Prep–Year 6 Health and Physical Education familiarisation and planning 2: Curriculum elements

Welcome to the Familiarisation and planning series of online sessions designed to introduce curriculum leaders and teachers to the Australian Curriculum Version 9.0: Health and Physical Education 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: Health and Physical Education 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 Health and Physical Education curriculum and can identify actions for planning in your school.

From this point forward, Health and Physical Education will be referred to as HPE.

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 HPE and changes

On screen now, we have the organisation of HPE 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.

Outline for Session 2: Curriculum elements

We will now move on to our core focus for this session, the Curriculum elements section.

Organisation of HPE

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 the HPE Curriculum elements section and the changes we can see in Version 9, 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 HPE 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 HPE

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 or band.

With regards to the achievement standard, schools gather evidence against the relevant achievement standard across the teaching and learning cycle.

HPE: Achievement standard structure

The organisation of the achievement standard in Version 9.0 has changed.

In HPE, the achievement standard is now one paragraph to remove the artificial separation between the understanding and the skills.

The achievement standard follows a consistent structure. The content related to the Personal, social and community health strand is represented first.

The content related to the Movement and physical activity strand is represented second.

The statements within the achievement standard paragraph are structured in a uniform way. ​

On the left are the sub-strands.

The sub-strands correlate with how the paragraph is structured. ​

For example, the Identities and change content is positioned first in the Personal, social and community health part of the achievement standard, and the Moving our bodies content is positioned first in the Movement and physical activity part of the achievement standard. This consistent structure makes it easier to understand and use the achievement standard.

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 HPE

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 the significant changes to the content descriptions for HPE are shown in 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: HPE.

Shown on screen is a snip of the Prep 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: ‘identify actions that promote health, safety and wellbeing’.

Whereas in Version 9.0, the content description states: ‘identify health symbols, messages and strategies in their community that support their health and safety’.

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, ‘test possible solutions to movement challenges through trial and error’ has been removed.

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 ‘help-seeking strategies’, which has been added to protective behaviours.

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.

Outline for Session 2: Formulating next steps

That concludes our review of the Curriculum elements section and the changes to achievement standards and content descriptions for HPE.

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.

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 revised curriculum.

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?

We’ll now pause for a moment to allow you to start that decision-making process.

Refine

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 program and the changes in Version 9.0 will only mean minor adjustments to your teaching and learning activities and assessments.

Realign

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 in this session.

Reimagine

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 redesign 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?

Remove

Finally, are there some aspects that it will be necessary to remove in order to meet the requirements of the revised curriculum 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, reimagine 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.

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: HPE 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.

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 for 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.

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.

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