Thinking about improving the VCE Mathematics study design: Structural issues
Getting my ducks in a row while I have them in the same vicinity and time on my hands.
The current VCE Mathematics study design was implemented in 2023, which means by 2027 (oh jeez, that’s close now that it’s 2026) it will be up for either a minor or major review (as accreditation is up to a maximum of 5 years). So, that means either this year (2026) or next year (2027) we should start hearing about it and see the draft for public consultation. Given the several reviews and changes into the mathematics examinations in previous years and the change to the Victorian Curriculum 2.0 for F–10, I would suspect another major review is likely (especially to ensure a smooth transition from core Year 10 content to all VCE Mathematics subjects, without assuming any optional level 10A content).
From personal experience with the last two reviews (for the 2016 and 2023 study designs), they caught me off guard before I could completely gather my thoughts on the previous study design and all of the intricacies of the draft study design. So, I’m endeavouring to restart blogging to get my ducks in a row and to see if we can’t get some significant improvements made to it (or at least have what feedback I’ll be providing ready), for everyone’s sake.
Some mild spoilers of what’s to come: coming off the back of mapping out the Years 7–10 curriculum for the Australian Curriculum v9.0, Victorian Curriculum v2.0, and new NSW syllabus with Ochre Education, I couldn’t shut my brain off and have continued to both compare the various senior mathematics curricula throughout Australia and begin drafting scopes and sequences for VCE General Mathematics, VCE Mathematical Methods, and VCE Specialist Mathematics in particular (sorry VCE Foundation Mathematics, I’ll get to you at some point…). And oh boy, it has started to make a lot of quirks of the VCE study design stick out like a sore thumb, even more than they already did.
Comparison to the Australian Curriculum v8.4 and other Australian states and territories’ curricula
The VCE Mathematics study design is meant to be built upon the Australian Senior Secondary Curriculum v8.4.
Fifteen senior secondary subjects…have been endorsed by the council of federal, state and territory education ministers as the agreed and common base for the development of state and territory senior secondary courses.1
State and territory curriculum, assessment and certification authorities are responsible for determining how the Australian Curriculum content and achievement standards are to be integrated into their courses. The state and territory authorities also determine assessment and certification specifications for their courses and any additional information, guidelines and rules to satisfy local requirements, including advice on entry and exit points and credit for completed study.2
Given that the Australian Curriculum v9.0 is now implemented for F–10 Mathematics, the senior years may soon get a look at, but we will have to see when that will take place and whether it will affect the next review or one after that.
The VCAA’s own principles and procedures for the development and review of VCE studies says that they benchmark and compare with:
at least 3 high-performing global jurisdictions
any similar subject curriculum as set out in the International Baccalaureate
at least 2 other Australian jurisdictions
VCE studies and VCE VET programs within the same discipline or related discipline areas.3
If you’ve never browsed through the Australian Curriculum mathematics curriculum, or any of the other states curricula for that matter (especially if you’ve only been subjected to the VCE study design), it is well worth even a brief pursual to get a sense of what could be.
New South Wales (NSW, search Mathematics)
Queensland (QLD)
South Australia (SA, search Mathematics, note: Northern Territory also follows SACE’s curriculum)
Tasmania (Tas)
Victoria (Vic, for completeness)
Western Australia (WA)
We will look into comparing the content of these curricula in future blogposts because that is its own rabbit hole, but here are some of the biggest broad differences:
content is either divided into four semester-long units or two year(ish)-long stages (generally Year 11 and Year 12), whereas Victoria not only separates units 1 and 2, but combines units 3 and 4, but has them all in one document separated into all units 1 and 2 and then all units 3 and 4, creating frustrating breaks when considering a single subject.
AC8.4 and WA have specific codes to refer to each content point clearly where others do not (some curricula number subsections of topics but do not number their content/dot points).
ACT, WA, QLD, Tas (for the most part) all very closely resemble the AC8.4 with small changes, such as reordering content within subjects, small inclusions and exclusions, and for Tasmania, its Methods course more closely resembles Victoria’s course. They also have content in vaguely reasonable order to progress through.
South Australia rewrites the content in terms of key questions and key concepts (yes, actual framing questions) and includes useful, optional considerations.
NSW provides a syllabus with much more incremental level of detail (noting that they are the only state or territory that does not use graphics or CAS calculators for assessments).
all of these are more detailed and less vague than Victoria’s and (excluding South Australia’s question format) are written starting with command verbs which makes them easier to work with, though all (bar NSW) have room for more syllabus-level detail that NSW has.
For all non-Victorian and Tasmanian curricula, each mathematics subject has its own document or webpage, and content is listed by much more incremental topics, without areas of study and content is listed once, not divided between a set of dot points and then a separate list of key knowledge and skills in outcome 1 for Victoria and set of criteria for Tasmania.
So, if the VCAA is comparing to “at least 2 other Australian jurisdictions”, we’re not going to get very far making improvements since they are all based on the same Australian curriculum as a foundation (and some which are near clones), which the VCAA opts to completely restructure, reword, and significantly extend beyond.
Now, sometime into a study design’s implementation, the VCAA does get around to supplying sample course plans, which vary from adding week numbers to the study design (see General, noting the added Assumed Knowledge topic that is not given in the study design and includes content from Unit 2 in Unit 1 to make it work properly) to completely reorganising the study design and fleshing it out to make it comprehendible (see Methods, with its plethora of TeX typos and formatting woes and its incompatibility with running Specialist concurrently, without the Specialist teacher(s) repeatedly needing to pre-teach content from Methods).
However, in my opinion this is too late and should be released as part of the study design itself (like other states, such as Queensland) or at the very least alongside it, as it gives teachers a better sense of the course, especially for subjects like Methods and Specialist that have a lot more interweaving content with pre-requisite knowledge and skills within units, as this helps to highlight to the curriculum writers any assumed knowledge for particular topics as the content has to have been sequenced. It also would mean textbook publishers can ideally sequence their materials more closely in line with the intent of the study design as they have to start either editing previous editions or writing from scratch when the draft is released to be ready for day 1 implementation.
Comparison with international curricula
If we take some high performing (and accessible) international examples (based on PISA), such as4
Taiwan (see pp47–53 and use your translator of choice for the 11 and 12 numbered content points)
the UK which is then implemented by different providers, such as Cambridge OCR, Cambridge International, AQA, and Pearson Edexcel
then, especially compared to the VCAA’s mathematics study design, we can see a significant difference in the level of detail, clarity, and structure.
If the VCAA want to make serious improvements to the study design/curriculum they provide and claim that it is on par with these other high performing jurisdictions, then they will need to seriously consider changing how they structure their senior years curriculum. In particular:
separate subjects into separate documents rather than a singular document for the whole “mathematics” study design hence grouping all units of a subject together (fixing the remnant of General Mathematics units 1&2 facilitating both General Mathematics units 3&4 and Specialist Mathematics units 3&4), potentially also making them available via webpages,
group content by topics more appropriately combining the dot points and outcome 1 key knowledge and skills together to minimise both split attention effects on teachers understanding the study design and minimising issues of content being listed in one but not the other and/or creating needless repetition as well as in particular for Mathematical Methods where related content is split across areas of study 1 and 2,
split units 3 and 4 into distinct units (since they have their own assessment requirements anyway) and put the topics into a reasonable order for teaching that allows for concurrent teaching of Mathematical Methods and Specialist Mathematics without the Specialist teacher needing to pre-teach any content (ideally, pre-requisite content appearing at least a unit ahead, or at least much earlier in the same unit),
be willing to make small adjustments and improvements in the clarity of the curriculum year-on-year during implementation rather than waiting for the next full review to make changes.
ACARA, https://v8.australiancurriculum.edu.au/senior-secondary-curriculum/, bold emphasis added
I have been looking for Japan’s and South Korea’s as well, but they are harder to get a hold of. I would appreciate being pointed in the correct direction.