STANSW Science Education News Journal 2019 2019 SEN Vol 68 Issue 4 | Page 4

President’s Message and measurements, but there is also a greater emphasis on teaching students how to develop their own questions. It is an essential question to ask ourselves, “How should we teach this?” Otherwise we are expecting our students to come up with questions on their own without proper examples and essential preparation! Margaret Shepherd President STANSW Our STANSW Young Scientist Awards program culminated with an amazing awards ceremony at the University of Wollongong. This year there were many  improved projects entered into the program and many stage 6 depth studies were awarded recognition for their work. Keep up the great work and next year submit your best ten projects and send in one teacher to help judge the projects. It is great PD. I would like to welcome a new member to the STANSW staff this term. Jane Powles is our new Executive Officer and she brings a wealth of experience, both working in not-for-profit associations as well as managing and leading organisations through change. She is passionate and warm, and is very much welcome to our small secretariat. Her role description is available for members by simply contacting me at [email protected]. This year as seen a review of our curriculum, and now the Curriculum Review Interim Report has been released at https:// nswcurriculumreview.nesa.nsw.edu.au/home/siteAreaContent/ 524abec1-f0f9-4ffd-9e01-2cc89432ad52 and is out for discussion. Some of the proposed changes are good for us e.g. reducing the content and removing A-E. These will allow us to teach to a deeper level, and will stop the labelling students have when told what grade they are. However, what about the reduction in the number of courses? Is that going to impact on science? Would we lose some of our courses? Please do have your say so that STANSW can pass on a formal comment to NESA. You can do this through the website link. We have had support from Catherine Gray in the development of both the role description and also the governance model, so that Jane is supported in this new position. It will be a time of change, but already we are seeing very positive and progressive adjustments to the way we do things for our members. Jane has written a short introduction about herself so please read it, and if you want to talk with her at any time please email jane.powles@ stansw.asn.au We are currently planning lots of exciting professional learning for next year. Remember we are all volunteers, and we share our time and expertise with each other and for each other. Our secretariat makes it all happen at a high quality level, so please share your own ideas. Go to our website at http://stansw.asn.au/ default.aspx?article_id=204 and make a proposal to present a workshop at one of our Conferences next year. If you are teaching anything that you know works effectively then let us know. We’d love to hear from you. So the year is ending with the first exams for our new syllabuses and what exams they were! – rich in unfamiliar contexts and stimulus material that students were required to wade through under exam conditions. It is a lesson for all of us to give our students more practice reading and analysing text; diagrams and graphs; practising lots of different contexts; writing meaningful sentences that are not filled with waffle; proofreading their own work; expecting the unexpected; thinking outside the box; and of course to use what they know to problem solve. This is the time of year to thank everyone for all their support of STANSW this year. We have so many generous teachers who volunteer their time to share their knowledge and skills with all our members. We cannot function without you and continue to recognise and appreciate all that you do. Our association is run by teachers for teachers so we look forward to seeing you and working with you again in 2020. All these many skills are enormous to try to fit into the syllabus but it does make us recognise that we cannot simply teach content: rather, it indicates that content may be taught better by way of learning experiences. I ask all members to share their own learning activities with other members. If you teach a lesson in which students learn through using their skills, please send it to our editor, [email protected] or submit it through the website at www.stansw.asn.au. Please also include the aspect of the syllabus that was being taught, and the rationale for the activity. We really need to share our best ideas to help each other. It would also be great to see your name in print, so that is an added incentive for meeting the standard 7 and contributing to your teaching association. Many blessings for the Christmas season and wishes for a safe and restful holiday. Looking forward to 2020. Kindest regards, As well as Stage 6 teaching we also need to revisit what we should be teaching in years 7 – 10 and how best to do that. The obvious change is the need to provide lots more quantitative observations Margaret Shepherd STANSW President 4 SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 4