General syllabuses

Course overview

General syllabuses are developmental four-unit courses of study.

Units 1 and 2 provide foundational learning, allowing students to experience all syllabus objectives and begin engaging with the course subject matter. It is intended that Units 1 and 2 are studied as a pair. Assessment in Units 1 and 2 provides students with feedback on their progress in a course of study and contributes to the award of a QCE.

Units 3 and 4 consolidate student learning. Assessment in Units 3 and 4 is summative and student results contribute to the award of a QCE and to ATAR calculations.

Assessment

Units 1 and 2 assessments

Schools decide the sequence, scope and scale of assessments for Units 1 and 2. Teachers determine the assessment program, tasks and marking guides that are used to assess student performance for Units 1 and 2.

Units 1 and 2 assessment outcomes provide feedback to students on their progress in the course of study. 

Schools report satisfactory completion of Units 1 and 2 to the QCAA.

Units 3 and 4 assessments

Students complete a total of four summative assessments — three internal and one external — that count towards the overall subject result in each General subject.

Schools develop three internal assessments for each senior subject to reflect the requirements described in Units 3 and 4 of each General syllabus.

The three summative internal assessments need to be endorsed by the QCAA before they are used in schools. Students’ results in these assessments are externally confirmed by QCAA assessors. These confirmed results from internal assessment are combined with a single result from an external assessment, which is developed and marked by the QCAA. The external assessment result for a subject contributes to a determined percentage of a students' overall subject result. For most subjects this is 25%; for Mathematics and Science subjects it is 50%.

Instrument-specific marking guides

Each syllabus provides instrument-specific marking guides (ISMGs) for summative internal assessments.

The ISMGs describe the characteristics evident in student responses and align with the identified assessment objectives. Assessment objectives are drawn from the unit objectives and are contextualised for the requirements of the assessment instrument.

External assessment

External assessment is summative and adds valuable evidence of achievement to a student’s profile. External assessment is:

· common to all schools

· administered under the same conditions at the same time and on the same day

· developed and marked by the QCAA according to a commonly applied marking scheme.

The external assessment contributes a determined percentage (see specific subject guides — assessment) to the student’s overall subject result and is not privileged over summative internal assessment.

Source: QCAA 2019