BOSTES UPdate

Howard JacobsInspector, Languages

AIS ConferenceFriday 18 July 2014

BOSTES

• Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards

• Merged with Institute of Teachers in January this year

• What is the Board?

Review of Languages Education

• The Minister has signed off the Review and its findings/proposals which were endorsed earlier in the year by the Board

• Consultation report is on the BOSTES website• Final report will be posted early August• First step will be the formation of the Languages

Advisory Panel

Review of Languages Education

• Growth• Valuing languages education• Incentives and barriers• Coordination and collaboration• Promotion• Implementation

Review of Languages Education

• A Languages Policy for NSW• A Primary KLA• A communications strategy• Curriculum development with greater flexibility• Greater collaboration• What will be mandatory

Australian Curriculum• Current syllabuses effective – implementation subject

to stakeholder consultation – no time frame

• New syllabuses will be developed and implemented only after stakeholder consultation

• Challenges identified through NSW consultation and supported by the Board

Development of Board outcomes

Need for a framework

Use of English

Continuity/flexibility

Extension and Background Speaker Prescriptions

• Survey on BOSTES website to determine new Extension and BS texts for 2019-2023 open until mid 2015

• Mediocre response to date• Film festivals are a great source of potential

material

Latin Continuers and Extension Prescriptions

• Survey to determine new Latin Continuers and Extension 2016-2023 has officially closed.

• Use of dictionaries for Continuers a possibility• Historiography to replace Philosophy in

Extension

The best 10 units• Best source of information is the UAC report on

Scaling• Scaled mean - the average academic achievement

of the course candidature is an important measure as is the spread of marks (standard deviation)

• In terms of unit inclusion, the range is 40% to over 80% French Ext is 86% and French Beginners 78%.

• Remember that lots of students who do a language do more than 10 units