A couple readers have kindly (?) alerted us to the fact that Victoria’s new F-10 curriculum is now out. Yay. And yeah, this should probably be a WitCH but, really, what shouldn’t? To steal from First Dog, the list of things that shouldn’t be a WitCH is quite short.
The links to the new curriculum are carefully hidden but can be accessed here, for F-6 and 7-10 (Word, idiots). To be honest we haven’t looked, and we don’t particularly intend to. We assume VCAA has pretty much robotically followed ACARA, meaning the new Victorian F-10 curriculum will contain nothing much surprising and nothing remotely good. In particular, it probably means that any poor kid who wants to do anything of substance beyond Year 10, who wants to be capable of more than reading some boring percentage in a newspaper article, is totally screwed.
Links to everything are below. So, discuss away. If there’s some fresh hell, beneath and beyond the same old ACARA hell, we’ll take a look.
F-6 scope and sequence (Word, idiots)
7-10 scope and sequence (Word, idiots)
(UPDATE 05/08/23) The full curriculum, including elaborations (Thanks, Alex.)
VCAA’s MATHEMATICS VERSION 2.0 CURRICULUM PAGE
Introduction
What has changed and the benefits
Levels 7-10 (secondary school)
Understanding the revised curriculum
Resources
Introducing Mathematics Version 2.0 (Word, idiots)
Mathematics – comparison of curriculums document (Version 1.0 to Version 2.0) (sic, and Word, idiots)
Mathematics Version 2.0 scope and sequence documents by strand, from Foundation to Level 10A
(05/08/23 Clicking on the Curriculum tab – no, that top Curriculum Tab, the second curriculum tab, next to the Introduction tab – gets to a page with the full curriculum content and elaborations. (Thanks, Alex.)
Mathematics V2 scope and sequence Levels F–6 (Word, idiots)
Mathematics V2 scope and sequence Levels 7–10 (Word, idiots)
a glossary of mathematical terms used in the revised curriculum (Word, idiots)
Webinars
(Upcoming: register at the links below)
Briefing for principals and curriculum area leaders (August 9)
Introduction: Key changes to the Mathematics curriculum (August 16)
Understanding the revised F–10 Mathematics learning area and changes (primary) (August 23)
Understanding the revised F–10 Mathematics learning area and changes (secondary) (August 30)
On demand learning modules
(Nothing yet)
Had a good look through the changes yesterday. It’s pretty similar to AC9 with little tweaks along the way. The biggest differences to the AC were in Level 10 + 10A where they kept a lot more of the existing VC content and sprinkled in the new AC content so it’s easier to connect Year 10 to VCE subjects instead of the ridiculous “optional content” and weak Year 10 standard in the AC.
Thanks, Alex. So, would it be fair to describe VCAA’s 10+10A as simply inadequate, rather than ACARA’s abysmal?
Yeah, that’s fair.
I never thought I’d see the day when I was happy with an inadequate VCAA curriculum. I guess everything’s relative.
Implementation has been delayed until 2025.
Thanks, SRK. Where did you hear/read that, and any idea why?
The AEU has been campaigning against implementing VicCurric2.0 next year because of concerns about the workload involved in planning later this year.
Great. Where were these clowns during the VCE bum rush?
Just where they were when they accepted below inflation salary increases in the new EBA.
Pythagoras theorem has moved from Year 9 to Year 8…
Still 3 years later than Singapore, but, you know… small steps!
I had a read of the comparison doc. Unlike ACARA there is still level 10a, and they seem to have added new things, rather than remove.
While not standing as distinct from ACARA as NESA does, VCAR has not sacrificed as much mathematics as ACARA.
So it looks like students will need to move to NSW or Victoria to get a half decent maths education. So the price of housing will continue to rise!!
They still have the strand “space” which comes with the subheading of “how to grind Marty’s gears”.
The comparison docs are helpful, but until someone bothers to attach the elaborations with those content points it will be hard to see what “consolidated” and “merged” actually means.
Matthew
Thanks very much, Matthew. To be fair, it is well-nigh impossible to write an education document without grinding my gears at some point. I don’t think the mathematics education Victoria offers is remotely near “half decent”. But, yes, some other states appear to be even worse.
I’ve been going through the elaborations as I’ve been reorganising my OneNote and seeing what changes I’ll need to make, and there’s a bunch of nonsense and ideas showing up in the elaborations that appear before they’re formally introudced a level or two later (e.g., VC2M8SP01 similarity elaboration saying to use the enlargement transformation despite it no longer being in L6 and now first mentioned in L9, a level later).
Then despite increasing the number of elaborations for most descriptors (mostly for the ones where it was already fairly straightforward to work out what to do with it), there’s still descriptors that are poorly elaborated (e.g., VC2M8A04, VC2M7N07, VC2M9A03)
Also, the ATSI related elaborations are laughable. Many are completely shoehorned or barely related to the actual content (VC2M7M03 and VC2M8M03 on circles feels like they should be in primary levels of art not secondary maths). And where they may be fairly relatable, they will talk use ATSI phrases/names that are not explained leaving you to go searching elsewhere to see what they’re talking about (e.g. the chilren’s instructive games Weme in VCM6P01 and Diyari koolchee in VC2M5P02).
Thanks very much, Alex. Where are the elaborations?
Click the sneaky “Curriculum” tab next to “Introduction” under “Mathematics Version 2.0”.
Thanks again, Alex.
Some responses:
(a)(i) I assume you meant to write L8, not L6. In any case, it appears that the time-travelling enlargement elaboration is a direct cut and paste from ACARA. So, if this is a screw-up, which it appears to be, then it’s ACARA’s screw-up. (VCAA’s screw-up was, of course, to trust ACARA to not have screwed up.)
(a)(ii) You suggested there were other instances of time travel? It’d probably be helpful to others if you have the energy to indicate some such discoveries.
(b) The contents VC2M8A04, VC2M7N07 and VC2M9A03 appear to be inventions of VCAA, and they appear to be bad. The first is a product of VCAA’s “algorithms” obsession, which is even worse than ACARA’s. The second, which, as content, ostensibly mandates the use of “digital tools” to do fractions, is probably some quarter-baked patching up of ACARA’s tissue-paper-thin fraction content. The third content is probably similarly motivated; one hopes that “solve linear equations” in Year 9 means solving systems of equations, but in this idiotic new world, who could be sure.
(c) (i) Yes, the majority of the ATSI stuff is absurd, and everybody knows it. The elaborations you specifically indicated are all direct transfers from ACARA, and they are all idiotic.
(c)(ii) Regarding the ATSI games elaborations, yes you have to hunt for information, but don’t bother: to steal from Gertrude Stein, there is no there there. For this post, I spent a lot of effort, hunting down the twelve games referred to in the AC. The majority of the games are most clearly described in an Australian Sports Commission collection, and it’s a good bet that this ASC document was the main source. The games contain no meaningful mathematics. As I wrote on the post,
As best as we could determine, every game elaboration contains, at most, a trivial amount of mathematics, and provides, at best, a trivial and time-wasteful reinforcement of curriculum concepts. … Perhaps others can see some purpose to all this. We cannot. We cannot see that any of the chosen game elaborations warrant inclusion in the mathematics curriculum.
(a)(i) Apparently, I was actually meant L5 from VC1 (VCMMG201) which was applying the enlargement transformation but was removed for VC2, so it first appears (properly) at L9.
(a)(ii) Here’s two others (though the second is another related to enlargement):
One of VC2M7ST02 elaborations (AC9 has it too) refers to split stem-and-leaf plots (an alternative name for back-to-back stem-and-leaf plots) which are first introduced in VC2M9ST03 (I know, back-to-back stem-and-leaf plots aren’t the hardest thing, but the point stands);
One of VC2M8N02 elaborations (AC9 has it too) refers to enlarging a cube and looking at the scale factor of the volume where VC2M8SP01 only has similarity for triangles/common shapes and VC2M9SP02 introduces enlarging for objects and brings up the same idea in its elaborations.
(c)(ii) Would be nice if VCAA put a link to the Australian Sport Commission collection in the resouces tab or at least on the FUSE/Maths Curriculum Companion site so that it was more accessible to teacher despite the lack of meaningful mathematics.
Thanks, Alex. Regarding (c)(ii), it might be a little awkward for VCAA/ACARA to admit that all but one of the ATSI mathematics games came from, or at least is best explained by, a Sports Commission document.
Jesus. Thanks, Alex. I’ll add an update to the post and then look at the things you’ve flagged.
It’s like that on the original one too, not obvious whatsoever. Maybe with the “increased functionality” they are adding “later in term 3 2023” it might be a more usable interface (they may pinch the AC9 which is a lot more interactive, who knows).
I am tutoring a Year 10 student with very basic maths indeed and it’s made so much harder by the fact that he doesn’t have the automatic recall for mental arithmetic that I do. Harder for him! My daughter said she is the same – she has to think for 6 + 7 for example. I know that we did lots of times tables by rote (thank goodness!).
My question is whether we also did lots of mental arithmetic by rote (and hence it’s also needed in the curriculum as well as the times tables).
Hi, JJ. I’m not sure I understand your question, but I think the answer is “in effect, yes”.
If you want to multiply 23 x 37, for example, you can apply the standard algorithm (or the fashionable and idiotic box method), but you’re screwed if you can’t do the the required single-digit mental multiplications and additions. In the mean old Dickensian days, kids would be required to practise this a lot, which also meant practising the mental computations. And now, …
Thanks Marty – I remembered doing the times table often as a class competition/call out, but didn’t remember the additions, but then we got that through the practice (which I didn’t remember so vividly).