All students with special education needs are entitled to participate in and progress through the curriculum. Some students may require additional support or adjustments to teaching, learning and assessment activities. Adjustments are measures or actions taken in relation to teaching, learning and assessment that enable a student to access syllabus outcomes and content and demonstrate achievement of outcomes. Students with special education needs can access the K–10 outcomes and content in a range of ways. Students may engage with:
- syllabus outcomes and content with adjustments to teaching, learning and/or assessment activities
- selected outcomes and content appropriate to their learning needs
- outcomes from an earlier Stage, using age-appropriate content
- selected Years 7–10 Life Skills outcomes and content appropriate to their learning needs.
Decisions regarding adjustments should be made in the context of collaborative curriculum planning with the student, parent/carer and other significant individuals to ensure that syllabus outcomes and content reflect the learning needs and priorities of individual students.
Sample Geography scope and sequences and units including adjustments and Life Skills outcomes and content are available from Support Materials – Programming.
Years 7–10 Life Skills
The Years 7–10 Life Skills outcomes and content are developed from the Stage 4 and Stage 5 objectives of the Geography K–10 Syllabus.
Before deciding that a student should undertake a course based on Life Skills outcomes and content, consideration should be given to other ways of assisting the student to engage with the regular course outcomes. This assistance may include a range of adjustments to the teaching, learning and assessment activities of the Geography Years 7–10 curriculum.
If the adjustments do not provide a student with sufficient access to some or all of the Stage 4 and Stage 5 outcomes, a decision can be explored for the student to undertake Life Skills outcomes and content. This decision should be made through the collaborative curriculum planning process involving the student and parent/carer and other significant individuals. School principals are responsible for the management of the collaborative curriculum planning process.