drewgcn
postpantsism
Have a question that I thought it'd be best to ask here.
Can the school prevent you from doing an option topic different to what is taught in class? (The only time where this will be tested, is in the Trial HSC exam.)
and
Is the school required to provide the trial hsc exam in the exact same format as the external hsc exam (i.e. including all options as possible attempts)?
The reason I ask is that I want to do Age of Silicon as my physics topic. Basically, having done Electronics as my elective in year 9 and 10, plus doing the SDD topic, "Software Developers View of the Hardware" (very large overlap to this physics elective), I have litte to nothing new to learn from that topic, so learning it from the physics course would be more like revision and filling in some holes, than learning a whole new topic.
Also, I'm completely disinterested with the topics offered by our school, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics, whereas I always found electronics interesting, so I know I'd actually study this topic properly, instead of just cramming.
Basically I brought this up with my teacher the other day, and he said I'd have to bring it up with the head teacher, as there would be nobody able to write and/or mark this section (with four physics teachers including one with a PhD in science, sounds a bit spurious, seems more like too lazy to write and/or mark another section). When I suggested he could use the purchased trial papers and marking criteria, (they purchase these anyway to hand out as practices), he said they wouldn't be able to guarantee a common level of difficulty across the options. When I pointed out that there were already two option topics included, meaning this should not make a difference, he said that they would be better able to ensure they were of equal difficulty if they had a teacher who understood both topics.
I remember from IPT that the teachers said they had to include all four option topics, even though they didn't like to because students would usually attempt all four, and they had to take their two best attempts, which usually left students worse off anyway for various reasons...the teacher said he wished they could just put two in but they "had to include four", which leads me to wonder if its a BOS requirement that they include all possible option topics in a trial.
So basically, thats why I'm asking the questions above, so I know my facts before I go argue the case.
Pre-emptive thanks.
Can the school prevent you from doing an option topic different to what is taught in class? (The only time where this will be tested, is in the Trial HSC exam.)
and
Is the school required to provide the trial hsc exam in the exact same format as the external hsc exam (i.e. including all options as possible attempts)?
The reason I ask is that I want to do Age of Silicon as my physics topic. Basically, having done Electronics as my elective in year 9 and 10, plus doing the SDD topic, "Software Developers View of the Hardware" (very large overlap to this physics elective), I have litte to nothing new to learn from that topic, so learning it from the physics course would be more like revision and filling in some holes, than learning a whole new topic.
Also, I'm completely disinterested with the topics offered by our school, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics, whereas I always found electronics interesting, so I know I'd actually study this topic properly, instead of just cramming.
Basically I brought this up with my teacher the other day, and he said I'd have to bring it up with the head teacher, as there would be nobody able to write and/or mark this section (with four physics teachers including one with a PhD in science, sounds a bit spurious, seems more like too lazy to write and/or mark another section). When I suggested he could use the purchased trial papers and marking criteria, (they purchase these anyway to hand out as practices), he said they wouldn't be able to guarantee a common level of difficulty across the options. When I pointed out that there were already two option topics included, meaning this should not make a difference, he said that they would be better able to ensure they were of equal difficulty if they had a teacher who understood both topics.
I remember from IPT that the teachers said they had to include all four option topics, even though they didn't like to because students would usually attempt all four, and they had to take their two best attempts, which usually left students worse off anyway for various reasons...the teacher said he wished they could just put two in but they "had to include four", which leads me to wonder if its a BOS requirement that they include all possible option topics in a trial.
So basically, thats why I'm asking the questions above, so I know my facts before I go argue the case.
Pre-emptive thanks.