Victorian Government CSF Draft - Feedback

Curriculum planning
The changes will provide some marginal improvement in the usefulness for curriculum planning because of the relative brevity of the design. Nevertheless, it is a pity that good work may have been discarded when it could just have been reorganised within a new priority structure i.e. strands, foci, learning outcomes, indicators, suggested learning activities, teaching resources, assessment ideas. Using integrated computer based presentation (as simple as an outline format, or as complex as a web site) would enable all these levels to be linked clearly without losing detail or obscuring the structure.

Making more consistent judgements about student performance
There is NO improvement in the key area of making consistent judgements about student performance. In the absence of any new advice, we assume that the old performance levels will still apply. The highest performance level at each level is "1 - Established" defined as "established the skills and knowledge level, and consistently and independently exhibits all or most of the behaviours in the level in a range of contexts." (Ass + Rep Supp Mat - Overview p.7).
There is little guidance and no consensus on the level of skills or knowledge that this means. Indeed, there are specific encouragements to schools to interpret them locally as they wish. "Consistently" combined with "a range of contexts" implies that we have assessed each "dot point" many times !! On the other hand, "all or most" implies that a students could be established after "exhibiting" little more than half the easier "dot points".
We are then told that the teacher will have the responsibility of deciding though an "on balance judgement" which finding time to ensure that this judement is consistent with statewide practice !!! Does anyone seriously think through this process before publishing it !!!

In consultation sessions on the new CSF, DOE representatives are openly contemptuous of the theory and practice of the LAP and VSAM as though it were an unrelated and alien initiative. The weakest link in the whole curriculum structure is the assessment process. As we have seen with the VCE, it is a weakness that will cause the whole structure to be reassessed and valuable work to be lost.
Instead of inviting failure by putting all the asessment eggs into the VSAM basket, the DOE could acheive an emormous improvement in compliance and teacher support for the CSF by .........

Providing a practical, transparently fair and summative method of evaluating student performance
The current CSF assessment advice encourages a range of aproaches that are neither transparent nor summative and which drive the teacher to impractical levels of documentation in an attempt to demonstrate his/her fairness. The CSF should provide assessment instruments in the form of VSAM and/ or a bank of alternative materials (NOT advice on how to develop them ourselves !!!).

At secondary school levels, parents and students will not be satisfied that a student has been assessed as merely "consolidating" at level 5 number because at various times in the term he/ she was observed not to be able to "consistently and independently exhibit(s) all or most of the behaviours in the level in a range of contexts.". Both the parent and the student will insist on a right to a summative assessment weighted heavily at the END of the learning period whether it is by examination, project or other type of "CAT". This summative asessment cannot practically include teacher observation, or even examination on all outcomes due to the number and inter-relatedness of these outcomes especially in maths. Therefore, we return to old ideas in new clothes such as VSAM. VSAM has wonderful potential that is yet to be proven capable of development within the contradictory demands of a government beauracracy.
If the CSF continues to argue for the major assessment focus to be on continual assessment strategies such as work samples and observation, then it will be ignored, then bypassed by more practical commercial products and finally rewritten after community dissatisfaction with those who have burnt themselves out by most sincerely trying to implement it !

Clear acknowledgement that student performance can deteriorate as well as improve
This can occur for a wide range of reasons (such as health, forgetfulness, changed motivation, changed context of the tasks etc. etc.) and consequently that the recording system must enable this to be reflected in data collection and reporting. Currently, there seems to be an assumption in the KIDMAP and CASES systems that students always go onwards and upwards.
The CSF must acknowledge that students need to be assessed on at least two "levels" at all times and provide instruments to make this possible (e.g. VSAM or equivalents on paper of disc).

Providing teachers with teaching materials.
The current CSF continues to avoid responsibility for actually providing curriculum materials to teachers so that the advice can be translated into practice. As such it continues to be seen as an "ivory tower" ideal that is not practicable in the context of every day teaching practice. Its use kept to a minimum and dusted off for DOE accountability requirements such as CASES reporting, School Charters and Performance Plans. It does not influence actual day to day teaching practice to anything approaching the degree of a commercial curriculum text.
The previous Curriculum Support Materials provided excellent advice on teaching activities. This enormously comprehensive smorgasbord gathers dust on teachers shelves all around the state because it just tells them what they could evaluate if they had the time, and what they could buy if they had the money. If it was provided as a bank of actual materials then you could virtually guarantee its widespread use across the state ! Imagine if it was provided as a web site where teachers could browse through the strands, foci, outcomes, indicators, learning activities, teaching resources, assessment ideas AS WELL AS TEACHING MATERIALS. Any number of commercial providers would jump at the opportunity to pay for the development of this resource if given some right to collect revenue based on its level of use.

Helping teachers set priorities in their teaching
The curriculum and assessment structure still fails to acknowledge that the outcomes are not equally important and provide a priority or a list of essential outcomes at each level.
For instance the CSF gives no guidance on the question: Can a student be considered to be established at level 6 if he/she cannot complete simple mental calculations required at level 4 ?? The answer should be clearly specifies by the CSF as "Certainly NOT".

The overview
It is always helpful to be directed to an overview when every second of our work drags us back to the detail. Reflection and perspective are the key things missing from most teachers working lives.

That is why I am typing this here at school at 6pm on Friday !!

Level 6
Yes, very comprehensive.
It would have been helpful to have a comparative guide to the changes rather than just the new edition.

Most useful feature
Fewer outcomes.