1. Civics and Citizenship
Victorian Curriculum History Levels 7-10
To gain insight into the expectations and intent of the Victorian Curriculum and student learning:
Curriculum structure
Civics and Citizenship Curriculum
Capabilities
Curriculum planning
Assessment strategies

2. VCAA’s Bulletin & F-10 Curriculum Updates
Subscribe at: VCAA Bulletin The F–10 Curriculum Update

3. Presentation based on these guidelines
The guidelines provide advice on the effective use of the curriculum to develop whole-school teaching and learning plans and to report student learning achievement

4. Thinking about the Curriculum
Ground View
Content Descriptions
10 ft.
Strands
100 ft. view
Achievement Standards
1000 ft. view
Learning in Civics and Citizenship
10,000 ft. view
C&C Rationale and Aims
a lifelong sense of belonging to, and engagement with, civic life as an active and informed citizen in the context of Australia as a secular democratic nation with a dynamic, multicultural and multi-faith society
knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the values, principles, institutions and practices of Australia’s system of democratic government and law, and the role of the citizen in Australian government and society
skills necessary to investigate contemporary civics and citizenship issues, and foster responsible participation in Australia’s democracy
the capacities and dispositions to participate in the civic life of their nation at a local, regional and global level.

5. When thinking about the curriculum do not make this mistake
Sometimes one gets so involved in the intricate detail of the curriculum that the ability to stand back and see the intent of the curriculum is missed. Lessons become technically, less engaging, less relevant and fails to make connections to the students own experience and contemporary issues.
Where is the beginning and the end? How do I make sense of this?
There are many interconnected components of the curriculum that can at times be daunting to comprehend and figure out how does it all go together aims,
Learning Areas, Disciplines, strands, content descriptions, Achievement Standards, Capabilities- how so all these go together to create engaging classrooms – quality teaching and student learning?
The skills and concepts allow students to come to a structured understanding of the historical knowledge. Who, What, where, why and How? What were the causes? What changed? What was most significant? How do I find out and how do I know?
Key points from the guidelines
The defined curriculum content (knowledge, skills and understanding) is the basis for student learning
Schools should develop and publish a whole-school curriculum plan that documents their teaching and learning program
Schools have flexibility in the development of the teaching and learning program to reflect decisions, resources, expertise and priorities of the school
Why is curriculum planning so important?
A guaranteed and viable curriculum is the school level factor that has the most impact on student achievement
A guaranteed and viable curriculum is defined as a combination of opportunity to learn and time to learn (What works in schools: Translating research into action Marzano 2003)
It is not enough for a curriculum to be implicit, it must be explicit and it must be coherent
Effective planning and documentation is a significant part of providing a guaranteed and viable curriculum
Is not the responsibility of the individual teacher – it is a team effort
Recognises that we are educating the whole child across many years of schooling - curriculum is designed as a continuum of learning
Without the “what” students should learn, pedagogy is a process without purpose
Deep familiarity with the curriculum is essential
Civics and Citizenship curriculum develops students’ knowledge of political and legal institutions and explores the nature of citizenship in a pluralistic liberal democracy. Students will develop general skills and capabilities such as an appreciation of diverse perspectives, empathy, collaboration, negotiation, self-awareness and intercultural understanding.
Contemporary issues such as debates over changes to the law, elections and Australian government responses to international events, are a means of linking what students may know from the media to the theory about democratic political and legal institutions and values such as fairness, equality, representation and accountability and citizens’ rights that underpin a democracy.
A focus on contemporary issues also provides a means of developing students’ thinking and critical capacities. These issues provide models of the ways that citizens can activity participate, question and improve democracy.
Through Civics and Citizenhip, students explore and develop their understanding and viewpoints about:
• civic identity
• roles in the community
• the rights and responsibilities of citizens
• developing their connections to the school and community
• values which underpin democratic communities such as freedom, equality, responsibility, accountability, respect, tolerance and inclusion
• skills and knowledge in making judgments, forming conclusions and making plans for action
• their sense of school, community and civic engagement and participation.

6. Contemporary Issues
“…investigating contemporary issues and events students learn to value their belonging in a diverse and dynamic society, develop points of view and positively contribute locally, nationally, regionally and globally. ”
School Activity with teachers:
Brainstorm as many contemporary C&C issues and events.
Using the scope and sequence identify where in the curriculum you could incorporate this issue/event.
A focus on contemporary issues also provides a means of developing students’ thinking and critical capacities. These issues provide models of the ways that citizens can activity participate, question and improve democracy.
Key Ideas
active and informed citizen
skills necessary to investigate contemporary civics and citizenship issues
foster responsible participation in Australia’s democracy
capacities and dispositions to participate in the civic life
Lets take this one example
In your groups:
list as many contemporary civic and citizenship issues- Contemporary lets say last 6 months.
Identify in the curriculum where you could teach this issues within a content descriptor.

7. What about Civic participation?
Civic participation involves the active engagement of students with communities. It allows students to:
practise citizenship
build skills and capabilities including planning, collaboration, communication and problem solving
connect to their communities
engage with real world issues
Community Engagement/Civic Participation:
enables students to develop a sense of belonging and connectedness to their community which in turn addresses their wellbeing
enables students to develop their own sense of identity as a citizen and
an awareness of what it means to be an active citizen
enables students to understand the ways that decisions are made in communities
empowers students to be able to participate in their community and society
What about Civic participation?

8. Why important for educators?
Community Engagement/Civic Participation:
enables students to develop a sense of belonging and connectedness to their community which in turn addresses their wellbeing
enables students to develop their own sense of identity as a citizen and
an awareness of what it means to be an active citizen
enables students to understand the ways that decisions are made in communities
empowers students to be able to participate in their community and society
You could look at each of these aims in the same way. Similarly Civic participation is so important. Its one of 10 key targets for Education state. I have an article currently in Compak VCTA which looks at Civic Participation in schools.

9. Victorian Curriculum Civics and Citizenship Strands
Laws and Citizens
Citizenship, Diversity and Identity
Government and Democracy
C&C
Starts at level 3

10. Scope and Sequence Progression of knowledge & understanding
Achievement Standards at two level bands- Continuum of Learning

11. C&C Concepts and Knowledge
Explicitly Introduce/ Teach
Practise
Deploy
Demonstrate and Assess
The C&C knowledge strand provides teachers the opportunities to explicitly teach the skill and/or concept in a context, practice, deploy it and with and other contexts across the 2 levels band.

12. Concept of Democracy Achievement Standard Government and Democracy
Ideas
Evaluate features of Australia’s political system, and identify and analyse the influences on people’s electoral choices.
(Levels 9-10)
Discuss the role of political parties and independent representatives in Australia’s system of government, including the formation of governments, and explain the process through which government policy is shaped and developed
Mock Elections
2. Contemporary political issues
3. Policy Wall
How is the issue represented by:
Track the issue over 24 hrs/week/month
Political parties
Different media
Social media
Public option
Policy formulation
Policy implementation
4. Political Inquiry comparing Australia with a Asian country of student choice
Compare and evaluate the key features and values of systems of government, and analyse Australia’s global roles and responsibilities. (Levels 9-10)
Explain the values and key features of Australia’s system of government compared with at least one other system of government in the Asia region
Analyse how citizens’ political choices are shaped, including the influence of the media 

13. Assessment
“ .. the fundamental purpose of assessment is to establish where learners are in their learning at the time of assessment.”
Reforming Educational Assessment: Imperatives, principles and challenges
Masters, G. ACER 2013
Discuss the Achievement Standard. What do we want students to know and be able to do?
What knowledge do we want students to know?
What are the Key Concepts? How are we going to get them to think about and apply them?
Identify 2 Contemporary Issues you might use.

14. Developing Assessment Tasks
Levels
7-8
By the end of Level 8, students explain features of Australia’s system of government, and the purpose of the Constitution in Australia’s representative democracy. They analyse features of Australian democracy, and explain features that enable active participation. They explain how Australia’s legal system is based on the principle of justice, and describe the types of law and how laws are made. Students identify the importance of shared values, explain different points of view and explain the diverse nature of Australian society. They analyse issues about national identity in Australia and the factors that contribute to people’s sense of belonging. They identify ways they can be active and informed citizens, and take action, in different contexts.
C.D
Laws and Citizens Strand
Explain how Australia’s legal system aims to provide justice, including through the rule of law, presumption of innocence, burden of proof, right to a fair trial and right to legal representation (VCCCL022)
Compare how laws are made in Australia, including through parliaments (statutory law) and courts (common law), and explain different types of laws, including executive law (delegated law), criminal law, civil law and the place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customary law (VCCCL023)
What is the destination?
How do you get there?

15. Scope and sequence F-10 Progression of knowledge and understanding
Progression of knowledge and understanding
is represented as a continuum or set of progressions defining increasingly complex knowledge, skills and concepts
Enabling and monitoring every student’s progress along the continua is the fundamental role of teachers and schools and the purpose and endpoint of all reform efforts Structured as a learning continuum that enable teachers to identify the current levels of achievement and then plan for progression towards the next. What might this progression look like?
Progression along the continuum of learning

16. Terminology
Assess against Achievement Standards for DET reporting purposes.
Towards Level 4
At Level 4
Towards Level 6
If students are working beyond Level 4 they will be working towards Level 6
In between the Achievement Standards, teachers develop Indicative Progress
What will progress look like in this unit?

17. Activity 4 Level 5-6 Indicative Progress Working towards level 8
…. They explain the role of different people in Australia’s legal system and the role of parliaments in creating law. They identify various ways people can participate effectively in groups to achieve shared goals.…..
What would student learning look like as they work towards Level 8?
…. They explain how Australia’s legal system is based on the principle of justice, and describe the types of law and how laws are made. Students identify the importance of shared values, explain different points of view and explain the diverse nature of Australian society……
Progression of knowledge and understanding
Prior learning would indicated they already know how to select sources, to identify origin and content features and explain what was happening at the time of the sourecs. Students have already achieved this in Levels 7-8
What would working towards Level 9-10 look like Find and select sources, explain origin and content features, explain context, and then maybe identify a purpose, motive or intent of the author, identify and explain inaccuracy but cannot fully evaluate if the sources are reliable or not.
Activity 4

18. VCAA IP examples - Broad Features
2. Learning Context
1. Curriculum
What are they?
Suggestions only
Illustrative
Stimulus for school level discussions
What are they not designed for?
Direct use in reporting
Translation directly into mark books
Step 1: Identify the Curriculum area and the achievement standard level students will be working toward
Step 2: Complete the contextual information. The Context is drawn from teacher’s teaching and learning plan and could include: short statements on what is envisaged for students to know and be able to do, the main learning activities and assessment tasks, and/or a brief outline of the unit or lessons. Reference could also be made to the content descriptions they are intended to be covered
Step 3: Highlight the specific elements of the achievement standard that are being targeted in this context.
Step 4: Develop a description of what a student would be expected to do/demonstrate as they move from one achievement standard to the next.
Examples are shown for student work between the standards – progression towards a particular standard
Context plus curriculum plus Achievement standards = examples
The colour scheme tracks…
The curriculum taught was….
The assessment task was to…..
The examples show in this case the characteristics of student work that would sit between Levels 4 and 6.
The AS and the IP’s can then be the basis of developing Rubrics to track students progress along the continuum which we will now look at more closely.
3. Highlight the specific elements of the achievement standard that are being targeted in this context.
4. IP Examples

19. Resources

20. Contact
Gerry Martin
Curriculum Manager, History and Civics