Curriculum Overview

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At Wellington Secondary College students study subjects from the following Curriculum Areas at Year 9:

Subjects are made up of core subjects (all students must do) and elective subjects (ones students choose to do).

Year 9 students complete six core subjects which run for the whole year, and four elective subjects (two each semester).
These pages provide detailed outlines of all core and elective subjects with proposed assessment tasks.

Core Subjects

There will be five core subjects for 2026 and each will run for the full year.
Global Citizenship is a core subject for a semester only.

The compulsory studies provide a broad general education for all Year 9 students. Courses have been designed around semester or term-length themes that provide students with a specific learning focus for the term. Course content has been reviewed and teaching approaches, incorporating the 4 ‘C’s of 21st Century Learning (Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, Communication), have been embedded into the coursework that is designed to encourage student engagement and to challenge students to operate and achieve at a high level of attainment.

Elective Subjects

In addition to completing core subjects, students will select five semester-length elective subjects for the year.

Electives will run for 300 minutes per 10 day cycle. These will come from each of the curriculum areas listed above.

Middle School electives are not prerequisites for VCE subjects, other than Languages.

Languages must be selected for both semesters.
Students may also study a language through other providers such as the Victorian School of Languages.

**Students are required to select one elective from The Arts and one elective from Technologies, unless they choose to study a language.
**If students choose a language, they are still able to select an Arts and/or a Technologies elective if they wish.
**No more than two electives may be selected from any one area from the table below.

**Students in the High Flyers class are required to select a Future Leaders elective.

Year 9 Course

Following course counselling, students will have a final opportunity to discuss their selections with their parents/guardians. They will enter their selections online and the hard copies will be forwarded to the sub-school.

Note

This procedure is not a promise of promotion into the next year level. This matter will be decided at the end of the school year and is dependent on satisfactory progress.
Not all electives listed in the Handbook may be run in 2026. The timetabling of electives will depend upon the initial level of student interest and the constraints of staffing and facilities. This initial selection made by students will allow for those units with sufficient student interest to be timetabled. Some students will inevitably be asked to reselect elective subjects because of unavailability, timetable clashes or unsatisfactory final results.
Parents should sign the Course Selection Sheet.
For any further information please contact Mr Nguyen (Director of Middle School) or Ms. Huffer (Director of Student Pathways).

Examinations

Examinations are a means of assessing how well students have understood a core of knowledge and developed a set of skills in each subject. Success in these requires students to be able to:

Keep an organised record of work over a semester or a year
Summarise and review a number of topics in a subject at one time
Memorise important knowledge and practise subject-based skills
Organise time for study
Manage stress levels
Work under examination conditions

Exams are also used to support applications to complete an Advance Placement subject as part of the Year 10 program.

At Wellington we recognise that training in preparing for and sitting exams, are valuable skills for students in preparation for senior studies. Year 9 students will sit examinations in all their core subjects at the end of each semester, with the exception of Global Citizenship and Health and Physical Education. Attendance at all examinations is an expectation for all students at the College. In Year 9 students are expected to attend regular school hours and attend all classes when not in an examination.

Morrisby Program

As a part of the Year 9 program students undertake the Careers Guidance Morrisby Program. The program is part of a Department of Education initiative called My Career Insights, which is a program of staged career education. It includes an online assessment which is used to create an individual profile for the student providing them with an insight into their personal aptitudes, learning and working styles, to help make informed decisions about future career plans. Once the profile is completed the students meet with a career counsellor for a one-on-one discussion.

Home Learning (Homework & Home Study)

Home learning is a valuable part of schooling. It allows students to practise and consolidate work done in class.

Home learning supports students to plan and organise their time. It develops a range of skills in identifying and using information resources to extend their knowledge and skills. It establishes habits of study, concentration and self-regulation.

Home learning develops and extends the core learning skills of autonomous study and inquiry.

Home learning should be balanced with family, social and extracurricular activities.

Home learning is work set by the teachers for students to complete out of school hours, and may consist of:

Practice exercises (for example, Mathematics problems, English comprehension, Languages revision)
Preparatory exercises (for example, pre-reading for the following lesson, completion of unfinished work, revision for quizzes, tests or exams
Extension exercises

While the amount of home learning can vary through the year, it is generally expected that Year 9 students allow one to two hours per weeknight, with up to two to three hours on the weekend for completing home learning.

The College recommends that all students make use of their Student Planner to organise and plan their homework requirements.

Completion of set home learning is an expectation for all students at the College. Failure to complete set home learning on a regular basis will be followed up with Compass Chronicle entries and with parents.

End-of-Year Design Sprint

For their final week at school, all Year 9 students participate in a Design Thinking Sprint. This is an exciting finale to the students’ Year 9 studies.

Design Sprints are a process where student form expert teams, communicate and work collaboratively to tackle design problems. With insights obtained from research, students ideate, map out the challenges they may be confronted with and have to overcome, explore solutions, select the ones that best suit them, create a prototype and test it. The week culminates with team presentations where student exhibit and pitch their prototype at the Design Expo. The week is a genuine exhibition of 21st century learning where students communicate, collaborate, and problem-solve using critical and creative thinking skills.

Year 9 High Flyers

Selection of students for the Year 9 High Flyers Program takes into account students’ academic performance at Years 7 and 8, teacher recommendations and student communication skills during an interview.

The Year 9 High Flyers Program allows high-ability students to be challenged with higher order thinking tasks which enable them to transfer and apply knowledge to new contexts, to reason and reflect critically, and to problem-solve in creative ways.

Students selected in this program will undertake the following:

All core studies and the Future Leaders Program as a class

Year 10 Mathematics

Two Electives per semester

Note: This group is a continuation of the High Flyers Program developed in the Junior School in Years 7 and 8.

Assistance for Families

Being mindful of the increased costs families will incur, we will continue to look at all costs and programs and will advise the College Community when we are able to implement additional support, if possible, through State Government Equity Funding in 2026. By identifying these areas now, we hope it will give families the opportunity to plan their financial commitments in a timely manner.

Where students may be required to attend excursions to extend their learning experiences throughout the year, parents will be notified through Compass and encouraged to grant permission and pay for these events via Compass Pay where required.

Families can use CSEF (Camps Sports Excursion Funding) for sports and excursions/incursions if they hold valid Centrelink Concession Card.

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