Hey random thread, but if you want to distract yourself from Modern study with Modern here are the proposed changes to the syllabus...
https://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabuses/curriculum-development/pdf_doc/st6-modern-hist-draft-syl-16-v5.pdf
I actually really REALLY don't like it. Don't fix something that isn't broken Only change (in my opinion) that should be made is more time because the work load in 3 hours is ridiculous.
What do you guys think? Have any of your teachers spoken about this? I know mine are fuming, and as you can probably tell I agree haha.
Changing the Core study to basically Nazi Germany, but keeping Nazi Germany as a national study topic still? Basically getting rid of more than half of the personalities (including Trotsky and Speer? two of the most popular ones???). Russia looks so confusing now. I'm not a fan. Was looking forward to tutoring after this year, but that means I'm going to have to pretty much completely relearn the course
Anyways back to studying the normal syllabus haha, but just needed somewhere to vent about this cos I'm mad haha
I'm a little more optimistic about the syllabus change - I think that while there have been a number of changes which I don't like (which include keeping the craziest personalities and removing the best ones - Speer my main man!!) they have tried to mainstream the syllabus, which could be a positive (although not overall a major fan).
With year 11, they've tried to include a bit of History Extension and kind of give a background to the purpose of history as such, which I think could actually be quite interesting and useful - it could be an opportunity to intro and hone skills for the future as opposed to jumping into a content study, a bit like economics! They have removed a number of redundant case studies from year 11 which will streamline the state and make it easier to compare everyone. And also the Shaping of the Modern World is a HUGE improvement from the current 'World at the turn or the century or something', as it allows people to kind of diversify a little, where the current syllabus was, I dare say a little too rigid.
I like the idea of having the core as Nazi Germany - but I don't like the idea of a Source-based study of Nazi Germany, so I'm not a fan of that. The changes to the national studies seem not to gotten rid of too many of them, which is a bit disappointing
And I really don't like the Change in the Modern World aspect of the new syllabus with the small number of personalities.
I should clarify when I say streamlined, I mean removing deadweights - topics no-one does - so I hoped they would be able to do more of that, and keep some of the more popular stuff. I guess maybe another problem they were trying to address was the incredibly large candidature of the Germany National Study cohort.
All in all, I like the changes to the year 11 aspect of the syllabus, but not the year 12 ones.