Ongoing developments...

VICTORIAN ESSENTIAL LEARNING STANDARDS

Currently Victorian government schools are involved in the educational reform agenda known as the Blueprint for Government Schools. You may have heard about this in the media. One of the key strategies contained in the Blueprint is that of Student Learning. Central to this strategy is the development of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS).

Schools need to reflect societal, economic and technological changes that are occurring at an ever increasing rate and the VELS provides a new approach to organising the curriculum in school.

Students will progress through this curriculum in the following way:

• Prep – Year 4 where the curriculum focuses on developing fundamental knowledge, skills and behaviours in literacy and numeracy and basic physical and social capacities which underpin all future learning


• Years 5 – 8 where students move beyond the foundations. Their literacy and numeracy and basic physical and social capacities become more sophisticated and important. Thinking skills, effective communication strategies and information and communications technology are integrated into their learning
  
• Years 9-10 where students begin to focus more deeply on areas of interest related to both their immediate schooling and intended pathways beyond schooling. They also develop their understanding of and connection to the community in which they live.

Teachers at the DECV are currently working on how we will implement the VELS in our school. We have started this process by auditing our courses and consulting with other schools. We have also been attending Professional Development sessions on the topic.

PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING AND TEACHING (PoLT)

The Blueprint for Government Schools is based on the belief that “all students are entitled to an excellent education and genuine opportunity to succeed irrespective of which school they attend, where they live or their home background.”

The Government has identified three priority areas for reform:

• recognising and responding to diverse student needs
  
• building the skills of the education workforce to enhance the teaching-learning relationship
  
• continuously improving schools.

The Blueprint outlines seven strategies and 21 initiatives to address these three priority areas.

The Principles of Learning and Teaching (POLT) P–12 is one of these initiatives that focus on the reform of curriculum practices relating to what students learn and how teaching facilitates learning.

These six key principles reflect contemporary understandings of teacher development and school improvement and are designed to be implemented over a three-year period.

The Distance Education Centre Victoria has begun an audit process requiring the gathering and analysis of data that will inform the development of an action plan to improve learning and teaching in our school. During this process we will examine our teaching practices, identify key areas for improvement and develop a plan to initiate improvement and monitor change.