Schools are invited  to send staff who use the Student Information Records System (SIRS) to a  familiarisation seminar at the Authority. The seminar is aimed at new and  existing users who have not previously attended a seminar.

Ideally, two staff  members should attend; the clerical staff member who may be responsible for  maintaining the changes on the school database and the deputy or associate  principal who is responsible for timetable changes for students.

The seminar will cover the system’s basic  operations and functions regarding data transfer and generation of reports which  enable the information that has been transferred to SIRS to be checked.

The seminar will last two hours. Participants will log into SIRS using  their own school login and password.

There will be four sessions available prior to school commencing in  2015, which may be preferable for staff in remote and country WA.

Seminar dates and times (2015)

More sessions may  be provided if these sessions are fully booked.

Registrations can  be made online at
www.scsa.wa.edu.au/internet/Events_and_Forms/Registrations_and_Logins/SIRS_intro.

The seminars will  be in the Authority’s Temby and Louden rooms at 303  Sevenoaks Street, Cannington.  Further details will be supplied to participants  once registered.

In 2014, two  sessions were held in Bunbury for South West participants, and if we have  enough interest for 2015, it may be possible to conduct sessions there  again.  Please contact Lynn.Galbraith@scsa.wa.edu.au if you would be interested in attending SIRS Familiarisation in  Bunbury.

Need some ergonomic, swivel chairs for your school? The  Authority has a large number of gas-lift ergonomic swivel chairs, all in good  condition, that are surplus to our needs.   These chairs are being offered to schools, free of charge, on a ‘first  in, first served’ basis.  They are suitable  for both office and computer lab use.

Schools will be responsible for organising pick-up and  transport, at their cost, within business hours.  If you wish to take advantage of this offer,  please contact Lorraine Hayres on 9273 6765 or email Lorraine.Hayres@scsa.wa.edu.au .

The School Curriculum and Standards  Authority's 2014 process for recognition of well-established alternative  curriculum (and/or reporting on student achievement) as meeting the  requirements of the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline is  closed.
Information about the 2015 process will be  published within the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline shortly.

If you have questions, please email info@scsa.wa.edu.au.

In  November, the Authority will present to the Board the Phases 2 and 3 draft P-10  syllabuses for The Arts, Health and Physical Education, Humanities and Social  Sciences and Technologies.

The  Authority is committed to working with teachers to achieve quality syllabuses.  Over the past year consultation processes with teachers, professional  associations and the systems/sector representatives have focused on determining  the core content for each year, developing assessment tasks to support the  judging standards resource materials and considering advice to support both  formative and summative assessment in each of the learning areas across the  phases of schooling.

Approximately  260 teachers have recently accepted an invitation to participate in the Judging  Standards Project for Phases 2 and 3 of the Western Australian curriculum. Two-hundred  and thirty-five tasks have been specifically developed by consultants from the  Authority, some in conjunction with practicing classroom teachers.

Following  a series of recent briefings, the teachers have begun to engage their students  with the curriculum in readiness to complete a range of common assessment  tasks. These tasks will be administered during Term 4 across the four learning  areas. The work samples that will come from this activity will form the  evidence base for developing grade A – E assessment pointers for Phases 2 and 3  learning areas/subjects.

Following  detailed analysis of the work samples during 2015, selected tasks and annotated  work samples will be published by the Authority, to exemplify standards of  achievement from Pre-primary to Year 10, across the Phases 2 and 3 subjects.

Teachers  participating in the project, and others who may have queries, can contact standards@scsa.wa.edu.au for more information.

Schools and  other education providers will be required to register their Year 10 and Year 11 students with the  Authority by Thursday, 19 February 2015.  All other students in Years 7, 8, 9, and 12  must be registered by Friday, 20 March  2015.

It is  critical that Year 10 and Year 11 students are registered by 19 February to  ensure their inclusion in the compulsory Online Literacy and Numeracy  Assessment in March (unless prequalified through Year 9 NAPLAN performance, or  have already achieved the standard as Year 10s). Demonstrating the minimum  standard in the three components of the assessment (reading, writing and  numeracy) is a requirement for students to achieve the WACE from 2016.

Please note this is the first year for  Year 7 students to be registered on SIRS.   The process is the same as registering Years 8 – 12.

Details of  how to register students will be noted in the updated Data Procedures Manual 2015  with instructions to assist schools using Reporting To Parents, MAZE, and  Excel.

School Curriculum and Standards  Authority (SCSA) student numbers
For  information about SCSA student numbers, see the relevant item in this  eCircular.

Schools may request  School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA) student numbers automatically  through the Student Information Record System (SIRS) for Year 7 and Year 8  students starting in 2015. Details of how to request SCSA student numbers are  in Section 5.1 of the WACE Procedures File 2014, which is available online at http://www.scsa.wa.edu.au/internet/Publications/WACE_Procedures_File.  The WACE Procedures File will be replaced in  2015 by a Data Procedures Manual.

For students other than Year 7 or 8, schools are encouraged to do an  initial search in SIRS for student numbers via Enrolment > Student Enrolment  > Find Student Number. If no record is found, schools can email numbers@scsa.wa.edu.au and advise the following:

• your school code
• student first name
• student surname
• date of birth
• academic year
• if the student has arrived in WA from overseas or  interstate.

This will enable a more comprehensive search to be undertaken before a  new number is issued.

Schools who allocated  Year 7 numbers to their students in 2014 are requested to utilise the same  number for each student, and upload via their Student registration and  demographic (SRGDG) files in 2015 when the students enter Year 8.