Year 12 Updates

VCAA Updates

The last year of school is serious business as students maximise their learning in order to provide themselves with the most opportunities for the future as possible.  Although remote learning is incredibly difficult, Mrs Mingos and the year 12 team are incredibly proud of how well our year 12 students have adapted.

VCE is a qualification that is recognised around the world.  The VCAA is currently working hard to identify the ways in which it can be adapted due to the impact of remote learning.  A key to this work is ensuring the integrity of the program and that students leave high school with the knowledge, skills and abilities to pursue their dreams.  We are getting information about the way forward as soon as it becomes available and passing it onto students and teachers.  At the moment we have the following information:

• SACS can be undertaken remotely provided their are appropriate authentication measures in place.
• The GAT will occur in October or November.
• The exams will occur in December.
• The length of each exam will remain the same.
• Unit 3 will finish on the last day of this term June 26.
• Only the History Study Design has changed and these changes are minor.
• Unit 4 Study designs have been reviewed and some content has been removed.  All pre requisite learning for university courses remains the same.
• Assessments that relate to the removed content have been changed.
• The weighting of some assessment in some subjects has changed.

School Assessed Coursework (SACs)

We are currently working through the advice regarding authentication of SACs provided by the VCAA and will soon be able to begin assessing remotely.

This work has included putting together a calendar of key assessments to make sure as much as possible tasks are spread for students.  The teachers have also been reviewing the SACs that would be set to ensure they can be delivered remotely and have appropriate authentication processes in place.  We anticipate that this work will be completed this weekend and we can begin scheduling SACs next week.

Some subjects have a SAC with a prac component.  Where this is required we will be running the practical activity at school.  Students and parents will be advised of these lessons via a Compass event.  These classes will be broken up into smaller groups to ensure we are able to implement all social distancing requirements including no more than a 1:10 ratio of students and teacher in a room and appropriate hygiene and sanitation practices.

In light of the current pandemic we will need parents to provide consent for these events.  We understand in the current situation some students may not be able to attend due to their own, or other family members health concerns.  Where this is the case teachers will provide an alternative way for students to demonstrate the practical skill being assessed.

Authentication

As the assessments in VCE are used to rank students it is incredibly important that no student has an unfair advantage over other students in their formal assessments.  In the remote learning environment this becomes more important than ever. Students will be required to sign authentication sheets that articulate the authentication processes used in the task. 

Teachers are developing processes to ensure all students start and finish together to make sure no on has an unfair advantage.  They are also exploring ways to detect cheating and plagiarism.

Students will be required to sign an authentication declaration acknowledges the work present is entirely their own and that they understand the processes used for authentication and verification.

Dina Mingos

Later Years Sub School Leader