The ability to design, make, acquire, and apply skills and technologies is important in the world today and key in the education of citizens for the future. The Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies (ADST) curriculum is an experiential, hands-on program of learning through design and creation that includes skills and concepts from traditional and First Peoples practice; from the existing disciplines of Business Education, Home Economics and Culinary Arts, Information and Communications Technology, and Technology Education; and from new and emerging fields. It fosters the development of the skills and knowledge that will support students in developing practical, creative, and innovative responses to everyday needs and challenges.
Business affects the daily lives of all people, as they work, spend, save, invest, travel, and play. Business influences career choices, incomes, and opportunities for personal enterprise and development. Therefore, students must be prepared to engage in business activity with confidence and competence. Students should familiarize themselves with the skills that are required in the business environment and the impact these skills can have on their own lives and on society. Business Education courses include: Marketing and Entrepreneurship 10; Accounting 11; Financial Accounting 12; Economics 12, Entrepreneurship 12.
English Language Arts is a foundational curriculum that equips students with the language and literacy skills they will need for success in school, community, career, and life. It provides students with the opportunity to become effective communicators, to develop and express their own ideas, and to think deeply and critically about the ideas of others. Through their study of language and texts, students have opportunities to develop a lifelong love of reading, writing, and learning and an appreciation for the power, beauty, joy, and artistry of language and texts.
Arts Education is founded on the artistic habits of mind – explore and create, reason and reflect, communicate and document, and connect and expand. Students investigate artistic elements, processes, and techniques using a range of materials, tools, and environments, and they learn to honour and respect cultural protocols. Students also develop creative ways to communicate emotions, thoughts, meanings, and concepts through the arts, and they learn to respond to knowledge and perspectives that are embedded in language, movement, memory, image, symbol, and story. Each of the four core art disciplines (dance, drama, music, and visual arts) offers students opportunities to deepen their understanding of self, community, cultures (their own and others’), and the world. And, through exposure to all of the arts, students build a greater understanding in all areas of learning and have the chance to apply their knowledge and worldviews in different contexts. The Arts Education curriculum provides an essential way for all students to express and understand meaning, while also challenging them to engage in dynamic ways of creating, thinking, and problem solving.
Through the study of mathematics, students learn how to make accurate, informed, and ethical choices relating to the collection, analysis, and presentation of data. They learn how to make sound inferences and decisions through their experiences with problem solving in situational contexts. Throughout the Mathematics curriculum, students foster a strong numeracy foundation that is applicable in all areas of their lives.
Physical and Health Education (PHE) is designed to develop educated citizens who have the knowledge, skills, and understandings needed to be safe, active, and healthy citizens throughout their lives. PHE is linked to personal awareness and responsibility core competencies which address skills, strategies and dispositions that help students to stay healthy and active, set goals, monitor progress, regulate emotions, respect their own rights and the rights of others, manage stress and persevere in difficult situations.
Science provides opportunities for us to better understand the natural world. Through science, we ask questions and seek answers to grow our collective scientific knowledge. We continually revise and refine our knowledge as we acquire new evidence. While maintaining our respect for evidence, we are aware that our scientific knowledge is provisional and is influenced by our culture, values, and ethics. Linking traditional and contemporary First Peoples understandings and current scientific knowledge enables us to make meaningful connections with our everyday lives and the world beyond.
An informed citizen understands key historical, geographical, political, economic, and societal concepts, and how these different factors relate to and interact with each other. Students must build deep understandings and create their own knowledge through investigations into interesting, open-ended questions, debating and discussing historical and contemporary issues, and developing and supporting their own hypotheses, solutions, and conclusions. Social Studies offers students the opportunities to build those understandings and knowledge. It draws on topics from disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, primarily history, geography, political science, and economics and psychology.
