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Preparation for the Further Education and Training Band (FET) and National Senior Certificate (NSC)

June 2006

Understand and implement the National Curriculum with confidence and ease!
This information has been structured to help you understand the latest curriculum and assessment changes and requirements and how these will affect teaching and learning in schools.

The National Curriculum Statement
The National Curriculum Statement (NCS) Grades 10-12 (General) was released in 2003. The NCS lays a foundation for the achievement of goals laid out in the Constitution of South Africa. It provides clearly defined standards of work and content for each subject. This policy document includes background information, principles that underpin the curriculum, the design features, information on inclusive education, qualifications and assessment and an introduction to each subject

How will the National Curriculum be implemented?

Implementation dates of the National Curriculum
Phase and grade	Dates
FET Grade 10	2006
FET Grade 11	2007
FET Grade 12	2008

What are the principles that underpin the National Curriculum Statement?

• Social transformation
• Outcomes-based education
• High knowledge and high skills
• Integration and applied competence
• Progression
• Articulation and portability
• Human rights, inclusivity, environmental and social justice
• Valuing indigenous knowledge systems
• Credibility, quality and efficiency.

What does the National Curriculum consist of?
The National Curriculum (NC) consists of an Overview Document, the Qualifications and Assessment Policy Framework, The National Protocol on Assessment for Schools in the General and Further Education and Training Band (Grades R-12), The National Senior Certificate: A qualification at Level 4 on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) and the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) for each specific subject. Further documents include the Learning Programme Guidelines and Subject Assessment Guidelines for each subject. You can read in this bulletin how these documents can help you to implement the curriculum.

How is the curriculum designed?
The NCS has specific design features that aim to help teachers to develop their learners' knowledge and understanding, to acquire skills and to realize identified values and attitudes. This will enable learners to take an active part in our changing economy and build our democracy. You can read more about this in the National Curriculum Statement Grades 10-12 (General) Overview.

What is a learning field?
A learning field is a category of similar subjects for the National Senior Certificate (NSC). These learning fields help to set the rules for subject combinations. The subjects are organised into learning fields.

What is a subject?
In an outcomes-based curriculum a subject has a specific body of academic knowledge that also integrates theory, skills and values. subjects are viewed as dynamic, always responding to new and diverse knowledge, and including knowledge that traditionally has been excluded from the formal curriculum.

A subject in an outcomes-based curriculum is broadly defined by Learning Outcomes, and not only by its body of content. In the South African context, the Learning Outcomes should, by design, lead to the achievement of the Critical and Developmental Outcomes. You can read more about this in the National Curriculum Statement Grades 10-12 (General) for a specific subject.

What are the nationally approved subjects that comply with the requirements of the NCS Grades 10-12 (General)?
The NCS Grades 10-12 (General) uses the twelve Organising Fields of the NQF (National Curriculum Framework) for organising and registration purposes.

Organising Fields of Learning	Subjects
Languages	Languages (fundamental)
Agriculture and Nature Conservation	Agricultural Management Practices; Agricultural Sciences; Agricultural Technology
Culture and Art	Dance Studies; Design; Dramatic Arts; Music; Visual Arts
Business, Commerce, and Management Sciences	Accounting; Business Studies; Economics
Communication Studies and Language	All official languages, and a number of non-official languages
Manufacturing, Engineering and Technology	Civil Technology; Electrical Technology; Mechanical Technology; Engineering Graphics and Design
Human and Social Sciences	Religion Studies; Geography; History; Life Orientation
Physical, Mathematical, Computer and Life and Sciences	Computer Applications Technology; Information Technology; Life Sciences; Mathematical Literacy; Mathematics and Physical Sciences
Services	Consumer Studies; Hospitality Studies; Tourism

What time allocations are given to the subjects?
27,5 hours of teaching contact time per week must be used as follows:

NCS (FET)
Grades 10-12
Subjects	Time allocation per week
Group A: Language (Home Language level)	4 hrs 30 mins
Group A: Language (Home or First Additional Language level) (LOLT)	4 hrs 30 mins
Group A: Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy	4 hrs 30 mins
Group A: Life Orientation	2 hrs
Group B (3 subjects x 4 hrs )	12 hrs
Total	27 hrs 30 mins

This policy will be effective from January 2006 in Grade 10, January 2007 in Grade 11 and January 2008 in Grade 12.

What type of qualification will successful learners receive at the end of Grade 12?
The successful learners will receive a 130-credit certificate at Level 4 on the NQF at the end of Grade 12. The first candidates of this new curriculum will receive the National Senior Certificate at the end of 2008.

What rules apply for subject combinations?
The approved subjects for the NSC are grouped in two main categories, Group A and Group B. A learner must select four subjects, namely two official languages, Mathematical Literacy or Mathematics, and Life Orientation from Group A, and a minimum of any three other subjects from Group B.

For more details refer to The National Senior Certificate: A qualification at Level 4 on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), Annexure B, that lists all the approved subjects for Groups A and B. The policy document also gives details on the entrance requirements, promotion requirements, the duration and general requirements, how learners may change subjects in Grades 10, 11 and 12, and provisos and concessions for the NSC.

What are the curriculum features and their functions?
The NCS has specific design features that aim to help teachers to develop their learners' knowledge, skills, values and attitudes. This will enable learners to take an active part in our changing economy and build our democracy.

Critical Outcomes (COs) and Developmental Outcomes (DOs)
The COs (7) and DOs (5) are very broad outcomes. They describe the kinds of understanding, skills and attitudes that the citizens of our new education and training system should aim to develop. Teachers should use these outcomes in their planning and teaching.

Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes are sets of statements based on the COs and DOs. They describe the result of teaching and learning for every subject. They are specific to a subject and describe what learners should know (concepts and knowledge), be able to do (skills) and be (attitudes and values) by the end of a phase. Learning Outcomes are defined in broad terms and are flexible, making allowances for the inclusion of local inputs.

Assessment Standards
Every Learning Outcome has a set of Assessment Standards for a specific grade. Assessment Standards are criteria. They describe the minimum levels of expected achievement that learners must be able to demonstrate at the end of a specific grade and they show the conceptual progression from grade to grade.

What do teachers need to plan?
Firstly, teachers need to plan what to teach and what learners will learn, do and be. Secondly, teachers need to plan how to assess their teaching and the learners' learning and progress. Thirdly, teachers need to plan recording and reporting on assessment records, how to manage these records and how to submit them for moderation.

1. How can teachers successfully plan for optimal teaching and learning?

Subject framework
Teachers need to plan the content of the subject and the progression which needs to take place across grades in Grades 10-12. This plan is called a subject framework. Teachers should clarify what the learners need to master at the end of Grade 12 by using the Learning Outcomes. They should also clarify what the learners need to demonstrate to show how they are mastering these outcomes by using the Assessment Standards. Next, the teachers then establish the conceptual progression across the grades in FET for that subject. Then the teachers identify the content, skills, attitudes and values to be addressed in each grade. Following that, the teachers identify a three-year plan of assessment for each grade in FET. It is also useful for teachers to identify the possible resources that will be best suited to the learning, teaching and assessment of that subject for each grade in FET.

Year plan
From the subject plan for the phase teachers create a year plan for each subject they teach in order to pace teaching and learning and to ensure all necessary work is covered in the allocated contact time. This broad year plan considers the number of school terms, school holidays, teaching weeks, examinations or formal test periods, public holidays and important dates specific to their school.

Work schedules
The teacher will use the subject plan and the year plan to develop a teaching, learning and assessment plan for a year for his or her class for a specific grade within FET. This year-long, grade-specific plan is called a work schedule. It sequences and paces teaching, learning and assessment for a particular grade.

Lesson plans
The teacher will draw directly from the work schedule to plan activities for individual learners, pairs or groups, using a lesson plan. This plan describes in detail the how of teaching, learning and assessment activities. The duration could range from a single activity to a term's plan and in terms of actual time, may last from a day to a week or a month.

Refer to the Learning Programme Guidelines for a specific subject for more details.

2. How can teachers successfully plan for assessment and excellent results?

Plan for assessment
Assessment in the National Curriculum Statement is an integral part of teaching and learning. For this reason assessment should be part of every lesson and teachers should plan assessment activities to complement learning activities.

This approach to assessment is called continuous assessment and involves assessment activities that are undertaken throughout the year, using various kinds of assessment forms, methods and tools. Continuous assessment comprises two different but related activities: informal daily assessment and a formal Programme of Assessment.

So, classroom assessment should be both informal and formal. Informal assessment is the daily monitoring of learners' progress. Essentially, informal assessment should be used to provide feedback to the learners.

This helps teachers and learners monitor progress on a day-to-day basis to ensure successful learning and teaching. In addition, teachers should plan for formal assessment, where they are required to develop a Programme of Assessment for each subject for each grade he or she teaches. This is an annual (year-long) plan of assessment that includes formal assessment tasks that have to be planned, executed, recorded and reported. The marks will determine whether the learners are promoted. Teachers must provide this formal annual (year-long) Programme of Assessment for each subject and grade to the subject head and School Management Team (SMT) before the start of the school year from 2007. Each Programme of Assessment consists of tasks undertaken during the school year and an end-of-year examination. The marks allocated to assessment tasks completed during the school year and the end-of-year examination marks have specific weighting per grade per subject.

The National Protocol on Assessment
This is a policy document released on 21 October 2005. The intention of this protocol is to regulate (standardise) how evidence of learner performance is recorded and reported, and to reduce teacher workload. The National Protocol is to be implemented from 2006 in all schools.

Subject Assessment Guidelines (Grades 10-12)
The Subject Assessment Guidelines (Grades 10-12) for the individual subjects offered in the schools' curriculum were released in September 2005 by the Department of Education. These documents indicate appropriate assessment tasks and forms of assessment for each subject and grade in FET to assess a variety of skills.

The Subject Assessment Guidelines (SAGs) should be used in conjunction with the relevant Subject Statements and Learning Programme Guidelines. The SAGs intend to give clear guidance on assessment in Grades 10-12. They should be used from 2006, planned to be field-tested during 2006 and the first half of 2007, and then be amended and become policy in 2008.

What more do we need to know about assessment in FET?
Learners in Grades 10 and 11 will be assessed internally according to the requirements as set out in the Subject Assessment Guidelines. The internal assessment mark allocated to assessment tasks completed during the school year will be 25% and the end-of-the-year assessment mark 75% of the total mark. The end-of-the-year assessment must consist of tasks that are internally set, marked and moderated, as specified in the Subject Assessment Guidelines.

There are specific requirements for formal assessment (the Programme of Assessment) for Grades 10-12, e.g. number of assessment tasks per subject for the Further Education and Training Band are set out below. Teachers may add to the number of assessment tasks, which must all be recorded.

Number of Formal Recorded Assessment Tasks for Grades 10-11 in schools:

Subject		Term 1	Term 2	term 3	Term 4	Total
Language 1: Home Language (HL)		5	5*	5	4*	19
Language 2: Choice of HL or FAL	HL	5	5*	5	4*	19
	FAL	4	4*	4	3*	15
Life Orientation		1	1	1	2	5
Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy		2	2*	2	2*	8
Subject choice 1		2	2*	2	1*	7
Subject choice 2		2	2*	2	1*	7
Subject choice 3		2	2*	2	1*	7

* One of these tasks must be an examination

Number of Formal Recorded Assessment Tasks for Grade 12 in schools:

Subject		Term 1	Term 2	Rerm 3	Term 4	Total
Language 1: Home Language		6	5*	5		17
Language 2: Choice of HL or FAL	HL	6	6*	5*		17
	FAL	5	5*	4*		14
Life Orientation		1	2	2		5
Mathematics or Mathematical Literacy		3	2*	2*		7
Subject choice 1		2	2*	(2*) 3*		(6#) 7*
Subject choice 2		2	2*	(2*) 3*		(6#) 7*
Subject choice 3		2	2*	(2*) 3*		(6#) 7*

* One of these tasks must be an examination
# The number of internal tasks per specific subject differs from 6 to 7 as specified in Section 3 of the Subject Assessment Guidelines.

Learners in Grade 12 will be assessed internally and externally according to the requirements as set out in the Subject Assessment Guidelines. The internal assessment mark allocated to assessment tasks completed during the school year will be 25% and will be externally moderated. The external end-of-the-year assessment mark will be 75% of the total mark. The end-of-the-year assessment will be externally set, marked and moderated. In certain subjects a practical assessment component may contribute 25% to the external component. Guidelines for the external examinations are provided in Section 3 of the Subject Assessment Guidelines.

3. How can teachers successfully plan for recording and reporting on assessment records?

Recording
Recording is a process in which the teacher documents the level of a learner's performance and progress towards the achievement of outcomes. The information recorded should:

• inform teachers and others about the performance of learners towards the achievement of the learning outcomes
• be used to provide constructive feedback to learners about their progress
• inform the planning of teaching and learning activities
• inform intervention strategies.

Reporting
Reporting is the process of communicating learner performance to learners, parents, schools and the other stakeholders. The main purpose of reporting is to:

• provide learners with regular feedback
• inform parent(s)/guardian(s) on the progress of the individual learner
• give information to schools and districts or regional offices on the current level of performance of learners.

The marks achieved in each assessment task in the formal Programme of Assessment must be recorded and included in formal reports to parents and School Management Teams. These marks will determine if the learners in Grade 10 and 11 are promoted. The internal assessment mark for Grade 12 counts 25% and the external assessment component counts 75% of the final assessment.

The formal assessment tasks should together cover all the Learning Outcomes and Assessment Standards of the subject. The design of these tasks should therefore ensure that a variety of skills are assessed.

Portfolios are used to record and report on progress. There are two sets of portfolios that should be kept by schools: teachers' portfolios and learners' portfolios. It is the responsibility of teachers to manage and maintain these portfolios. They have to ensure that the information in their portfolios is kept up to date, and to check that each learner maintains a portfolio. A learner is responsible to ensure the safety of her/his portfolio.

In both the teacher's and the learner's portfolio the recorded pieces of evidence from formal assessment should be clearly marked or indicated. These recorded pieces of evidence are the main source of information in determining progression or promotion of learners to the next grade.

Teacher's portfolio
A teacher's portfolio is a record of all the tasks for school-based assessment. This means that it is a collection of all the assessment tasks, the annual Programme of Assessment, subject record sheets, etc. The following should be included in the teacher's portfolio:

• a contents page
• the formal Programme of Assessment
• the requirements of each of the assessment tasks
• the tools used for assessment for each task
• recording sheets for each class.

Learner's portfolio
A learner's portfolio is a collection of evidence that exhibits to the learner and others the progress of the learner in achieving the expected outcomes in each subject.

All pieces of evidence will form part of the learner's portfolio. However, only the recorded pieces will be used to determine progression or promotion to the next grade. The pieces of evidence may be stored in files, folders, boxes, binders, exercise books, counter notebooks or a combination of these.

The learner's portfolio must consist of:

• a contents page
• all of the assessment tasks that make up the Programme of Assessment for each grade (including tests and examinations)
• the tools used for assessment for each task
• a record of marks achieved for each of the tasks.

However, if the products of the tasks are objects that do not fit into the portfolio or are in learners' exercise books then they should not be placed in the portfolio but be kept separately for moderation purposes.

The Oxford University Press Southern Africa series for Grades 10-12 are all planned according to the latest assessment requirements so that teachers and learners can confidently and successfully execute and record all required assessment tasks in their portfolios!

Teachers must report regularly and timeously to learners and parents on the progress of learners. Schools will determine the reporting mechanism but it could include written reports, parent-teacher interviews and parents' days.

Schools are required to give feedback to parents on the Programme of Assessment using a formal reporting tool. The codes and percentages for recording and reporting per subject in the FET have changed in 2005:

Interim	NC
Grades 10-12: 6-level code	Grades 10-12: 7-level code (wording also changed)

The reporting must use the following seven-point scale:

Rating code	Description of competence	Percentage
7	Outstanding achievement	80-100
6	Meritorious achievement	70-79
5	Substantial achievement	60-69
4	Adequate achievement	50-59
3	Moderate achievement	40-49
2	Elementary achievement	30-39
1	Not achieved	0-29

Management of school assessment records
To regulate recording and reporting, the school must keep various assessment records. The school management is responsible for the maintenance and the safety of these documents as well as for the record sheets, report cards, schedules and learner profiles.

Record aheets
Learning Outcomes should be used to inform the recording and reporting of learner performance. The Learning Outcomes assessed in each task should be indicated on the subject record sheet, and a combination of marks, codes and comments should be used. There are example record sheets in the National Protocol on Assessment, Annexure A.

The record sheets should be used to compile the Schedule that will in turn be used to compile report cards once a term.

Schedules
The Provincial Departments of Education are responsible for providing the Schedule forms that the schools must introduce. The Schedule is a record with summary information about the progress of all learners in the grade. Schedules should be completed four times a year. An example of a schedule is given in the Protocol on Assessment, Annexure C.

The Schedule should be considered a legal document. It should be used for drawing up reports and for reporting to parents and the education system on the overall progress of learners in each grade.

Report cards
The National Curriculum Statement (Grades R-12) states that formal report cards should be sent to parents once a term. The report cards must include an overall rating of a learner's performance in each subject. The achievement rating in a report card should be indicated by a combination of percentages, codes and comments. There are examples of report cards in the National Protocol on Assessment, Annexure B.

Learner profiles
The keeping of learner profiles by schools will be implemented incrementally starting in 2007 in Grade 10. The Provincial Departments of Education are responsible for providing schools with pre-printed files or folders for this purpose.

A learner profile is a continuous record of the learner's performance and achievement through his or her school career. It gives personal information and an all-round impression of a learner's progress, including the development of values, attitudes and social development. It assists the teacher in the next grade or school to understand the learner better, and therefore to respond appropriately to the learner.

The learner profile replaces all previous continuous record documents for learners that have been used by schools. Learner profiles should not be confused with portfolios.

How can schools plan for moderation of the assessment tasks in the Programme of Assessment?
Moderation of the assessment tasks should take place at three levels:

Level	Moderation requirements
School	The Programme of Assessment should be submitted to the subject head and School Management Team before the start of the academic year for moderation purposes. Each task that is to be used as part of the Programme of Assessment should be submitted to the subject head for moderation before learners attempt the task. The teacher and learner portfolios should be moderated twice a year by the head of the subject or her/his delegate. All Grade 10 and 11 tasks are internally moderated, while all Grade 12 tasks need to be externally moderated.
Cluster/district/region	Teacher portfolios and a sample of learner portfolios must be moderated twice during the first three terms.
Provincial/national	Teacher portfolios and a sample of learner portfolios must be moderated once a year.

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