Record of changes for Society and Culture

Amendment to marking guidelines and assessment and reporting document for the Society and Culture Year 12 Personal Interest Project 

(Official Notice NESA 50/19)

Amended marking guidelines for the Personal Interest Project are to be implemented with Year 12 2020 HSC candidates, commencing Term 4 2019.

Amendments to the marking guidelines include the following:

• the outcome codes for H4 and H5 have been added
• the reference to ‘photographs, tables and/or diagrams’ has been replaced with ‘graphic forms’
• the delineation between the mark ranges with respect to students’ communication skills has been clarified.

To ensure consistency with the exam criteria in the Personal Interest Project marking guidelines, the following reference in the exam criteria for the Personal Interest Project within the Assessment and Reporting document has been removed – ‘Evidence that sources of information are referenced’ (p12).

New Stage 6 school-based assessment requirements

(Official Notice NESA 29/17)

New school-based assessment requirements are to be implemented from Term 1, 2018 for Year 11 and Term 4, 2018 for Year 12. Course-specific assessment requirements are included in the Assessment and reporting materials. Sample assessment schedules for Year 11 and Year 12 are available.

Revised Stage 6 Society and Culture Syllabus

(Official Notice BOS 47/13)

A revised Stage 6 Society and Culture Syllabus (2013), endorsed by the Board of Studies in August 2013 replaces the current Stage 6 Society and Culture Syllabus (1999). The revised syllabus will be implemented for Preliminary course students commencing in 2014. The first HSC Society and Culture exam based on the new syllabus will be 2015.

The revised Stage 6 Society and Culture Syllabus maintains the structure of the previous syllabus, including the HSC Core plus elective depth studies format. The Personal Interest Project (PIP) remains a feature of the course.

Key amendments to the syllabus include the following:

• objectives have been reduced from 9 to 7 and outcomes reduced to 10
• significant updates to reflect the contemporary nature of society including a ‘contemporary context’ to be integrated within each topic and an increased focus on technology, including communication technologies
• HSC Core content is more explicit and teachers, students and examiners can now be more certain what can be appropriately examined and assessed
• content in each topic is organised in a consistent structure with a focus, outcomes, integrated course concepts, contemporary context, a ‘nature of’ study related to the topic and a focus study
• the future section in the Core and each depth study is now focussed on the near future (5 to 10 years)
• Section 8 of the syllabus has been revised to provide more explicit information on the concepts, social and cultural research methods, ethical research and social and cultural literacy
• a new HSC depth study, Social Conformity and Nonconformity, has been developed. It focuses on the formation and influences on the attitudes and behaviours of groups and their members, factors influencing conformity and responses to non-conformity
• the Work and Leisure HSC depth study has been deleted.