A focus on equity

The SACSA Framework reaffirms a long-held belief that education is central to the making of a fairer society.

The flexibility of the SACSA Framework enables programs to be devised which do not privilege or exclude particular groups, and which encourage all learners to reach their potential and achieve success. In addition equity is made a central curriculum consideration through the Learning Areas, the Essential Learnings and a number of cross-curriculum perspectives.

In this way learners come to recognise the nature and causes of inequality, and understand that these are socially constructed and can therefore be changed through people’s actions.

(General Introduction SACSA Framework p 7)

MIDDLE YEARS BAND

ENGLISH Strand: Texts and Contexts

Key Idea: / Students respond to increasingly complex ideas and information and examine diversity of opinion when listening to a range of texts. They critically and creatively produce a range of spoken texts about topics and issues for a wide range of audiences. [T] [C] [KC2] [KC6]
This includes such learning as:
  • listening to and interpreting spoken texts in multiple ways, eg accurately summarising and tabulating decisions reached in student meetings, discussing song lyrics [T] [C] [KC1] [KC2]
  • critically analysing their use of language in their own and others’ spoken texts, taking into account the effect of certain values and relationships that are privileged, and the impact of their language on other people [Id] [In] [KC1]
  • appraising and effectively using many varieties of English, including Standard Australian English, in different forms and contexts, eg interacting with an Aboriginal community leader, giving a report at a parent meeting, responding to a community action group about an issue [In] [C]
  • taking part in formal community occasions, eg participating as a presenter, performing drama as part of a group or team [C] [KC4]
  • composing and performing a range of spoken texts showing density and complexity, eg an argument presenting a viewpoint on a community issue, a poem relating to a predictive perspective, or a script based on a television program, using humour to expose unfair practices [C] [KC2]
  • using appropriate websites and multimedia packages to support and enhance speaking, eg a taped simulation of the news, an electronic slideshow to enhance a speech, or applying data to text. [C] [KC7]

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Early Years Band (R-2) Mathematics Strand:

Key Idea: Students generate and analyse data from a

diverse range of sources (including online) and perspectives

to investigate situations drawn from their personal lives and the

world around them. They use this data to explore

patterns and relationships actions. [Id] [T] [C] [KC1] and to

inform their choices and

This includes such learning as:

  • posing questions to generate data, and collecting,

analysing and communicating data from a range of

perspectives appropriate to the purpose and intended class and

community audiences [C] [KC1] [KC2]

  • exploring, analysing and appreciating the variety of ways data

is presented and used in and beyond their immediate world,

and how this data can be accessed [T] [C] [KC1] [KC2]

  • investigating, planning and using a variety of strategies

to collect data, including observations, measurements,

electronic sources, interviews and surveys [T] [C]

[KC1] [KC3]

  • exploring, collecting, organising and representing

linked data to describe and ask questions

about patterns and relationships [F] [T] [KC1]

  • representing and communicating data in a range of ways,

both online and offline, and researching paid/unpaid workers

who manage data. [C] [KC2]

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SOMETHING MORE: TEACHERS’ WORK

I invite you to think about good teachers you have known. Teachers’ work involves constant improvisation; we know this from classroom research.

In good teaching, the improvisation goes beyond boundaries; there is a excess: an enthusiasm or concern, a capacity to judge the right moment, which sparks a learning process, inspires a pupil, or communicates a love for knowledge and respect for the learner.

This excess is something given by the teacher. We recognise when it happens; but being an excess, we cannot easily define it in job description, nor account for it in budgets. The interests it serves is not the teacher’s (indeed in a market sense it is against the teacher’s interest, being an expenditure of skill or energy beyond what one is paid for).

The interests is the learner’s; and behind the learner, the society’s collective interest in the new generation learning well. Good teaching, thus, involves a gift relation. It is a practice founded on public rather than a private interest.

(R. W. Connell, 1996).

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