The Languages and Culture team at the NSW Department of Education has just published a guide for teachers of Stage 6 languages which provides information on the thinking, intentions and design that go into a notice of assessment.

A notice of assessment is the formal written advice you provide to your students about the assessment requirements of each assessment of learning task for their language course.

The guide highlights the importance of backward mapping and outlines suggested considerations which can impact planning, programming and assessment. It includes 3 sample notices of assessment, which meet NESA’s school-based requirements.
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You can find the guide on our Stage 6 page.

On Tuesday 3 August, 2021 we delivered our statewide staff meeting with guest presenter Kate Thompson, Stage 6 Advisor. Thank you to the teachers who joined us for the live session. For those who weren’t able to make it, the recording is now live on our YouTube channel and the slide deck is attached.
We will continue with our Stage 6 focus in our Week 7 meeting with guest presenter Adele Burke, Senior Assessment Officer, Examining and Testing, NESA.

Our statewide staff meeting in Week 4 will explore the requirements for developing Stage 6 monitoring procedures. Join us on Tuesday 3 August, 4-5 pm, to hear from the Stage 6 Advisor, Kate Thompson, from the Department of Education. 

We will explore: 
- NESA requirements and legislation
- the department's HSC monitoring advice
- what schools must do 
- what records to maintain 
- staff responsibilities.

You must enrol in the session on MyPL to receive the link to the online meeting. Search for course code NR29242, and select the session for Tuesday 3 August. 

The link for each statewide staff meeting is different, so you do need to enrol in each session we offer.

We look forward to seeing you there! The session will be recorded for those unable to join us. 

If you haven't joined our statewide staffroom yet, please complete our short entry survey to join. Log in using your department email.

We are very, VERY excited to announce that we have just published 3 new resources for Stage 6 Latin:

• - a sample assessment task for the Preliminary course on Catullus poem 50
• - HSC examination in Latin Continuers – advice for students
• - HSC examination in Latin Extension – advice for students.

Please note that we published an earlier version of the sample assessment task, however we had to make some changes to the outcomes and the marking guidelines. Some of these changes were to enable students to access the task as a practice, without providing them with any answers. We also included more background information for teachers. If you had previously downloaded a copy of the task, please discard it and replace it with the new version.

You can access this new support from our Latin Stage 6 page.

Dear language teachers,

As you are delving into learning from home once more, please take a look at the support the Languages and Culture team has on offer.

- Are you part of our Languages statewide staffroom on Teams yet? It takes less than a minute to join by filling out this brief entry survey. Our staffroom has over 680 DoE teachers connecting with each other. You will be able to ask questions, access direct support from the Languages and Culture team and explore over 690 teacher-shared resources for Stages 4-6. There is also access to our curriculum resources and our YouTube channel. If you are a user of Yammer, you will be able to access that through the staffroom too. It's a one-stop shop.

- If you are looking for support with Stage 6, our curriculum website has sample speaking questions and sample reading and listening activities for most modern languages and courses, organised by topics. 

- The Department of Education is continuously updating the Learning from home website adding resources for all subjects and levels.

Thank you for all your hard work always. Please reach out to any member of our team for any kind of support. 

Languages and Culture team

We have created 4 samples unit of work planning templates – 2 for Beginners and 2 for Continuers. You can find them under each of the relevant languages/courses accessed from our Stage 6 website section.

As you know, there is no mandated template for planning your units of work, as long as your units have the elements required by NESA. 

NESA announced today that outstanding eligibility determinations for Year 11 and 12 Languages students are due by 12 March 2021.
You can find resources to help principals make determinations on their website, including:
- case studies
- eligibility criteria
- forms. 

The Languages and Culture team is offering an online planning day for teachers from NSW public schools to facilitate programming for Stage 6 Beginners languages course. The day will offer the opportunity to network/collaborate/program with experienced teachers of Stage 6 Beginners courses, who will also share their sample programming ideas and approaches. We also explore HSC monitoring, resources and assessment.

The date for the planning day is Wednesday 24 February 2021. If you would like to attend, please complete the short application survey by Wednesday 17 February 2021.
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Priority will be given to teachers who are teaching a Beginners course in 2021. Places are limited.
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Please email Coreena Allen if you need further information.

This registered course builds teachers’ capacity to understand and apply mandatory Stage 6 school-based assessment. It unpacks NESA’s current school-based assessment requirements, gives guidance in developing interrelated and interdependent tasks and supports teachers in developing their own non-HSC style assessment tasks.

​This course enables participants to:
- understand the requirements of school-based assessment in Stage 6
- implement a range of assessment strategies in Stage 6
- design an effective assessment task for Stage 6.
 
The course can be completed at your own pace and support is available if needed.
The course is available in MyPL via code RG10281 – Stage 6 school-based assessment in languages.
 
For further support or information please contact Coreena Allen or Marcela Ayas.