2019 Reflections on Curriculum- Science Department

In the year 2019 there has been some exciting curriculum developments made from recent years to date. All stakeholders, including the curriculum director, head teacher, team leaders and other teachers in the Science department have been working collaboratively on issues related to curriculum development and delivery. Both the curriculum leadership meetings organised twice per term for planning, as well as the semester inter-campus staff meetings for strategic implementation have been instrumental in fostering improved outcomes.

In particular there have been recent changes in some key areas, including:

(i) Seqta as an integrated teaching/learning management tool has been extremely useful to access the list of programs, take class attendance, document assessments, check timetables, and also useful for classroom management and reporting incidences. Further, Seqta has recently undergone new changes to enhance its features, making it more potent and user-friendly.

(ii) Improving and organising our google drive documents for ease of documentation and access across all year levels at Sirius College campuses. Google drive has been utilised to organise our assessment calendar, assign departmental and team task distribution, annual scope and sequence, assessment schedule and planners that guide our practice and provide easy access to all teachers in the department.

(iii) Utilisation of the PLC concept and formation of teams to drive the teaching-learning process in the department has greatly helped to share not only knowledge but also the workload and expertise from different people.

(iv) For all practical laboratory work to be undertaken, teachers are requested to generate a risk assessment via the Riskassess software. This document highlights any potential risks associated with any intended activity to be carried out. Riskassess documents need to be signed by both the teacher and laboratory technician. That way, students are enlightened about the risks associated with every practical activity to be undertaken by any group of students.

(v) Key changes have taken place to replace our previous documentation of excursions/incursions with subject activities. Currently, for the sake of consistency there is limitation on the frequency and number of activities that could be undertaken by any class. Subject activities require application through Process Maker that generates not only student list and parental consent for the activity but also specifies potential risks and strategies for mitigating the risks involved in undertaking the activity.

(vi) Sirius College continues to support teacher initiatives towards attending both internal and external meetings for their professional developments. The exposure that the teaching staff experience following such meetings has greatly helped to shape their professional practice.

(vii) Even though there are a few difficulties which are currently being reviewed, CREST (Creativity in Research, Engineering, Science and Technology) as an elective is increasingly gaining popularity across most campuses. More resource personnel need to be trained to handle the CREST elective.

(viii) Compared to previous years, we had a good participation rate for the Australian Science Olympiads competition across all campuses in 2019. Students from Year 10 and Year 11 across all campuses competed in the areas of chemistry, physics and biology.

(ix) One of the primary focus on curriculum in 2019 has been improved outcomes on assessments. Assessments have to go through a rigorous process to meet a set of criteria to improve its authenticity and consistency. Grade distributions, based on statistical data, have been used to track student performance and to compare grades for the same subjects offered at different campuses, for example. Assessments are carefully perused by both Head Teachers and Teaching & Learning Coordinators, with timely feedback on formative assessments being given to students by their subject teachers.

Such curriculum initiatives are directed not only to facilitate our PLC teams to operate with a shared purpose and commitment focused on teaching, learning and assessment, but also to impact on student performance and outcomes, as well as realisation of the broader mission/vision statements of Sirius College.