“That ICPA Qld lobbies the Queensland Department of Education (DoE) to provide support to all Schools of Distance Education (SDEs), whether through resourcing, staffing or funding to implement Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum, to better position our Distance Education Schools to meet curriculum requirements while maintaining quality teaching and learning for our Distance Education students.”
All SDEs need support and funding to successfully roll out Version 9 in the distance education context which is essential to providing equitable access to quality education for all students, regardless of their location.
The implementation of Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum presents unique challenges for distance education. Unlike mainstream schools, our teachers must develop lessons and assessment tasks that are suitable for delivery via online platforms for independent learning at home. This work is significantly more time-consuming.
Despite this, all SDEs operate with limited middle leadership staffing dedicated to curriculum development, some of which is funded from the school’s own budget in an effort to meet this need. This makes the task of implementing curriculum updates even more challenging. Increased support, whether through resourcing or staffing, would ensure schools could be better positioned to meet curriculum requirements while maintaining quality teaching and learning for our distance education students.
Case Study
Charleville SDE: In terms of the Version 9 work, the workload is significantly more for our primary and secondary teachers. In primary, the writing is being done by separate writers in conjunction with Mount Isa and Longreach. At Charleville this year, our teachers are teaching and writing Version 9 (English and Maths) content for online delivery, and they haven’t developed ILMs or QLearn courses yet. This can continually impact student’s learning.
