School Curriculum and Standards Authority | 11 to 12 Circular April 2019

11to12 Circulars - April 2019

General Information, SIRS and Enrolments

Final dates for Year 12 students to withdraw from courses, 2019

Contact
Jenny Offer (08) 9273 6313
jenny.offer@scsa.wa.edu.au

Schools are reminded of the final dates to withdraw Year 12 students from courses:

Friday, 26 July 2019 – final date for withdrawing students from ATAR courses with practical examination components. No changes will be made to student enrolments in these courses after this date.
Thursday, 15 August 2019 – final date for withdrawing students from ATAR courses which do not have practical examination components. No changes will be made to student enrolments in these courses after this date.
Thursday, 15 August 2019 – final date for withdrawing students from General, Foundation, Preliminary and VET industry specific courses. No changes will be made to student enrolments in these courses after this date.

Schools are reminded that students who are enrolled in a Year 12 ATAR course must sit the external examination in that course. For ATAR courses with practical components, students must sit both the written and practical examinations. Students who do not sit an ATAR course examination and do not have an approved sickness/misadventure application for that course, will not have the grades for the pair of units completed in that year contribute to the calculation of the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE).

As a consequence, a student may not meet the requirements to receive a WACE.

Student Declaration and Permissions online 2019

Contact
Perpetua Joseph (08) 9273 6770
Perpetua.Joseph@scsa.wa.edu.au

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority (the Authority) is now seeking your assistance to provide details regarding the online procedure to complete the Student Declaration and Permission to all of the following students:

all Year 12 students
Year 11 students who are studying ATAR Unit 3 and Unit 4 and sitting the 2019 ATAR course examinations
Year 10 students who have been given approval to study ATAR Unit 3 and Unit 4 and sit the 2019 ATAR course examinations.

Please note: Students will be required to complete the Student Declaration and Permission when they log in to the portal before they can gain access to other important information such as their examination timetable.

This information is available in schools on Wednesday, 1 May 2019 as per the Activities Schedule 2019.

The deadline for students to complete this process online is Thursday, 20 June 2019.

As advised in an email to schools on 28 February 2019, we have a new student portal. Current Year 12 students should access the portal via https://student.scsa.wa.edu.au/student-portal.

Information for teachers can be found at https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/the-wace/student-declaration.

Schools recently received advice that for 2018 Year 12 students, WACE, WASSA and ATAR Course Reports are now available for download in the new portal.

Please be advised that 2019 will be the final year that Portfolios of Achievement will be printed and posted by the Authority.

All Certification will be made available in the portal after this year.

The purpose of this online Student Declaration and Permission is to ensure students are aware of the requirements:

to achieve the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE)
for sitting the ATAR course examinations.

It also enables students to give permission for the:

release of certain personal information should they receive an award
use of school work for creating support materials and
use of examination responses (written and practical).

Failure to complete the submission process may impact schools with students who:

may win an award (including students who are not sitting ATAR course examinations) and who have not indicated their preference to have/not have their name published in the media
are unaware of the requirements for achieving the WACE.

Schools are able to monitor which of their students have completed the Student Declaration and Permission online via the following report, CSE058 – Student Release Choices by Provider. The pathway to the report is as follows: Reports > Other reports > Report type: Students, reports.

The Authority appreciates your assistance in obtaining this important information.

Registration of students on SIRS Term 2 2019

Contact
Lynn Galbraith (08) 9273 6702
lynn.galbraith@scsa.wa.edu.au
dataservices@scsa.wa.edu.au

Student registration and demographic information should be uploaded to the Student Information Registration System (SIRS) on a regular basis, at least once a term, to ensure accuracy and currency of data for all schools. For schools with a large turnover of student population, it is recommended that this is done on a more regular basis (once a fortnight or once a month).

Details of how to register students are provided in the updated Data Procedures Manual 2019 – https://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/publications/data-procedures-manual, with links to assist schools using Reporting to Parents, MAZE, and Excel. There is also a separate Student Registration Procedures Manual found at https://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/sirs-info/primary-schools to assist primary schools with creating and uploading their Student Registration and Demographic File (SRGDG) and Teacher Registration File (THREG).

To assist schools with understanding the error and warning messages received after uploading a file, a list of SIRS Error Messages and how to fix them have been published on the Authority website under SIRS Information found at https://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/sirs-info.

Schools are requested to include their school code in any correspondence.

Moderation

Student Marks for Externally Set Tasks 2019

Contact
Perpetua Joseph (08) 9273 6770
perpetua.joseph@scsa.wa.edu.au

Schools arereminded that all students enrolled in a Year 12 General course and/or a Year 12 Foundation course are required to complete the externally set task (EST) developed by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (the Authority) for that course.

The EST is compulsory and forms part of the school-based assessment. The EST is included in the Assessment table in the Year 12 General and Foundation syllabuses as a separate assessment type with a weighting of 15 per cent for the pair of units.

Schools are required to administer the ESTs during Weeks 2, 3 and 4 of Term 2 (Monday, 6 May 2019 to Friday, 24 May 2019). Detailed information about the administration of ESTs is outlined in the Externally Set Task Handbook 2019 and can be accessed on the Authority website through the link: https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/assessment/externally-set-tasks.

Schools are required to upload into SIRS the raw total mark for each student in each of the ESTs by the beginning of Week 5 (Monday, 27 May 2019). This mark will be out of the total indicated on the appropriate EST marking key for the course, which is provided by the Authority.

Schools will be able to upload the total raw mark for each EST for each student into SIRS from the school database program, i.e. RTP, Civica (MAZE). If a student is absent for an EST but returns to school within the test period (Weeks 2, 3 or 4 of Term 2) he/she is expected to sit the EST under test conditions. However, as for all school‐based assessments, the school is required to apply its assessment policy should a student not sit the EST.

Where schools use MS Excel to transfer data to the Authority, details of the file format (RSEST) for EST marks can be found in the Data Procedures Manual 2019 | Section 6: Page 3 which is available on the Authority website at: https://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/publications/data-procedures-manual and also at: https://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/sirs-info/record-formats.

For further queries, please refer to page 11 of the Externally Set Task Handbook 2019 for the relevant contact details within the Authority.

Courses

Curriculum Advisory Committees 2019

Contact
Maureen Lorimer (08) 9273 6397 [Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday]
maureen.lorimer@scsa.wa.edu.au

The Curriculum Advisory Committees will contribute to ensuring that all Western Australian students have the opportunity to maximise their learning potential. The new structure includes committees for the following phases of learning:

the Early Childhood (Years K – 2)
the Middle and Late Childhood (Years 3 – 6)
the Early and Middle Adolescence (Years 7 – 10)
the Late Adolescence and Early Adulthood (Years 11 and 12).

These committees will be responsible for providing expert advice to the School Curriculum and Standards Authority on a range of matters, including, but not limited to:

the Western Australian Curriculum – Kindergarten to Year 10
the Principles of Teaching, Learning and Assessment
the Pre-primary to Year 10: Teaching, Assessing and Reporting Policy and Policy Standards for Pre-primary to Year 10: Teaching, Assessing and Reporting
external assessments (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), Online Literacy and Numeracy Assessment (OLNA), Externally Set Tasks (ESTs) and Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATAR) course examinations)
assessment and moderation – Pre-primary to Year 2, Years 3 to 6, Years 7 to 10, Years 11 and 12
the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) syllabus requirements.

Committee membership may be viewed via the following link:

https://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/about-us/curriculum-advisory-committees.

Examinations

Marker applications for 2019 ATAR course examinations

Contact
Melanie Jasper (08) 9273 6732
melanie.jasper@scsa.wa.edu.au

Cristina Caruso (08) 9273 6317
cristina.caruso@scsa.wa.edu.au

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority is seeking applications from qualified people interested in marking the 2019 ATAR course written and/or practical examinations.

For information regarding marker applications or to apply, please refer to

https://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/about-us/employment.

Applications open on Wednesday, 17 April 2019.

Applications close on Monday, 24 June 2019.

Policy for setting the written ATAR course examination dates

Contact
Kaylene Power (08) 9273 6309
kaylene.power@scsa.wa.edu.au

In April 2018, the Board of the School Curriculum and Standards Authority approved the following principles for the setting of the Year 12 ATAR course written examination dates:

Written examinations will start during the week containing the first working day in November and will commence on a:
- Monday where the first working day in November falls on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
- Wednesday where the first working day in November falls on a Thursday or Friday.
The written examination period will be for 15 working days.
Large candidature examinations will be scheduled during the first 10 days of the examination period.
No practical examinations will be scheduled on the weekend immediately prior to the commencement of the written examinations.

It should be noted that the scheduled date range of Year 12 ATAR course written and practical examinations from year to year will not always fall in the same cycle of weeks of the school terms.

The 2019 Year 12 ATAR course written examinations are scheduled from Wednesday, 30 October to Tuesday, 19 November 2019. The 2019 Year 12 ATAR course written examination timetable will be published on Monday, 27 May 2019 on the Examination Timetables webpage of the School Curriculum and Standards Authority’s website at:
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/assessment/examinations/examination-timetables .

No information regarding the date of specific examinations is available prior to this date. The scheduled date range for the Year 12 ATAR course written examinations for the next three years is also available on this webpage.

The 2019 Year 12 ATAR course practical examinations are scheduled from Saturday, 28 September to Sunday, 20 October 2019. See the schedule on the Examination Timetables webpage.

From Thursday, 12 September 2019 students will be able to download their Personalised written examination timetable and Personalised practical examination timetable from the student portal at https://studentportal.scsa.wa.edu.au opens in new window .

The written examination timetable will contain the date, time and examination centre for the student’s written examination. The practical examination timetable will contain the date, time, venue and location of the student’s practical examination.

Examination reports for the 2018 ATAR course examinations

Contact
Kerry Cribb (08) 9273 6787
kerry.cribb@scsa.wa.edu.au

Teachers are advised that the 2018 ATAR course examination reports are available on the course page of the School Curriculum and Standards Authority website via login into the extranet.

The Extranet is the Authority’s secure area for teachers to access materials and resources to support them in their work. Please use the link below to log into the Extranet or to register:

https://scsa.wa.edu.au/extranet/login

An examination report is not available for some courses where there were insufficient candidates to enable any valid statistical analysis.

2019 Year 12 Practical examination requirements documents and practical marking keys for ATAR courses

ContactKerry Cribb (08) 9273 678
kerry.cribb@scsa.wa.edu.au

Kaylene Power (08) 9273 6309
kaylene.power@scsa.wa.edu.au

Teachers are advised that the 2019 Year 12 Practical examination requirements documents and the practical marking keys for ATAR courses with practical examinations are available on the School Curriculum and Standards Authority website. Please see the links below. The materials are located under ATAR > Examination Materials for the relevant course page.

Both teachers and students must be familiar with the course specific practical examination requirements document and practical marking keys. They contain important information about the reporting of achievement, how the examination is structured and conducted and key dates.

Aviation
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/technologies/aviation

Chinese: Second Language
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/languages/chinese-second-language

Dance
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/arts/dance

Design
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/arts/design

Drama
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/arts/drama

English as an Additional Language/Dialect
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/english/english-as-an-additional-language-or-dialect

French: Background Language
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/languages/french-background-language

French: Second Language
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/languages/french-second-language

German: Background Language
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/languages/german-background-language

German: Second Language
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/languages/german-second-language

Indonesian: Second Language
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/languages/indonesian-second-language

Italian: Background Language
https://senior-secondary.scsa.wa.edu.au/syllabus-and-support-materials/languages/italian-background-language