Rod Cheal

Hi everyone. My name's Rod Cheal from the Department of Education, and I'm here with Shirley Casper from NESA. We're going to be talking about the new Science and Technology K–6 Syllabus. Shirley, the new syllabus has some amazing and very distinct content. It's got skills embedded through that content. There are practical examples for teachers to be inspired by, and it's still a syllabus of creating a sense of wonder and sense of awe in the world around us for students.

Shirley Casper

I certainly hope so.

Rod Cheal

Mm mm. What would you say are the strengths of this syllabus for students?

Shirley Casper

I think one of the things, Rod, is that we've tried to make this syllabus very user-friendly, so that teachers have the time to plan and the content is clear and rigorous for our students. We'd like teachers to be able to allow students to explain their thinking verbally and in written form, and we've tried to develop both those oral and written communication skills throughout the syllabuses. We've tried to make the content quite explicit because every child is entitled to learn certain things. It's a matter of equity really. We have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander priorities content, which provides students with opportunities to explore and understand the connections between traditional and contemporary knowledges in science and technology.

By engaging with science and technology content, students can gain insights into the rich cultural knowledges of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and develop cultural understanding and appreciation. This content is embedded and authentic. It is written by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for all people to build Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges and scientific knowledge and skills simultaneously. By engaging with these ideas, students develop cultural understanding and appreciation, which is enriched across stages and content areas. Research shows that it's a lot more successful and powerful if there is content with authentic connections. So, for example, when students are carrying out investigations, they're measuring, they're gathering data, they're representing that data, and this is a clear reflection and application of what students are doing in mathematics.

Rod Cheal

Shirley, that's really exciting for students coherence and that clarity. What would be your key messages for teachers?

Shirley Casper

So, in the structure of the syllabus, we have very clearly defined content groups, and those content group headings show the enduring understanding that we would like students to gain from the content. There's teaching advice, and this has suggestions for teachers, but some of it also builds background knowledge, which I think is very important.

Rod Cheal

I think teachers will appreciate that.

Shirley Casper

But the content is structured in such a way that it's very clear and very explicit what teachers should be teaching, and this has been designed with students' concept development in mind, and they are able to prepare their students with information and skills that will enable those students to continue.

Rod Cheal

It's very systematically thought out in that progression. Well, let's talk a little bit more deeply about the content. There's some new content, specifically the human body, for example, across all stages. Would you like to explore that a little bit and you know, talk about the reasons why that's in there?

Shirley Casper

We've developed a lot of content around the human body, where in Early Stage 1, when we're teaching students how to observe using all of their senses, we also do a bit about movement. So, a little bit about the way in which we move. In Stage 1, we go more deeply into using the senses and how our senses give us information about the environment around us. Stage 2, we start looking a bit more at movement and muscles and joints, ball and socket joint, hinge joints, those sorts of things. And in Stage 3 we get into the respiratory, circulatory, and digestive systems and how they work together.

Rod Cheal

Shirley, we've talked a little bit about the content. Let's talk about the skills and what we have in the current syllabus, but what has changed is that very clear table of skills and we don't see that in the new syllabus. Could you please explore that a little bit for us?

Shirley Casper

We certainly want scientific inquiry and investigative methods to be front and centre in this syllabus. And to that end, we've written not only outcomes to help achieve that, but we've written it directly into the content. So, one of the things that we've tried to do is really make the teaching and the learning very explicit. We have some strong outcomes, the outcomes around questioning, developing student questions so that students can take charge of the investigations themselves. They can pose investigative questions to test what they're interested in based on the content. We also have explicit outcomes around the gathering and representation and interpretation of data, and we have content about how to express all of that knowledge and all of that information. So, we are trying to build those investigative skills very clearly into the content so that teachers know when there are really good examples, good ways to develop those skills.

Rod Cheal

Finding the hotspot of a skill married up to the content without the burden of the whole process every term. That's, I think that will a relief for some teachers. Shirley, this syllabus appears to have a very strong focus on science knowledge and digital literacy, and of course that's critical. That's critical. What advice would you have for teachers as they approach programming for the rich digital technologies?

Shirley Casper

We've written the digital literacy skills into the syllabus because they are incredibly important for students to understand and to be competent with their digital literacy skills. So, we want students to be able to create, edit, save, refine documents that they may have done. That sort of digital literacy is essential. They also need to have some shared knowledge about the way in which science works and the way in which the design and digital technologies work, and they are complimentary to each other. Of course, a big thing in the digital technologies side of the syllabus is the work on developing algorithms, algorithmic thinking, and that indeed is all about sequencing and recognising patterns and being able to manipulate those. And we've also made sure that the content is structured in such a way that students can do this in both a plugged and an unplugged way.

Rod Cheal

Shirley, I think this syllabus will be extremely helpful for our teachers with its clarity and very, very distinct content. It's been lovely talking to you today.

Shirley Casper

Lovely talking to you too, Rod. And thanks for the opportunity.

Rod Cheal

Thank you for joining us. I encourage you to visit the NESA website where you can view the syllabus and also the introductory video. Bye-bye.

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