Koonung Secondary College Newsletter

Senior School News 

VCAA Updates 

The VCAA has released advice about the conduct of School Assessed Coursework (SACs). They have declared that in “the current environment schools may need to consider the delivery of assessment remotely”. Additionally, “We recommend you provide students with the opportunity to engage with School-based Assessment and meet course completion requirements”. Koonung Secondary College has decided to re-commence some Unit 3 SACs remotely in line with this advice for Term 2. These SACs will form part of the basis for a student’s satisfactory completion of a unit and may contribute to a student’s overall Study Score on direction from the VCAA.

 

Both the College and VCAA recognise that the completion of SAC’s remotely will present challenges in staff authentication of student’s work. The Senior School and Year 12 teachers will be using a number of measures to ensure that Year 12 student work is their own and can contribute towards their final result for 2020. These measures will depend on the subject as well as the assessment task and may include the following.

 

- Modification of assessment tasks to include less comprehension activities

- Timed assessments pushed out by and submitted through Learning Tasks

- Observation of assessment through Zoom

- The use of plagiarism detection technology such as Turnitin

- Cross-marking with other teachers to detect collusion

- When over multiple periods, teacher observation of student progress over time

 

It is crucial that students not only try their best in preparing and completing these tasks but also ensure they abide by the conditions set by the subject teachers.

 

Year 12 SACs that did not take place during Week 9 of Term 1 or in the first two weeks of this term will be rescheduled and an updated Year 12 SAC Timetable will be emailed to students and parents/carers early Term 2.

 

For further information and strategies please see the KSC Remote SAC Policy attached.

2020_KSC_Remote_SAC_Policy.pdf

 

Students and parents/carers can access the VCAA authentication advice on pages 76-77 of the VCE Administrative Handbook 2020 https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/handbook/2020/VCEVCALAdminHandbook2020.pdf.

 

Koonung Secondary College and the VCAA understand that some students have undergone absence due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The VCAA has made clear that these absences should be regarded as an approved absence and will not impact negatively on a student’s attendance record.  

 

Further information and a FAQ on the VCAA response to the Covid-19 issue can be found at https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/news-and-events/latest-news/Novel%20coronavirus%20update/Pages/default.aspx.

 

 

 A snapshot of Changes to Units 3 and 4

Changes to Unit 3

  • Unit 3 has been extended until the end of Term 2, Friday  26 June in recognition of the disruption caused by the transition to remote learning. Our timelines and assessment schedules will need to change to reflect this.
  • Teachers should proceed with their current teaching and learning programs to allow Unit 3 to be completed as designed.
  • The VCAA will provide advice in the week commencing 20 April 2020 on which Unit 3 school-based assessments can be completed remotely. I will not be publishing our Year 12 Remote SAC Policy to students and parents/carers until this advice is received.

Changes to Unit 4

  • The VCAA is currently reviewing all study designs focusing on Unit 4, to reduce, where possible, school-based assessment tasks.
  • This review will include a small number of studies where the assessment item is across both Unit 3 and Unit 4, as there may need to be adjustment to both Units to adequately account for the disruption.
  • The VCAA is working with the Victorian Registration and Qualifications Authority to expedite accreditation of all Study Designs and will make them available by 25 April 2020.

Changes to administrative dates

  • The date for entering Unit 3 school-assessed task scores is extended to 12 October 2020. This may allow some flexibility in when students submit these types of assessments.

Support to understand the impacts

  • A series of free study-specific webinars will be made available to provide advice to teachers. 

 

Conor Sheehan

Director of Learning - Senior School

 

 

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Note: Updated information issued after the publish date of this newsletter

Year 12 VCAA & VTAC Update 1/5/2020

  

Dear Year 11 & 12 students and parents/carers,

I would like to thank Year 12 students and their families after a very busy week in which we settled in to some of our assessments being done remotely. The VCAA and the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VCTA) have published a number of important updates to schools over the past 48 hours.

 

The VCAA has published changes to Unit 4 content and assessment across a number of different studies. Subject teachers will be informing students of how these changes will impact on their classes and assessment tasks in the coming weeks. VCE Study Designs can be accessed here https://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/curriculum/vce/vce-study-designs/Pages/vce-study-designs.aspx.

 

The VTAC have announced that the ATAR will be calculated for all students that sit their final exams this year and be used as the primary basis for university admission. As in previous years’ other pathways and admission tools will exist alongside the ATAR such as interviews and portfolios.  Information about the admissions criteria for courses and universities will be available on tertiary admission centre websites by August. This will include final details of any special COVID-19 admission schemes that are offered. The full statement can be found here https://careersblog.vtac.edu.au/2020/04/27/joint-national-statement-on-tertiary-entry-for-2020-year-12-students/.

 

Conor Sheehan

Director of Learning - Senior School