Summary of Amendments to the Stage 6 IPT Syllabus and Course Specifications document

Outcomes and Topics

Minor changes have been made to Outcomes to allow teachers to better assess and report on student achievement. Outcomes H5.1, H6.1, H6.2, H7.1 and H7.2 have been included in each of the HSC topics to reinforce the idea that project work is an integral part of that topic.
A new Preliminary course topic 8.3 ‘Developing Information Systems’ replaces the original topics 8.3 and 8.4. Topic 9.3 ‘Communication Systems’ has been rewritten to include additional dot points.
Minor changes have been made to the wording of individual dot points to help clarify concepts and remove ambiguity. New dot points have been introduced to help support existing concepts.
Topic 9.1 has been renamed ‘Project Management’ to remove the ambiguity relating to Project Work. Content in this topic has been restructured to allow for a more coherent treatment. The topic includes some of the dot points from the original topics 8.3 and 8.4.

Guidelines relating to Project Work have been strengthened, requiring a minimum of 40% of course time to be spent on integrating content into project work.

Assessment component weightings in the Preliminary course have been adjusted to reflect the changes made to course structure.

Course-specific terms have been removed from the Glossary. Critical definitions are found within the body of the syllabus. Only syllabus terminology is included in the Glossary.

The Course Specifications document provides teachers with better models indicating the depth of treatment of concepts.
Hardware- and software-specific content has been removed from the syllabus and placed in the Course Specifications document to allow the syllabus to remain current.
‘Current and emerging trends’ have been placed in the Course Specifications document to allow these areas to be updated as the need arises.