Stronger HSC standards-future syllabus changes made by BOSTES

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As we all know, the boardofstudies are heading in a direction where they plan to change our current syllabuses

Please see here for more info: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/stronger-hsc-standards/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoK4-1l-hCk&feature=youtu.be
Also please read the new syllabuses: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabuses/curriculum-development/senior-years.html

What are your thoughts?

[RuiAce]

No more predicting essay questions sounded great.

They had been thinking about Extension Physics and Chemistry in a while. Looks like Extension Science was the final conclusion.

Mathematics General and 2 unit (to be renamed as Advanced) needed to be made more related. It was about time.

[jamonwindeyer]

No more predicting essay questions sounded great.

They had been thinking about Extension Physics and Chemistry in a while. Looks like Extension Science was the final conclusion.

Mathematics General and 2 unit (to be renamed as Advanced) needed to be made more related. It was about time.

I was keen to see Extension Physics, but a broader scope will be interesting! Keen to see the syllabus when it comes out next year! 

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Apparently the reason why they are introducing extension science was to encourage more people into STEM. The thing that baffles me most was why did they think of extension physics and extension chemistry back then and come into a result of extension science rather than extension physics and extension chemistry?

I also saw yesterday on the news that all the syllabuses we're going to be reviewed for a change in them

Already with the introduction of statistics in the maths syllabus, they are going to scrape topics deemed "useless"

I am currently unaware of what they're planning to do with English, other than get rid of the area of study (I read an article on this)

I would feel sorry for the students who are sitting the first exams of the renewed syllabus as there isn't much practice exams and/or many past papers to do

Thoughts?

[RuiAce]

Apparently the reason why they are introducing extension science was to encourage more people into STEM. The thing that baffles me most was why did they think of extension physics and extension chemistry back then and come into a result of extension science rather than extension physics and extension chemistry?

I also saw yesterday on the news that all the syllabuses we're going to be reviewed for a change in them

Already with the introduction of statistics in the maths syllabus, they are going to scrape topics deemed "useless"

I am currently unaware of what they're planning to do with English, other than get rid of the area of study (I read an article on this)

I would feel sorry for the students who are sitting the first exams of the renewed syllabus as there isn't much practice exams and/or many past papers to do

Thoughts?

They can introduce Extension Physics and Extension Chemistry, but that leaves a loophole. What about Extension biology?
It was always something I had the back of my mind, just in case.

Implementing three new extension courses would be pretty hard in my opinion.

Yes. You can find the new drafting for maths here if you're interested.
Mathematics General
Mathematics Advanced and beyond
I know a lot of things that are useless and being replaced with much better stuff.

Yes. The AoS was planned to be abolished for next year. Haven't heard about it recently though.

Indeed. It's just like my cohort having virtually nothing for discovery - a bit rough. The last time this happened was in 2001 lol.

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They can introduce Extension Physics and Extension Chemistry, but that leaves a loophole. What about Extension biology?
It was always something I had the back of my mind, just in case.

Implementing three new extension courses would be pretty hard in my opinion.

Yes. You can find the new drafting for maths here if you're interested.
Mathematics General
Mathematics Advanced and beyond
I know a lot of things that are useless and being replaced with much better stuff.

Yes. The AoS was planned to be abolished for next year. Haven't heard about it recently though.

Indeed. It's just like my cohort having virtually nothing for discovery - a bit rough. The last time this happened was in 2001 lol.

True. They would probably have to consider Earth and environmental science as well (although that isn't a popular course)

I know for a fact, they already have "senior science" which is basically a little bit of everything in science all mixed into one subject (pretty much the same thing as year 7-10 science)

Next year? I'm part of the 2017 cohort, I don't think they will be doing so by then. What are they going to replace in the AOS though or are they going to focus the modules in more depth?

Well, even though you had almost nothing for AOS discovery, you could've (I don't know what you did though so in this case I'm assuming obviously) used belonging as a guide to help you out. Basically it would've been "same same but different".

[RuiAce]

True. They would probably have to consider Earth and environmental science as well (although that isn't a popular course)

I know for a fact, they already have "senior science" which is basically a little bit of everything in science all mixed into one subject (pretty much the same thing as year 7-10 science)

Next year? I'm part of the 2017 cohort, I don't think they will be doing so by then. What are they going to replace in the AOS though or are they going to focus the modules in more depth?

Well, even though you had almost nothing for AOS discovery, you could've (I don't know what you did though so in this case I'm assuming obviously) used belonging as a guide to help you out. Basically it would've been "same same but different".

Yeah. Senior Science has been around since 2001 I'm pretty sure.

They said next year but right now I'm 50% doubting their chances. The intention was to have it abolished by next year, but there hasn't been any formal announcement on this for quite a while.

Belonging was definitely used as an indicator, but having no actual past paper questions was annoying. I loathed the idea of "discovery of belonging".
This source (I forgot what) posted 3 trial papers up. I just did them for my trial study. For my HSC study, since a lot of schools (you know, James Ruse, Sydney ____ etc.) had trial papers released I tried to respond to their paper 1's.

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Yeah. Senior Science has been around since 2001 I'm pretty sure.

They said next year but right now I'm 50% doubting their chances. The intention was to have it abolished by next year, but there hasn't been any formal announcement on this for quite a while.

Belonging was definitely used as an indicator, but having no actual past paper questions was annoying. I loathed the idea of "discovery of belonging".
This source (I forgot what) posted 3 trial papers up. I just did them for my trial study. For my HSC study, since a lot of schools (you know, James Ruse, Sydney ____ etc.) had trial papers released I tried to respond to their paper 1's.

Same with physics, chemistry, bio, etc. That's when the syllabuses were first reviewed (I believe) and they decided to split up into it's own branches

If the AOS was abolished then that'd be like a dream come true lol, but then we still have essays to write all under timed conditions

Hm, yeah it would've been annoying but for me I'm lucky there are resources out there to help me. Imagine if all the syllabuses were renewed, then I'd most likely find it much more difficult to write notes on Physics, chem, etc and find it more difficult to practice exams before the actual exam

That was actually a great idea back in the time when many discovery resources weren't developed

I think the main reason why they wanted to add "extension science" rather than "extension physics" or "extension chemistry" was because "science" itself is a very broad thing. If you think about physics, physics without doubt is a very broad science with it's own different branches (i.e. nuclear physics, astrophysics, etc) but "science" itself is much broader since it contains everything in "science"

Think of extension english or extension maths, maths has it's own branches like "pure mathematics, applied mathematics, statistics, calculus, probability, etc" (i.e. if they are taught at a depth beyond a high school level). English on the other hand doesn't really have its own branches (not that I know of) however it is a very broad subject. Currently in high school maths, we don't have all this "statistics" as it's own HSC subject or "probability" as it's own HSC subject either (I actually don't know why, maybe I should ask a maths teacher tommorrow and see what he says) but we have maths as it's own subject and hence we will add an extension to it since it's already a broad subject. You get me (I think I'm kind of confusing myself)

If they actually had extension science as a prelim/HSC subject then I'd most likely choose it (in addition to physics and chemistry)

[RuiAce]

It was split before 2001 as well. They just abolished 3U/4U science but kept (changed) 2U chemistry etc.

Lol. I would cry if the AoS got abolished in my year because hunting for marks in paper 2 is not easy for me.

Maths syllabuses are getting renewed though.


I reckon science extension will be like history extension - Only offered as an HSC course.

[jamonwindeyer]

The first cohort to sit the new HSC Exams will be the 2019 Cohort. The content will start being taught to Year 11's the year before that 

EDIT: HOLY CRAP

"Review any reference to geometry in the rationales considering that there is no geometry topic in the proposed content for Mathematics."


Love the new syllabus already 

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It was split before 2001 as well. They just abolished 3U/4U science but kept (changed) 2U chemistry etc.

Lol. I would cry if the AoS got abolished in my year because hunting for marks in paper 2 is not easy for me.

Maths syllabuses are getting renewed though.


I reckon science extension will be like history extension - Only offered as an HSC course.

Hmmmm, maybe they wanted to try something new rather than do things "mainstream" and now they're planning to bring it back (i.e. extension science) as well as offer phys, chem, bio, etc all at the same time

Paper 2 is really all about essays. In order to do well in it (I think) you need to know your texts inside out as well as the analysis to it and how it relates to your rubric. Also look at different ways of responding as this gives you insight of some sort in order to attack those questions

They don't have MX2 volumes do they?

Yeah but in history extension, you do a "major project" and I don't think you would do one in extension science (basically I think of it as senior science but with extra stuff-similar to 2U maths and MX1 maths)

[RuiAce]

The first cohort to sit the new HSC Exams will be the 2019 Cohort. The content will start being taught to Year 11's the year before that 

EDIT: HOLY CRAP

"Review any reference to geometry in the rationales considering that there is no geometry topic in the proposed content for Mathematics."


Love the new syllabus already 

Calm down

Circle geometry is still in Ext 1 though I think.

Hmmmm, maybe they wanted to try something new rather than do things "mainstream" and now they're planning to bring it back (i.e. extension science) as well as offer phys, chem, bio, etc all at the same time

Paper 2 is really all about essays. In order to do well in it (I think) you need to know your texts inside out as well as the analysis to it and how it relates to your rubric. Also look at different ways of responding as this gives you insight of some sort in order to attack those questions

They don't have MX2 volumes do they?

Yeah but in history extension, you do a "major project" and I don't think you would do one in extension science (basically I think of it as senior science but with extra stuff-similar to 2U maths and MX1 maths)

Yeah, not a fan of essays.

The current MX2 course has a huge section on conics. Rui that was terrible. *volumes

You could say that about MX2 though - HSC only, has no major work.

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Calm down

Circle geometry is still in Ext 1 though I think.Yeah, not a fan of essays.

The current MX2 course has a huge section on conics.

You could say that about MX2 though - HSC only, has no major work.

Apparent circle geometry is a "useless" topic. I don't know what they're going to replace in 3U though, or are they just going to replace nothing and just put it in?

Well, science doesn't really have a major work of it's own (my physics teacher told me a while ago, they were going to introduce a Student research project into extension physics but now since that idea has been scrapped, the SRP will be implemented in extension science)

[RuiAce]

Apparent circle geometry is a "useless" topic. I don't know what they're going to replace in 3U though, or are they just going to replace nothing and just put it in?

Well, science doesn't really have a major work of it's own (my physics teacher told me a while ago, they were going to introduce a Student research project into extension physics but now since that idea has been scrapped, the SRP will be implemented in extension science)

Last time I did an SRP was in Yr 10...

Circle geometry isn't as useless as some other stuff but I'll agree it's not that useful either compared to other stuff. Don't forget you can use the links i have here to look at what's in the new maths courses.

They can introduce Extension Physics and Extension Chemistry, but that leaves a loophole. What about Extension biology?
It was always something I had the back of my mind, just in case.

Implementing three new extension courses would be pretty hard in my opinion.

Yes. You can find the new drafting for maths here if you're interested.
Mathematics General
Mathematics Advanced and beyond
I know a lot of things that are useless and being replaced with much better stuff.

Yes. The AoS was planned to be abolished for next year. Haven't heard about it recently though.

Indeed. It's just like my cohort having virtually nothing for discovery - a bit rough. The last time this happened was in 2001 lol.

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Last time I did an SRP was in Yr 10...

Circle geometry isn't as useless as some other stuff but I'll agree it's not that useful either compared to other stuff. Don't forget you can use the links i have here to look at what's in the new maths courses.

Same here haha

I still think circle geometry will be there but in "geometry"

Edit: I just realized, polynomials isn't there. I think they're scrapping out polynomials