Australian Curriculum Overview
English
In Years 5 and 6, students communicate with peers and teachers from other classes and schools, community members, and individuals and groups, in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments.
Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, interpret and evaluate spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts including newspapers, film and digital texts, junior and early adolescent novels, poetry, non-fiction and dramatic performances. Students develop their understanding of how texts, including media texts, are influenced by context, purpose and audience.
Mathematics
Understanding includes describing properties of different sets of numbers, using fractions and decimals to describe probabilities, representing fractions and decimals in various ways and describing connections between them, and making reasonable estimations. Fluency includes representing integers on a number line, calculating simple percentages, using brackets appropriately, converting between fractions and decimals, using operations with fractions, decimals and percentages, measuring using metric units, and interpreting timetables. Problem Solving includes formulating and solving authentic problems using fractions, decimals, percentages and measurements, interpreting secondary data displays, and finding the size of unknown angles. Reasoning includes explaining mental strategies for performing calculations, describing results for continuing number sequences, explaining the transformation of one shape into another, explaining why the actual results of chance experiments may differ from expected results.
Science
Over Years 3 to 6, students develop their understanding of a range of systems operating at different time and geographic scales. In Year 6, students explore how changes can be classified in different ways. They learn about transfer and transformations of electricity, and continue to develop an understanding of energy flows through systems. They link their experiences of electric circuits as a system at one scale, to generation of electricity from a variety of sources at another scale and begin to see links between these systems. They develop a view of Earth as a dynamic system, in which changes in one aspect of the system impact on other aspects; similarly they see that the growth and survival of living things are dependent on matter and energy flows within a larger system. Students begin to see the role of variables in measuring changes and learn how look for patterns and relationships between variables. They develop explanations for the patterns they observe, drawing on evidence.
History
The Year 6 curriculum moves from colonial Australia to the development of Australia as a nation, particularly after 1900. Students explore the factors that led to Federation and experiences of democracy and citizenship over time. Students understand the significance of Australia’s British heritage, the Westminster system, and other models that influenced the development of Australia’s system of government. Students learn about the way of life of people who migrated to Australia and their contributions to Australia’s economic and social development.