Assessment details: You are required to submit a plan for a new school using the information and details in the following scenario.
Scenario:
You are an education consultant tasked with constructing a new school in a growth corridor adjacent to a major Australian city. Your team has received the following information about the school, which you are to use in your planning and decision-making:
- The school is a public, mainstream, Foundation-Grade 6 primary school.
- There is a diverse student population of approximately 500 students, including 5-10%
- Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander population.
- The school is situated within a multi-cultural, multi-faith community.
The decisions you make in the plan of this new school should pay particular attention to issues associated with teaching in Australian schools including:
- societal and professional expectations of teachers
- issues confronting teachers in their professional practice
- policies and practices in Australian education
- cultural and indigenous issues as they apply to Australian schooling.
The more issues you are able to address in the plan for the new school the better.
Assessment structure:
Your plan for the new school consists of five parts:
1. Structure
2. Curriculum and pedagogy
3. Policy and values
4. Classroom setup
5. Reflection
Part one: Structure (350 words equivalent)
Design the physical layout of the school - that is, provide a map of the school. You should consider a layout and design for the classrooms and school buildings that takes into account the information provided in the scenario and that is coherent with the other parts of the task.
Describe, through the use of an organisational chart, the school structure, governance and leadership of the school (such as the school board, school council, P&F and SRC).
Write a 150-word rationale justifying your decisions. This rationale must be based on evidence sourced from Department of Education websites, and scholarly and professional literature.
Part two: Curriculum and pedagogy (350 words)
List the broad curriculum areas that will be offered at the school, including specific subjects. For instance, a ‘broad curriculum area' might be The Arts; specific subjects you might offer are Drama and Dance.
Write a brief statement about the overarching pedagogical approach (e.g. inquiry, problem based, design thinking). The pedagogical approach should align with your curriculum focus.
Write a 150-word rationale justifying your decisions. This rationale must be based on evidence sourced from Department of Education websites, and scholarly and professional literature.
Part three: Policy and values (350 words)
Write a 25-word school mission statement.
List five values that underpin the school's ethos.
Consider the issues that the school might face and list ten policies that represent the core policy focus of the school.
Write a 250-word rationale justifying your decisions. Pay particular attention to how the policies and values you have chosen align with your decisions in the curriculum and pedagogy section of the plan. This rationale must be based on evidence sourced from Department of Education websites, and scholarly and professional literature.
Part four: Classroom setup (350 words equivalent)
Design an ‘ideal' lower primary (Foundation year-Grade 2), OR an ‘ideal' upper primary (Grade 3-6) classroom (the plan must stipulate your choice).
Write a 150-word rationale justifying your decisions. This rationale must be based on evidence sourced from Department of Education websites, and scholarly and professional literature.
Before final submission of your plan, you should implement any eLA and peer feedback that you have received on the four parts described above.
Part five: Reflection (600 words)
Your plan must include a 600-word reflection on your experience of designing the school.
Use the questions below to guide your reflection.
Peer feedback
How did you use feedback received from your eLA and peers to further develop your ideas?
What aspects of your plan did you change and why? If you chose not to implement changes based on feedback, why did you make this choice?
You as a learner:
What were the biggest challenges you faced in completing this assessment task? How did you overcome/deal with these challenges?
What would you do differently if you had the chance to do this assessment task again? Why?
What did you learn about Australian schooling through completing this assessment task?