Middle Years in the Classroom
What will students learn in the Middle Years?
A key feature of the Middle Years approach is that learning will be challenging and rigorous. This is essential to keeping Middle Years students interested in education and to prepare them for the Senior Years.
Students in the Middle Years will continue to learn according to the Northern Territory Curriculum Framework (NTCF). The framework provides teachers with details on what students need to learn, and allows teachers and schools to select content and teaching methods that are relevant to student levels and experiences.
There will be a stronger focus on literacy and numeracy in the Middle Years, and a greater emphasis on developing knowledge, skills and an understanding of the world of work (known as ‘vocational learning’).
Students will be able to explore topics and ideas relevant to their current and future lives across a number of subject areas. This is known as an ‘integrated learning’ approach.
Stand-alone subjects and ‘specialist subjects’ such as English, Maths, Physical Education, Music, and Technology and Design will continue to be taught.
Example of integrated learning
A topic is identified by the students and their group of teachers, eg life cycles on the Katherine River. Students brainstorm with teachers what they already know about life cycles on the river and identify some questions that they would like to answer. They then work with their teachers to plan what they need to learn to answer these questions.
Over a number of weeks, students could then learn many different things about that particular topic across a number of subjects, including Maths, English, Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE), and The Arts. This is called 'integrated learning'.
How will students learn?
Developing strong teacher-student relationships is critical in the Middle Years.
In the Middle Years, students will generally have a small group of teachers for their core subjects. They will also have access to specialist teachers for other subjects. This means that students will generally have fewer teachers during the school day than the ‘traditional’ high school approach where they can have up to seven different teachers in one day. This allows teachers to spend more time with each student and to develop stronger relationships with them.
Teachers will be able to better design programs that allow for individual differences in student interest, achievement and learning styles.
Students will also have more opportunities to discuss and determine some of their learning with teachers. In the Middle Years, students should feel that they have the opportunity to take a more ‘hands-on’ approach to their learning, making what they learn at school more useful to their lives.
How will students be assessed?
In the Middle Years, teachers will continue to assess student performance against outcomes in the Northern Territory Curriculum Framework.
Under the Middle Years approach, teachers will continue to assess students so they can plan and develop programs to suit each student’s strengths, weaknesses and learning needs. Assessment tasks will match the learning and teaching methods used. There will be an increasing emphasis on assessing students in real-life situations. This may include assessing students in more practical ways rather than through written tests or reports only.
There is no one assessment approach or technique for the Middle Years that suits all situations, purposes or groups of students. Each student will be able to demonstrate their understanding and learning ability through a range of opportunities over a period of time.
Assessment methods will continue to comply with the high standards expected of schools.
In addition to school-based assessment, Year 7 students will continue to participate in national literacy and numeracy tests. Literacy and numeracy tests for Year 9 students are likely to start in 2008. You will receive a report on your child’s achievement in these tests.
