Preface

Kandoo Special School is a large special school for students (0-18 years) who have intellectual impairment or intellectual impairment/autistic spectrum disorder and is organised in age/learning student cohorts. Teachers have the responsibility and autonomy to design class and individual programs that link with students’ developmental needs. Teachers make decisions about which outcomes will be the main focus for planning and programming.

The Science School Curriculum Program is reviewed annually to guide the planning of school and class curriculum programs. The school uses the learning outcomes from the syllabus, including Foundation Level statements, as the basis for reporting on student learning outcomes. Student performance information is published as part of the school’s Annual Report.

Acknowledgments

This sample school curriculum program is part of the syllabus support materials produced by officers of Education Services Directorate. Special thanks are extended to the many teachers, heads of departments, administrators, education advisers and others who have provided feedback on the programs as they were being developed.

© The State of Queensland (Department of Education), 1999

Queensland schools are permitted to make multiple copies of this book without infringing copyright provided the number of copies does not exceed the amount required in any one school. Copying for any other reason except for purposes permitted by the Copyright Act is prohibited.

Contents

Beliefs about science education

School science3

Goals of our school science program3

Science understanding at our school3

Beliefs about learning in science education

Constructivism3

Learners3

Characteristics of our students4

Teachers4

Transdisciplinary team5

Inclusive curriculum5

Meeting language needs5

Basic principles6

Years 1-10 Science Syllabus

Learning outcomes6

Strands and levels6

Scope and sequence 7

Foundation Level – suggested outcomes and content8

Statements of Content – Level 110

Statements of Content – Level 212

Statements of Content – Level 314

Assessment

Principles of assessment16

Techniques for gathering information16

Recording16

Appendix

Form A: Individual Student Profile (Science) Foundation Level to Level 117

Form B: Individual Student Profile (Science) Foundation Level to Level 318

Beliefs about science education

School science

Scientific understanding about the world is continually changing. Scientific ways of thinking and solving problems are powerful tools for people to use as they seek explanations of how things work, or to understand why things are the way they are. Science education prepares students to make sense of the world by engaging them in authentic tasks that focus on the cognitive processes involved in investigating, understanding and communicating.

School science contributes and fosters natural student curiosity of the world and universe and encourages students to explore and make sense of the phenomena they experience.

Goals of our school science program

Science at this school is integral to the balanced curriculum offered to all students. Teachers facilitate classroom curriculum programs that will assist all students at all levels to:

appreciate science as a way of knowing;

develop effective ways of making sense of the world around them;

enjoy and appreciate science by fostering a sense of inquiry and scientific literacy; and

construct knowledge and understandings consistent with the outcomes of the syllabus.

Science understanding at our school

Teachers acknowledge that students at this school have a variety of sensory and awareness levels and experiences with the world about them which they bring into our classrooms. Students will be encouraged to develop and extend these experiences and to explore their understandings.

Many of our students have not yet participated in a wide range of organised learning experiences or acquired conventional scientific understandings. As facilitators, teachers will provide sensory and learning experiences to enable students to construct scientific understandings and knowledge.

Beliefs about learning in science education

Constructivism

Constructivist approaches to learning recognise that meaning is actively constructed within the learner’s existing framework. Learners interpret ideas in terms of their prior knowledge and experiences. For planning and teaching to be effective, teachers must sequence purposeful activities to meet the needs of individual students. By recognising students’ prior conceptual understandings, teachers are better placed to plan learning activities relevant to their students.

All students with disabilities have strengths, competencies and preferred learning styles. Teachers need to know their learners in order to plan inclusively for all students in their classes and to include sensory and perceptual activities that relate to real-life experiences.

Learners

In effective science classrooms, learners are active participants.

They participate in a broad range of learning activities.

They engage in a broad range of experiences, processes and approaches.

They take responsibility for their own learning.

Characteristics of our students

Students as learners have a number of characteristics.

They are able to engage in increasingly more complex tasks.

Their perceptions and responses to the things around them will need to be developed.

Their perceptions change from being undifferentiated to being increasingly differentiated.

Their ability to reason tends to grow from the immediate and personal to more generalised and shared.

They move from a stage of egocentric behaviour to behaviour that is more socially or group oriented.

They progress through the general stages of growth and development according to their own unique pattern.

The students in our school community have some previously determined learning needs. All students have been ascertained at Levels 5 or 6 with intellectual impairment, intellectual impairment/autistic spectrum disorder and a small number have multiple impairments - including physical impairment, hearing impairment and vision impairment. Some of our students have difficulty becoming active and independent learners.

Students with intellectual impairment have observed and measured limitations in present functioning. This functioning affects the way in which these students:

attend to and perceive the world;

process experiences;

recall information; and

generalise experiences and knowledge from one setting to another.

Students with intellectual impairment/autistic spectrum disorder may display severe and pervasive deficits in social behaviour and attachment patterns, impairments in communication and a markedly restricted range of interests. These students sometimes display rigidity in thinking patterns that may influence both language and behaviour.

Another cohort of students has physical impairment that accompanies their intellectual impairment. This additional impairment affects their ability to move or to coordinate and control movement when performing tasks. With some of our students, the physical impairment affects their ability to use or feel certain parts of their body.

A further smaller group of students have multiple impairments; that is, they have a related sensory impairment (hearing impairment or vision impairment) associated with the intellectual impairment, or the intellectual impairment/autistic spectrum disorder.

Our students’ characteristics determine the kinds of knowledge, skills, processes and attitudes that are promoted at different age and developmental levels.

Teachers

In effective science classrooms, teachers are active facilitators and participants.

They facilitate learning experiences, challenging students to think.

They assist learners to develop understandings by using clear unambiguous language to explain ideas.

They sequence learning opportunities to meet the needs of the students and assist all students to meet the outcomes.

They make choices about suitable contexts and environments that are relevant for different groups of students.

They provide a wide range of experiences that are suitable for groups of students.

They generate opportunities for students to synthesise new experiences as they participate within real-life and community-based learning activities.

They provide opportunities for students to transfer and generalise new understandings from the classroom to a range of relevant, real-life and community-based practice situations.

They plan for appropriate language learning which accesses augmented and alternative communication where necessary.

Transdisciplinary team

There is an expectation that teachers, teacher aides and specialist staff who become members of the transdisciplinary team will work together to generate appropriate activities and experiences to enhance sensory and cognitive development in the specific key learning area.

Inclusive curriculum

For a curriculum to be inclusive of all students with disability, it should:

  • focus on student learning outcomes;
  • be broad and comprehensive;
  • enable access to the key learning areas in compulsory schooling or to Board of Senior Secondary School Studies (BSSSS) and Vocational Education offerings in post-compulsory schooling;
  • be relevant to the student’s physical, intellectual, social and emotional needs;
  • be age appropriate;
  • be linked to the learning activities being undertaken by non-disabled peers;
  • be part of the continuum of learning for life;
  • offer opportunities, challenges and choices;
  • encourage independence while recognising the interdependence of members of the community;
  • value independent learning styles and preferred learning styles;
  • provide for different rates of learning;
  • enhance the student’s self-esteem, self-worth and identity;
  • provide a range of opportunities for individualised and group learning of skills, knowledge and attitudes;
  • provide a broad range of experiences, processes and approaches;
  • be realistic, achievable, have clearly stated goals and anticipate the student’s future needs;
  • include specialised methodologies and/or equipment where appropriate, for example braille reading and auditory learning activities;
  • incorporate the use of adaptive technology where appropriate.
Adaptedfrom: Guidelines for Implementing the Curriculum and Standards Framework for Students with Disabilities andImpairments ‘Meeting language needs’. (The State of Victoria, Directorate of School Education), 1994

The Science Syllabus and the implementation plan at this school are informed by the principles of inclusive curriculum. They include and value the experiences of the diverse group of learners who make up our school community.

Our planning recognises and values the life experiences of all groups of students within our school:

–girls and boys

–students with different linguistic backgrounds

–the diversity which many disabilities bring to our community

The background and varied life experiences of our students bring a richness to the learning experiences from which we can build. Valuing our diverse student population brings an enhanced awareness of the cultural heritage and prior life experiences of our students. These are used as bridges into our school, class and individual programs in Science.

Meeting language needs

All students with disabilities have strengths and competencies. These competencies will include skills and preferences for particular means of communication and ways of learning.

The student’s strengths, present methods and means of communication are considered at the heart of all planning and assessment activities undertaken for students with disabilities. In this school, we realise that many of our students may require different teaching approaches and learning opportunities to engage with language learning in a meaningful way.

Language and communication learning are embedded within the natural environments and contexts provided within the Years 1–10 Health and Physical Education Syllabus framework. Peer and adult interactions are part of this natural context. Where possible, curriculum experiences are selected that are comparable to those extended to same age peers.

Some students at Kandoo Special School use adaptive equipment and aids to enhance their communication. They may use systems of augmented and alternative communication such as Makaton signing, Compic and related programs, and adaptive technology. Teachers at Kandoo Special School understand that students with disabilities can communicate in many different ways, including challenging behaviours such as biting and screaming or through non-verbal signals such as eye movements. The full range of communications are used by teachers to monitor student engagement and the demonstration of outcomes.

In order to recognize the skills and competencies of some students in our community who have a non-English speaking background, or who may have fluency in a language other than English, it is necessary to involve their families to assist in understanding their different systems of augmented communication.

Members of the transdisciplinary team are engaged in detailed and sophisticated observation of students’ performance. This influences planning and teaching to promote effective language learning and assessment for all students.

Basic principles

Central to planning, implementing, assessing and evaluating curriculum for students with disabilities is the recognition that:

  • all children can learn;
  • the educational process requires flexibility of programs, organisation, resources and structural arrangements to meet students’ needs;
  • educational planning requires an individual focus and an active partnership between the school, parents, students and support personnel; and
  • students need to access the key learning and competency areas.

Action Plan: Educational Provision for Students with Disabilities 1998–2002. Brisbane: Low Incidence Unit. (The Department of Education, 1998)

Years 1-10 Science Syllabus

Learning outcomes

The syllabus provides a framework for planning learning experiences and assessment tasks through which students have opportunities to demonstrate what they know and what they can do. The syllabus framework allows teachers to accommodate the developmental needs of students. For students with special educational needs, this framework will form the basis for planning learning experiences and assessment tasks, the same as for all other students in the state.

This school’s program uses the strands, levels and learning outcomes from the syllabus as a developmental framework for the needs of our students with disabilities. Teachers make professional judgments around the learning needs of their class cohort. These are influenced by both the syllabus documents (level statements and core learning outcomes) and the Individual Education Plans.

Teachers are able to map individual student achievement by recording progress towards achieving the outcomes on the Individual Student Profiles, examples of which are provided at the end of this document.

Strands and levels

There are five conceptual strands:

Science and Society;

Earth and Beyond;

Energy and Change;

Life and Living; and

Natural and Processed Materials.

The levels into which the core learning outcomes have been organized indicate progressions of increasing sophistication and complexity in learning outcomes.

Each of these strands makes an equal contribution to the Years 1-10 Science Curriculum Program. The emphasis placed on each of these strands, however, will vary according to the needs of class groups. Teachers make professional judgments about relevant strands based on the learning needs of their class cohort and the ability of individual students to engage with the learning outcomes.

Some variables that need to be considered when planning class programs and units of work include the learning characteristics and levels of impairment of individual students.

Some teachers will develop class programs that include elements from all five strands. Others will find it more appropriate for their students to focus on a smaller selection of strands in a particular planning phase rather than embrace all strands.

Scope and sequence

There is no expectation that students at this school will necessarily reach Level 4 by the time they are aged 12 or Level 6 by 15 years of age. Depending on the pace of students’ learning and their developmental requirements, learning outcomes from the syllabus may be addressed within different class groupings. It is expected that the majority of our students will typically address Foundation Level and Levels 1, 2 and 3 across all years of schooling. Where appropriate, some students may benefit from a program that will access all levels, up to and including Level 6.

Foundation Level statements have been developed for students demonstrating a level of understanding before that of Level 1. The following section (pp 8–9) expands the set of Foundation Level statements for the five strands into a set of suggested outcomes for this level. Suggested content, activities, contexts and resources are also shown for each strand.

The next section (pp 10–15) shows the Statements of Content for all strands across Levels 1–3. Statements of Content derive directly from the core content tables (pp 35–39 in the syllabus) and interpret it in a comprehensive and consistent way. These statements identify content that is appropriate for the different stages of schooling. The complete Statements of Content publication is available in the school for those teachers who need to access other levels when compiling class or individual programs.

1

Science and Society / Earth and Beyond
Foundation
Level /
Level Statement
Students are developing an understanding of the ways that science affects aspects of their lives. They are developing an intuitive understanding of some common natural phenomena. / Level StatementStudents are developing an understanding of the features of the Earth and sky. Students are developing an understanding of their immediate non-living environment and uses made of it.
F.1 Students engage in explorations using different senses.
Suggested content
  • The five senses.
Suggested activities
  • Sensory explorations of the environment using broad perceptual input mechanisms such as assessing (vision), hearing (auditory), smelling (olfactory), tasting (gustatory), touching (tactile), moving (haptic/kinaesthetic), vestibular, temperature sensing (reaction to pain stimuli), proprioceptor (joint and muscle position sensing) and awareness of body in space.
  • Developing collections to support sensory explorations.
  • Labelling, comparing, classifying and ordering activities for real purposes e.g. at environmental, community and individual levels.
/ F.1 Students identify obvious features of the sky.
Suggested content
  • Obvious non-living features of the sky e.g. sun, clouds, moon.
Suggested activities
Observing and creating representations of features of the sky.