for distribution to your teaching teams.
Use the Session 2 outline resource to record your thoughts.
Organisation of English
Let’s now look at the content descriptions in the strands and sub-strands which inform teaching and learning and underpin assessment.
Content descriptions specify the knowledge, understanding and skills students learn and that teachers are expected to teach.
Comparison of AC v8.4 to v9.0 documents
All of the significant changes to the content descriptions for English are shown on comparison documents on the QCAA website. On screen now is an example of one of these resources. Let’s unpack this example a little more to help you understand how you can use it in your planning for the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0: English.
Shown on screen is a snip of the Year 2 document which shows how the changes are colour coded.
If something has been refined from Version 8.4, it may not be colour coded and therefore careful consideration is needed when working through a comparison document. For example, in Version 8.4 the content description was: ‘know some features of text organisation, including page and screen layouts, alphabetical order, and different types of diagrams, for example timelines’. Whereas, in Version 9.0 the content description states: ‘navigate print and screen texts using chapters, tables of contents, indexes, side-bar menu, drop-down menus or links’.
If something has been removed from Version 8.4 and no longer appears in Version 9.0, it will be colour coded RED. As you can see on screen ‘Language variation and change’ has been removed as we stated earlier.
If there is something new that has been added to Version 9.0, which you will not have done in Version 8.4, then it will be highlighted GREEN. In this instance there has been the addition of ‘across the curriculum’, which has been added to identify how texts are organised differently.
Finally, if a content description has moved year levels from Version 8.4 to Version 9.0, it will be highlighted BLUE. There will also be a bold note to indicate what year level it has moved from or to. On screen you will note ‘recognise that capital letters signal proper nouns and commas are used to separate items in lists’ has been moved.
Pause and reflect: Key messages
What are the key messages from this section of the curriculum that have resonated with you? Take a moment now to note down your key messages from this session.
Formulating next steps
That concludes our review of the Curriculum elements section and the changes to achievement standards and content descriptions for English.
Let’s pause and recap what we have considered in this second session in our Familiarisation and planning series and what we can do with our new base of knowledge to help us plan for Version 9.0.
Identifying actions for planning in your context
As we have worked through both Sessions 1 and 2, we’ve been in the review and audit phase, considering the similarities and differences we’ve observed in the Understand this learning area and Curriculum elements sections of the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 for English.
Let’s now turn our attention to what these similarities and differences might mean for our teaching and learning, and assessment plans to identify some actions for ourselves from here. With the information you now have from participating in these sessions, you can start to make some decisions about how much you may need to refine, realign, reimagine or remove from your current programs to meet the requirements of the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 for English.
Pause and reflect
Based on what you have heard about the changes, where do you need to focus your attention as you plan for the transition to the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 for English?
We’ll now pause for a moment to allow you to start that decision-making process.
Reflecting on what you’ve heard, and considering your current plans, you may be thinking that implementation of Version 9.0 in your context will largely be about making refinements to what you have already got. You’ve recognised that you have a solid foundation in your current English plans and the changes in Version 9.0 will only mean minor adjustments to your teaching and learning activities and assessments.
Alternatively, in other contexts, and perhaps in certain year levels only, you may need to consider realigning your activities and assessment based on changes to the content descriptions and achievement standards we’ve considered for English Version 9.0.
Perhaps there are certain year levels where you want to reimagine some units. You may have been reflecting on the changes we’ve discussed in sessions 1 and 2 and decided it is an opportunity to re-design some teaching and learning activities or assessment tasks. Therefore, has the Version 9.0 curriculum prompted some new thinking for you about how to move your plans forward?
Finally, are there some aspects that it will be necessary to remove in order to meet the requirements of English Version 9.0 in your context?
Pause and reflect: Identifying actions
You may wish to use the tables in your ‘Session 2 outline’ to plan your next steps.
Consider your current teaching, learning and assessment plans and use the scale (where 5 equals strongly agree) to evaluate how much you need to refine, realign, reimage or remove material from your current plans.
Record some notes where you have identified particular actions.
Pause the session recording and take some time to determine where the majority of your work will be as you plan for Version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum: English.
Learning goal and success criteria
As the session comes to a close, let us reflect on our learning goal and success criteria.
We have built our knowledge about Australian Curriculum Version 9.0: English and identified some actions for planning in our particular school context.
In the next session
That concludes the second session and our discussion on the Curriculum elements section of Australian Curriculum Version 9.0 for English.
In the final session of our series on Familiarisation and planning, we will be discussing how to plan with the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0.
On screen, you will see an infographic that is part of our Elements of effective planning resource.
For the next session
You may wish to access this resource to familiarise yourself with its contents prior to the next session.
On screen, you can see where this resource is available on the QCAA website.
QCAA social media
If you don’t do so already, we recommend you follow QCAA on one or more social media platforms to stay in touch with us, and to find out about upcoming resources and professional learning.
Contact
If you have any queries regarding the information from this session, please reach out to the K–10 Curriculum and Assessment Branch with the contact details noted on screen.
We thank you for your time in completing this session and look forward to working with you in Session 3 of the Familiarisation and planning series.
- Last updated:
- 11 July 2024
