Teaching the Preliminary course in Year 10 (1 Viewer)

[A l]

Since the School Certificate exams finish before the end of the term, many Year 10 students in schools are given the option to sign out since the lessons for the remainder of Term 4 are meaningless. Since 2001, the Board of Studies does not allow the Year 11 preliminary course to be taught during Year 10, many teachers have nothing else to teach and thus students who sign out do not miss anything, nor become disadvantaged.

However, parents and teachers are concerned about the absence of Year 10 students between the School Certificate exam and the end of year. They feel that Year 10 students should be spending the last few weeks of Term 4 doing some meaningful education rather than going out with friends and/or staying home, while others are still at school.

As a result the Board of Studies, Department of Education and Training and Teachers' Federation are considering lifting the ban on teaching the preliminary course in Year 10. Others say just abolish the School Certificate. Others believe that it should be compulsory for Year 10 students to stay at school until the end of school year. Also, the principals of some schools only allow students to sign out before the end of Term 4 if they have a job, or if they are on a long term/family vacation.

Do you think the ban, on teaching the Preliminary course immediately after the School Certificate exams, should be lifted?

 

[Cape]

They should teach the preliminary after year 10 certificate. They shouldn't remove the school ceritificate because it get people geared up for the next two years in terms of exams.

What is also good about teaching the preliminary after yr 10 cert is subjects, especially like science and subjects that have major works - ppl can start on their assignments during the months that they have of.

 

[duggoh]

It'd be hard to start teaching prelim. tho, cause everybody is doing different courses and its not worth it for like 2 or 3 wks.

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

Far too difficult:

In Yr10 the subjects are basically Maths, Science, English, History, Geography + a few other electives such as Commerce, Music and Art.
In Yr11/12, you have over a hundred different courses - timetables can't be changed with three weeks left at school. It could be done for English, but even then you have Advanced and Standard courses to deal with.

So I don't think BOS should lift the ban. If anything, let Yr10s start their official holidays the day they finish the SC.

 

[duggoh]

What happened with my school was that we did the sc, we had exams the week after and then we had 2 days and camp... but if u werent staying u could love once the in-school exams were done, and since im going 2 tafe now 2 do the hsc, i finished then

 

[Dimsimmer]

Far too difficult:

In Yr10 the subjects are basically Maths, Science, English, History, Geography + a few other electives such as Commerce, Music and Art.
In Yr11/12, you have over a hundred different courses - timetables can't be changed with three weeks left at school. It could be done for English, but even then you have Advanced and Standard courses to deal with.

So I don't think BOS should lift the ban. If anything, let Yr10s start their official holidays the day they finish the SC.

Well, i think it could be done for english if only Advanced English is compulsory.

 

[duggoh]

Or if ur at a catholics school, they could start doing some studies of religion

 

[melsc]

u dont need to start prelim courses in yr 10...in my skool we had finished prelim courses half way through term three and in term 4 started HSC courses....

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

u dont need to start prelim courses in yr 10...in my skool we had finished prelim courses half way through term three and in term 4 started HSC courses....

That's generally the case: finish Prelim work around Wk 7 of Term 3, then have Prelim exams in Wks 8-9.
Although it is a rush and you're basically cramming 4 terms work into 3 terms. But even so, there's no convenient way of teaching the Prelim course in Year 10.

Well, i think it could be done for english if only Advanced English is compulsory.

Even teaching SOR in Catholic schools can't be done, because there are students in public schools doing SOR in Yr11 - that would be unfair to such students.

 

[chelle88]

Our school did special programs for 3 weeks following the exams where we do fisrt aid, leadership, innitiatives and that sort of thing then we do yr11 introduction for the last 2, in the introduction we are given a basically given an overveiw to how things work and how things will change.

Doing it this way is better cause then it's given us a chance to change subjects if required and has also meant that we weren't bludging for 4 weeks.

 

[duggoh]

OMG, how cool would it be, if you do like a st. john's first aid certificate after the sc... thats training we all should have

 

[snapperhead]

both sides have their merits but then, they are being suggested (at the top end I mean) by people who have no real idea what a school classroom is like..... me, Im against starting the prelim early as its just a bad idea.
Schools need to use this time more effectively as some have suggested. My school uses it for work experience, leadership training and Yr 10 camp so its all good IMHO

One could point out that those suggesting lifting the ban are from the public sector but that wouldnt be nice now would it! (and no, its not a public/private flame but a flame Vs the Teachers Federation and the Parents Association as they are controlled by idiots with no idea)

 

[Casmira]

we learnt some 3 unit work when year 10 finished ( i was in advanced maths ) it was a good idea for the kids going onto ext 1

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

we learnt some 3 unit work when year 10 finished ( i was in advanced maths ) it was a good idea for the kids going onto ext 1

I guess that's not too bad an idea, although there's not a great deal you can learn in 2-3 weeks. I would doubt that they'd go straight into Ext 1 work, as some of it requires a foundation in 2U (unless it's circle geometry, which you can do straight from Yr 10).

 

[acmilan]

Our school didnt let us sign out after the SC, instead that split us into our classes for yr 11 and gave us the teachers we had. The teachers followed BoS and did not teach prelim content but they did teach related topics eg. in maths they taught harder stuff that we learnt in yr 10, in bio we learnt advanced topics from science etc.

 

[A l]

we learnt some 3 unit work when year 10 finished ( i was in advanced maths ) it was a good idea for the kids going onto ext 1

Believe it or not, in Advanced Mathematics, part of the year 10 syllabus was to teach the Core Topics which are functions and logarithms, polynomials and circle geometry. According to the syllabus it was supposed to prepare Year 10 students for Extension 1 Mathematics in Year 11, but technically it's still Year 10 work since it is part of the Year 10 Advanced Mathematics syllabus. So I guess you could say Advanced Mathematics has already got a solution to this problem and the rest of the subjects really do not.

 

[_muse_]

at my school at the end of the school certificate maths classes (well, mine especially being advanced) were split in half... one side of the room was for those deciding to do 2u maths in yr 11 and the other - the people who decided to do general. we were given text books and were told to start learning what was in them... i think we did parabolas while the general maths group did tax etc... so basically i was learning prelim maths after my school certificate.. but it wasnt official as we learnt the stuff again once we started the new prelim year

 

[69^boi]

shit i forget in the SC exam do they test both yr9 and yr10 stuff too(besides maths coz maths is continious).

 

[~ ReNcH ~]

shit i forget in the SC exam do they test both yr9 and yr10 stuff too(besides maths coz maths is continious).

They only test the Yr 10 syllabus content, although it is expected that you've consolidated your skills from Yrs 7-9 for use in Yr 10 (such as in maths)

 

[sladehk]

everyone leftt after the sc finished!