Creative arts

Overall considerations:

• visual arts and music must be taught each year
• drama and dance should be included in each stage of learning
• there is no requirement to teach all four artforms at the same time

The discrete skills, knowledge and understandings of each artform are taught through learning experiences in:

• visual arts – making and appreciating
• music – performing, organising sound and listening
• drama – making and appreciating
• dance – making, composing and appreciating.

School planning for the creative arts supports schools to consider a variety of ways to implement the syllabus.

English

In each year of learning, students must study examples of:

• spoken texts
• print texts
• visual texts
• media, multimedia and digital texts.

Across a stage of learning, the selection of texts must give students experience of:

• texts which are widely regarded as quality literature
• Australian literature, including texts that give insights into Aboriginal experiences in Australia
• a wide range of literary texts from other countries and times, including poetry, drama scripts, written and picture books
• texts written about intercultural experiences
• texts that provide insights about peoples and cultures of Asia
• everyday and community texts
• a wide range of factual texts that present information, issues and ideas
• texts that include aspects of environmental and social sustainability
• an appropriate range of digital texts, including film, media and multimedia.

From Kindergarten, texts are selected for the purpose of:

• learning to read (for example decodable texts) to facilitate literacy skills
• reading to learn in order to gain knowledge about audience, purpose, structures and language features.

Key syllabus considerations

• The focus areas ‘Print conventions’ and ‘Phonological awareness’ are taught in Early Stage 1.
• The focus area ‘Phonic knowledge’ is taught in Early Stage 1 and Stage 1.
• The focus area ‘Reading fluency’ is taught in Early Stage 1, Stage 1 and Stage 2. ‘Reading fluently’ is a content group in Stage 3 within the focus area ‘Reading Comprehension’.
• Focus areas in English are interconnected and best taught and assessed in parallel to efficiently cover syllabus content and support student learning connections. For further information, see Making connections through related content K–6.
• Some ‘Understanding and responding to literature’ content groups are introduced and redefined differently across stages. This may affect whole-school scope and sequence or cross-stage classes.

A school's English scope and sequence should be developed using the English K–10 Syllabus. Literacy is a general capability that is embedded throughout the NSW syllabuses. The National Literacy Learning Progression is a helpful resource but should not be used to develop scope and sequence documents. This resource may be more helpful when planning and programming learning/units of work and assessment tasks across key learning areas.

See Sample scope and sequences. The K–6 English sample scope and sequences represent ‘one way’ of sequencing learning to meet syllabus requirements. Schools are strongly encouraged to make changes to meet the learning needs of all students.

For further support with developing an English scope and sequence, see English K–2 microlearning module ‘Using scope and sequences in English’.

Human Society and It’s Environment (HSIE)

Overall considerations:

• The HSIE key learning area has two syllabuses, history and geography. These syllabuses must be taught across each stage of learning. There should be equal teaching and learning time allocated to history and geography.
• The content of history and geography should be taught individually and not integrated together.

History syllabus

• Each content area must be taught in each stage of learning, incorporating historical concepts and skills.
• Content is intended to be taught through the process of historical inquiry.
• Key inquiry questions are optional but can be used to frame the learning experiences.

Geography syllabus

• Each content area must be taught in each stage of learning, incorporating geographical concepts, tools and skills.
• Content is intended to be taught through the process of geographical inquiry.
• Key inquiry questions are optional but can be used to frame the learning experiences.
• Students must engage in fieldwork in each stage of learning. Fieldwork involves observing, measuring, collecting and recording information outside the classroom. Fieldwork can be undertaken within the school grounds, around local neighbouring areas or at more distant locations.

Mathematics

The syllabus structure illustrates the significant role Working mathematically plays across all areas of mathematics and reflects the strengthened connections between concepts.

Working mathematically has been embedded in the outcomes, content, and examples of the syllabus.

The Working mathematically processes present in the Mathematics K–10 syllabus are:

• communicating
• understanding and fluency
• reasoning
• problem solving.

When planning for teaching and learning, the Working mathematically outcome describes the thinking and doing of mathematics. The mathematics focus area outcomes and content provide the knowledge and skills for students to 'reason about' and provide contexts for problem solving.

The Mathematics K–10 outcomes and their related content are organised into:

• Number and algebra
• Measurement and space
• Statistics and probability.

Teachers should develop and make connections within and across focus areas to support the development of deep knowledge and a conceptual understanding for students.

Personal development, health and physical education (PDHPE)

Schools must meet K–6 PDHPE policy and programming requirements by addressing PDHPE-related policies. This includes:

• teaching child protection education and road safety education in every stage of learning.
• providing weekly physical activity as part of physical education to address the Sport and Physical Activity Policy requirement. The K–6 PDHPE Sport and Physical Activity Policy advice document (DOCX 70KB) explains the difference between physical activity, physical education and sport and provides examples of how schools can meet their weekly requirement of 150 minutes of planned moderate to vigorous physical activity.

Content from each strand must be taught every year. The three strands are:

• Health, wellbeing and relationships
• Movement skill and performance
• Healthy, safe and active lifestyles

Connect content across syllabus strands to transfer knowledge, understanding and skills of health and physical education concepts.

There should be equal emphasis on health and physical education concepts.

Skills from each of the three skill domains, self-management, interpersonal and movement, must be taught in each year of learning. Schools have the flexibility to select and/or emphasise the most appropriate skills.

Key inquiry questions are optional but can be used to frame the learning experiences.

Science and technology

The syllabus outcomes are presented as:

• Skills
• Knowledge and Understanding.

The skills of working scientifically, and design and production, enable students to develop and consolidate their knowledge and understanding of science and technology.

All five content strands are to be delivered by the end of each stage of learning.

The five content strands are:

• living world
• material world
• physical world
• Earth and space
• digital technologies.

The inquiry and focus questions are optional but can be used to guide and frame contextual teaching and learning experiences.

Languages

Each syllabus is organised in two strands: communicating and understanding.

Authentic, real-world, communicative tasks with audience, context and purpose should form the basis of teaching and learning programs (task-based learning) by integrating content from both syllabus strands.

There are two levels of language learners in K-6 languages. These are beginners and students with prior learning and/or experience.