Archived material
Some aspects of the documents in this section no longer apply, however they have been archived for reference.
Office of the Board of Studies NSW
Stage 6 English Forum
held at Trinity College, Auburn, NSW Australia
7-8 March 1998
Setting the Scene
Kerry Edmeades, Inspector of English
- Introduction
- The Role Of A Delegate
- Draft English Stage 6
- What are those parameters?
- Course Structure
- Extension Workshop
- BROAD--SPECIFIC
- Workshop Groups
- SAC
Introduction
May I add my warm welcome to the Stage 6 English Forum; to delegates who have travelled from all corners of the state and to some of you who call Sydney home but may well have travelled along roads and railway tracks never before taken. The challenge of this morning's journey will at least be relieved tomorrow morning by a slightly later start and some certainty as to where you are heading.
Before I embark upon my task of "Setting the Scene" I wish to convey my thanks to the General Manager of the Office of the Board of Studies, John Ward, for officially opening the Stage 6 English Forum.
Thank you also to Robert Randall, the Director of Curriculum, for providing an overview of the frame within which the development of Stage 6 English needs to be considered and for providing us with up to date information on the deliberations and decisions of the Board of Studies in relation to the development of the syllabus review process and the current considerations and decisions surrounding Stage 6 English.
On behalf of the organisers of this Forum our special thanks to Brother John Thompson for making Trinity College available to us and for his hospitality, generosity and good humour.
Let me assure you that this day and tomorrow are special days; the interest is high and our numbers here today could have easily been doubled.
May I ask you to focus for a moment on the word Forum, for I believe it provides an insight into the role and purpose of this important occasion and helps to set the scene.
* Forum - a word derived from ancient times referring to both place and to a social and political process which was at the heart of Roman society. The process you will engage in is at the heart of the English
* community ; your participation in discussion, debate and no doubt some rhetoric will be your contribution to this phase of consultation
* Forum - another dimension of the word - a meeting for the discussion of questions of public interest- and there is no doubt that what we will deliberate upon over the next two days is of critical interest to the wider community. The meeting place or square is to be the grounds of Trinity College, this hall and the classrooms. The centre- Auburn- no ancient Roman city but a site close to the geographical centre of Sydney and one which images the multicultural nature of our country
* Those milling in the meeting place yourselves approximately 200 nominated delegates drawn from the English community: practising secondary English teachers from all systems, consultants, academics involved in the field and in the practice, key stakeholders drawn from professional associations, various community organisations and professional bodies, and in addition ;members of the Board of Studies, the Years 7-12 English Syllabus Advisory Committee and officers of the Board of Studies.
* You come here with a representational as well as personal and individual status. While there is a diversity in the composition of the participants, there is a unifying force-the clear sense of common purpose- "to get on with the job" of providing quality syllabuses for Stage 6 English students.
The Role Of A Delegate
You are about to engage in debate, discussion and importantly to listen to the views of others -to participate in a Forum and through this participation to take an active part in the consultation surrounding the development of Stage 6 English.
Here for the next two days you will be engaged in important business (not secret nor women's alone) but the business of providing advice on the future development of Stage 6 English and the directions for the development of differentiated Stage 6 English courses with a focus on the learner and teacher.
Some delegates will have come here seeking answers but let me stress at the outset that a two day Forum does not signal information- giving alone, but provides an opportunity for the diversity of viewpoints within the English community to be articulated and discussed leading to the identification of areas of consensus and the identification of areas for further discussion. This then is the purpose of the Forum- to provide that opportunity.
Your role as a delegate is to participate actively in the consultation process through involvement in workshops. The intended outcomes of the Forum are more specifically indicated in the focus questions of the workshops .
In each case there is a need to clarify the areas where consensus exists and identify the areas where there are issues of further discussion with regard to the development of Stage 6 English syllabuses.
Some of you may pose the question :
How does what we deliberate upon here relate to what has gone before?
Draft English Stage 6
Indeed some of you may feel significant debate has already taken place and resulted in the development of the Draft Stage 6 Syllabus. The pre-conference reading package each of you received included the Executive Summary and extracts from the Report on the Draft English Stage 6 Syllabus Consultation.
This Report on the Draft Stage 6 Syllabus Consultation recommended:
that the information supplied to the Board of Studies through the extensive consultative process be used to inform the development of future senior English syllabuses.
Indeed The NSW Government's HSC White Paper requires that:
The Board of Studies will draw on the outcomes of its recent developmental work for the Stage 6 syllabus to develop standard and advanced courses in English
There is likely to be much which will assist to inform the development of Stage 6 but we are working within different parameters as indicated in the White Paper.
What are those parameters?
* A reporting format for the HSC reflecting standards-referenced assessment (already outlined by Rob Randall).
* A syllabus development process and timeline (See accompanying Timeline)
* Course structure -some courses are not as wide ranging as others -certain students will have specific requirements
Course Structure
The course structure for English is to include :
- Fundamentals of English in Year 11 -in recognition of the needs of students with a history of low achievement in English, the provision of a course which will enable more students to spend more time on and receive more intensive tuition in the Preliminary course in Year 11.
- An English as a Second Language course, available in both Year 11 and Year 12. It will have strict eligibility requirements. If undertaken in Year 12, it would meet Higher School certificate requirements for the study of English
- 2 Unit Standard and Advanced - two differentiated courses for the Higher School Certificate, with some common curriculum content and reporting on a single scale.
- Extension English
The concept of further study in English has been widened beyond the original notion of 2 Units of Literature to the idea of Extension English. The opportunity exists at this Forum for you to discuss this and to provide advice as to what might constitute Extension English.
It is worth noting that the notion of Extended courses recognises that there are knowledge and understandings that cannot be covered by separate, parallel courses and the only way of managing a coherent body of knowledge is to build upon the existing subject. This means extra time on task.
This Forum will consider what Extension English might constitute through a consideration of the workshop questions and as with all other courses the Forum provides the opportunity for delegates to contribute points of view in order to reach consensus and to identify areas for further discussion.
We seek your advice on the best way to package opportunities for these students. There are two proposals before you; one in the White Paper and the one Robert Randall discussed today; we seek your advice about the relative merits of these proposals.
Extension Workshop
There will be delegates who hold to a view that Extension English could well be comprised of Literature only and with this view in mind the workshops on Literature will still be offered. However, we recognise that some delegates who have opted for workshops on the basis of the way the courses were originally configured may wish to elect to join an Extension English workshop for tomorrow.
If you are interested in switching to this Extension English workshop there is a sheet placed on the Registration table where you are invited to register an expression of interest in the Morning Tea break.
BROAD--SPECIFIC
The organisation of this Forum has been deliberately designed to move from the broad to the more specific. The workshops are constructed so that there is a narrowing from broad perspectives on subject English and the learner at Stage 6 to a sharper focus on the particular needs, interests, abilities and expectations of the student and to a narrowing of focus to particular course design.
We seek your comment on the range of issues that need to be taken into account in developing appropriate knowledge and understandings, skills, values and attitudes This not "just a talkfest" there are outcomes to achieve and the workshops are structured so that written material proposing clear directions for each aspect of the Stage 6 English courses are produced.
Workshop Groups
The Workshops groups have been constructed so that they represent something of the diversity of the delegates both in course interest and in nominating bodies. Each workshop has 2 facilitators and at least 1 member of the English Years 7-12 Syllabus Advisory Committee. The workshop is the avenue for your communication-other than the designated focus questions and tasks - the workshops provide the mini- Forum through which to offer comment.
SAC
The Syllabus Advisory Committee or SAC member is there to provide assistance to the facilitators and to act as a scribe. I have asked them to listen rather than to contribute in order that we learn from you over these two days. This is not to demean their role in any way. They have been critical to the planning and conduct of the Forum and the chair of the SAC, Gordon Shrubb, as well as members of the SAC working party have contributed a great deal of their time and expertise.
We are here to listen, to record and to synthesise emerging trends, in fact long after you leave today the SAC, some facilitators, myself and the Curriculum officers will be working to provide a summary of the workshop findings to be shared with you tomorrow morning.
I have referred to the purpose of the Forum, your role, the relationship of this Forum to the previous work on Stage 6 English, the intended outcomes of the Forum, the parameters within which we are operating and some of the organisation of the forum.
You may well ask: WHERE TO FROM HERE?
A hard copy of the executive summary from this Forum will be made available to all delegates.
The summary will be published on the Internet along with the pre-conference reading package and the published papers of each of today's panel speakers.( Those papers are available for you to collect at morning tea).
This Forum is part of a Consultation plan previously outlined.
The findings from this and the other methods of consultation will be used to inform the development of a Draft Writing Brief the next step in the Syllabus Development Plan I outlined to you this morning.
I would like to hand over to Kitty Guerin to begin the panel session. Kitty is a member of the Board of Studies, was a member of the Board sub-committee responsible for the development of the Draft Stage 6 English Syllabus and is a past member of the English 7-12 Syllabus Committee and Years 7-10 Syllabus Committee-and a former English co-ordinator in schools. Kitty is a formidable educationalist with a wealth of expertise in English curriculum. I wish to express on behalf of the Board of Studies our thanks to Kitty and to each of the panel speakers here today.
May you thrive and survive during the next two exciting days and avoid the post prandial slump suffered by many of the delegates at the recent Constitutional Convention !
Over to you Kitty!
