ACT Senior Secondary Curriculum 

Go to the BSSS website and click on the Curriculum documents tab to access BSSS courses. 

Reflect on the units that you are required to teach. Each learning area has a Framework. Frameworks provide a rationale, goals, assessment advice and Achievement Standards for that learning area. There are a range of courses written under each Framework. 

Find your Learning Area to discover courses written under a similar framework. 

There are online BSSS workshops covering all Frameworks. It is highly recommended that you complete the online workshop for any Framework area you will be teaching.

• The Arts Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The New Commerce Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The English Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The Humanities and Social Sciences Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The Health, Outdoor and Physical Education Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The Industry and Services Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The Languages Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The Mathematics Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The Science Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

• The Technologies Curriculum Planning Workshop link here. 

Explore your Framework. Identify the Rationale, Framework and Task Type Table, Achievement Standards, Units and Course Document, but let's start with the Framework. 

Course Frameworks provide the basis for the development and accreditation of any course within a broad subject area and provide a common basis for the assessment, moderation and reporting of student outcomes in courses based on the Framework. 

In addition, all courses reference the General Capabilities:

• literacy

• numeracy

• information and communication technology (ICT)

• critical and creative thinking

• personal and social

• ethical behaviour

• intercultural understanding  

And all courses reference the three Cross-Curricular Priorities: 

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

• Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia

• Sustainability

The General Capabilities and Cross Curricular Priorities should be:

• embedded in curriculum, in ways that are relevant and appropriate to the learning area

• incorporated into frameworks and courses

• evident in Achievement Standards and content descriptions

• integrated into the specific subject skills knowledge and understandings

• planned out across the four units of the course. 

Familiarise yourself with the Assessment Task Types, Additional Assessment Advice and Achievement Standards for your learning area. 

Common Curriculum Elements and Glossary of Verbs provide examples of the types of thinking that students need to demonstrate in their assessment.

Notice the features on the examples below for Economics Unit 1.

Now examine the Achievement Standards in your teaching area. Notice the features on the Science Achievement Standards example below, especially the verbs that begin the descriptors and how those verbs change across the grade levels. It is important that assessment tasks are written allowing students to achieve all possible grades within a task. The verbs used are recommended for use in task writing and rubric writing.  The BSSS website offers online workshops for rubric writing. 

Compare the differences between A, T and M Achievement standards, and between years eleven and twelve. A, T and M course accreditation types have been developed to support teachers in differentiating instruction and assessment for student with different needs and goals in the one classroom. 

Also, you may have students from years eleven and twelve and A, T, and M in the one classroom. While you may teach all the students the same content and topics, you will be expected to differentiate the cognitive engagement of those students in learning and assessment according to the demands of the assigned cognitive standards and the volume of content set out in the curriculum documents. This culminates in providing differentiated assessment tasks and rubrics for 11 and 12, A, T and M students. 

Key points to consider:

• BSSS courses prescribe the basic entitlement of what students learn and what teachers teach 

• courses are designed to be flexible in that units can be delivered in any particular order

• courses provide cues for a range of pedagogical approaches

• there are a wide range of courses that fit within learning areas with similar disciplinary expectations.