So, this was originally supposed to be a post about my extension 2 English project, and then I thought "Wait up, nobody who might possibly read this is going to know what extension 2 English is, and understand why I'm bitching about it", so I've decided to do a whole "get to know ya" spiel before I start posting willy-nilly like I hope to soon. So, this is the "school" post. I've already done the "Toy Story" post and the "hello" post, and I intend to do a few more.
Anyway, I'm going to assume that any reader has no idea of how the Australian education system works. If you do, you'd better skip down to the next paragraph otherwise reading this will be a colossal waste of your time. We begin school at kindergarten, when we're 4 or 5 years old. The age thing is difficult because the cut-off point for starting school is in the middle of the year so all school years will have half the students born towards the end of one year and the other born at the start of the next. There are four terms in one school year, with each term roughly going for between 9-11 weeks, with a 2-3 weeks break in between. At the end of the year, we have our Chrismas/Summer holidays, which can go from between 6-10 weeks depending on how long your school day lasts. There are a set number of hours each school needs to spend teaching per year, and by pushing back the end of the school day or pulling the beginning forward by as little as 10 minutes per day, some schools manage to give 10 week breaks over Christmas. We go through kindergarten and years 1-6 at primary school, which I guess is the equivalent of the American elementary school, so there's 7 years all up there. We then progress to secondary school, more often than not referred to as high school. Yes, that's right. We have no "middle school". High school goes from years 7 through to 12, however it is only compulsory to go through to year 10, at which point you can drop out of school as long as you have a sustainable job, are doing an upper-level course at TAFE (I'll get to that), or have an apprenticeship. Otherwise you have to stay 'till year 12. Years in high school are usually grouped in pairs in terms of subjects, in year 7 and eight there is a set of predefined subjects (English, Maths, PDHPE, Geography, History, Visual Arts, Technology, sometimes one or two languages, and religion if you go to a private school) that all students have to attend. In years 9 and 10, the languages are normally dropped and you can pick two 'electives' that run parallel to the compulsory subjects, such as Art, Commerce, Information Software Technology, Automotive, etc. However, when you reach year 11, everything changes. The only compulsory subject is English (and Studies of Religion, if you go to a private school), you get to pick the rest on the condition that you make up 10 'units'. Most subjects are considered to be worth two units, however some (extensions, Music 1 and Studies of Religion 1) are only worth 1 unit. A unit is basically 100 hours worth of school work, so all in all there is 1000 mandatory hours worth of work in a year. There are three English choices: Advanced, Standard and ESL (English as a Second Language). You can only pick one of these, and ESL is reserved for people whose primary language is something other than English. Similarly, if you choose to do Mathematics as an elective, you get to choose between General Mathematics and Mathematics. General Mathematics and Standard English are basically just watered down versions of Mathematics and Advanced English. Most of the electives from years 9 and 10 carry through to years 11 and 12, with some exceptions or splits (History is split into Ancient and Modern, Commerce is spread among Legal Studies, Economics and Legal Studies, Information Software Technology is split into Information Processing Technology and Software Design and Development, etc.). Extension subjects are considered to be an extension of the base subject, and are only worth one unit. Extension English, for example, uses the techniques studied in Advanced English and applies it to another area, similarly Extension Maths is just Mathematics with a big boost of difficult behind it. In year 11 the only extensions available are typically English and Maths, however in year 12 you can choose to do an Extension 2 subject, on the basis that you are already doing the Extension 1 equivalent of it. Extension 2 Maths is Extension 1 with a whole lot more difficult behind it, and Extension 2 English requires you to complete a 'major project' throughout the year instead of having set assignments and classes. Other "major project" subjects include Visual Arts and Music 2. Extension History, Extension Music and Extension Languages (eg, Extension French, Extension Japenese, etc.) is also available as a subject in years 11 and 12. Extension subjects are usually conducted outside of school hours, for example in the mornings before school or in the afternoons. Technically speaking, you can do as many units as you'd like, however only ten of them go towards your High School Certificate, or HSC. At the end of the year, the HSC is sat by every student eligible for one (some students finish year 12 but do not have any interest in getting their HSC, and some subjects, known as VET subjects (Technology, Electronics, etc), disallow you from getting a HSC if you do more than one of them). A test for every subject is sat (with the exception of the major project subjects, in which case you have to mail your project to the markers). Results are scaled and tweaked and pushed around by the markers so that there is an even distribution of scores across the state, so some subjects final marks are significantly different to that of their raw mark (a mark of 80, for example in the VET course Hospitality usually scales down to a mark of around 50, however an 85 boosts up to around 90). It's complicated stuff, but the markers do it so there's an even bell curve with the majority of students getting within one standard deviation of the average score across the state. Therefore scaling differs every year because of different average scores. A list is compiled of your final marks for each unit (subjects worth two units will have the same score twice), and they are arranged in descending order of grade. The top ten units are chosen (if a two unit subject occupies place 10 and 11 on the list, only one of the units is counted) and put into a mark out of 100, known as an ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank), going up by .05's. For some reason it's impossible to get a perfect ATAR of 100, so the highest possible is 99.95. University courses have ATAR cut-off points, where you have to get above the indicated ATAR to get into the course. (For example, last year Interior Architecture at UNSW had an ATAR cut-off of 87) The ATAR cut off points also differ per year due to fluctuating interest in the course and the average ATAR of the state.
So, if you skipped that paragraph, then good, because it was essay-worthy. If you didn't, good work making it this far! So anyway, the whole point of making this post was to list my own electives. I have 11 units all up, so there's a spare one in case I screw up one of my subjects in the HSC. My subjects are:
- Advanced English (2 units)
- Extension 1 English (1 unit)
- Extension 2 English (1 unit)
- General Mathematics (2 units)
- Ancient History (2 units)
- TVET Hospitality (2 units)
- Studies of Religion 1 (1 unit)
Basically, I only do three subjects in school. They're English, General Maths and Ancient History. I don't have Extension 2 English lessons as I have the major project to work on, I do Extension 1 English outside of school hours, Hospitality is at TAFE on Wednesday afternoons and I've already completed my Studies of Religion HSC.
Subjects are grouped together on 'lines', there's 6 or 7 lines with a variety of different subjects on them each year. If Chemistry and Physics are on the same line, you can't do both subjects because they run at the same time. If you don't do any of the subjects on a particular line, you have a 'free' or 'study' period, where you and everyone else who doesn't do any of those subjects are rounded up and thrown into a room to be supervised by a teacher. Or you can just leave, which is what most people seem to do if they have double studies throughout the day or studies first or last.
ANYWAY, this has been my second big-ass post in a row. I promise to make them smaller.
If you've made it all the way through, I applaud you! You earn a cookie.
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