DET Update: Maths Lessons

DET is developing lesson plans that we can make use of. Please visit ARC Victorian Lesson Plans. An excellent opportunity to upskill on Learning Intentions and Success Criteria.

Please make use of these lessons and incorporate them into our CPS sequences as they have been designed with maths 2.0.

You will find sequences for:

Foundation (Number)
Year 1 (Place Value)
Year 2 (Place Value)
Year 7 (Whole Numbers)
Year 8 (Rational Numbers).

DET Update: Junior School - F to 2: changes to the English Online Testing

Updates re the implementation of Victoria's approach to reading in F-2,

Foundation to Year 2: schools will now be required to implement a reading program consistent (except for bilingual schools) with the Victorian position, including the regular use of systematic synthetic phonics, from the start of 2027 instead of the previously advised date of 2028. This is to ensure the benefits of this approach are fully realised for more students and schools more quickly.

In 2025:

For Prep students, the English Online Interview assessment will be optional for schools to complete
For Grade 1 students, schools will be required to complete either the English Online Interview assessment or the new Phonics Check in Term 3.

From 2026, the English Online Interview assessments will be de-commissioned and no longer available for use by schools. The new Phonics Check will be mandatory for all students in Grade 1 only.

These assessment changes are designed to:

reduce the current workload associated with the English Online Interview assessments
provide schools with a quicker, more accurate assessment of each student’s knowledge of phonics as the key foundational element of learning to read with fluency and comprehension
The Phonics Check will take around 10 minutes to complete, compared to the current English Online Interview assessments, which take up to 40 minutes.
Schools will be able to access the new Phonics Check through the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority’s (VCAA) Insight Assessment Platform.
Schools will continue to receive casual relief teacher (CRT) funding in 2025 to support the implementation of the Grade 1 English Online Interview or the Phonics Check. Consistent with arrangements over the past 2 years, schools will receive funding equivalent of 2 days’ CRT for each Grade 1 teacher.
Where schools choose to use the new Phonics Check assessment instead of the English Online Interview, this funding can be used to support the implementation of the new Phonics Check through providing professional development or other supports.
For more information on the changes to the EOI, refer to Changes to implementation of Victoria's approach to reading F-2 and launch of Phonics Plus program.

Resources:

An Overview

View the Phonics Plus in Foundation webinar or read the Phonics Plus implementation guide
- The why and what it is and how it links with the Vic Curric 2.0 and the VTLM 2.0.
- The different parts of a lesson.
- From week 3, Term 1, 2025, we will also be running a professional learning webinar series for teachers using the Foundation Phonics Plus lesson plans.

Foundation:

Foundation Phonics Plus lesson plans are now available on the Arc platform’s Victorian lesson plans site to support the introduction of systematic synthetic phonics.

These lesson plans reflect the Phonics Plus scope and sequence, which includes the teaching of phonics, phonemic awareness, handwriting and spelling. Remember - this does not align with what we are doing in our bilingual setting so use as a reference not as a rule of law!
The lesson plans in the Phonics Plus program include 25 minutes of systematic synthetic phonics as part of a daily 2-hour literacy block. Again, we need to modify this for our setting.

Year 1, refer to the Foundation sets 11-13 the lesson plans available on Arc to see if they fit for your start of the year. Remember to modify for our setting.

These lesson plans are a way to upskill in teaching this approach knowing that they align with the Victorian Teaching and Learning Model.

Who to go to....