All students will study

• Religious Education
• English
• Humanities & Social Sciences
• Mathematics
• Science
• Physical Education
• Health
• Japanese
• Digital Technology
• One Elective subject – Design & Technologies
• One Elective subject – Performing Arts
• One Elective subject – Visual Arts
• Two other Elective subjects

Students across all ability levels engage with the same core subjects from the Western Australian Curriculum. However, differentiation may occur in English and Mathematics, where classes may undertake tasks at varying levels of complexity to support diverse learning needs.

Each elective subject runs for one semester, and students are invited to indicate their preferences at the beginning of Term Three. Whilst the College makes every effort to accomodate students’ choices, there may be instances where this is not possible due to timetabling constraints or limited resources.

In accordance with guidelines from the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA), all students are required to undertake at least one elective from each of the following areas: Digital Technologies, Design and Technologies, Performing Arts, and Visual Arts.

All students will study

• Careers
• Leadership
• Mercy Heritage
• Organisation
• Social and Emotional Learning

Homework provides students with the opportunity to revise concepts, consolidate and reflect on learning, target areas needing support, and prepare for the next day’s learning. In Year Eight, most students should be completing about 45 minutes of homework or study each day.

Students explore information about people’s quest for belonging, acceptance and true happiness. They identify examples of how the Bible teaches about God, the universal need for God, and how people can deepen their relationships with God, themselves, each other, and creation.

They explore how early Church communities shared common stories about the life and teachings of Jesus. Students explore Gospel stories about Jesus and they identify features of the covenant relationships between God and the People of Israel. Students describe how Jesus established a New Covenant between God and all people and compare this New Covenant with the earlier covenants.

Students explain how the Catholic Church continues the work of Jesus to bring people into communion with God. They explore the Sacraments, identifying the signs, symbols and rituals, the presence of Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit, and how God’s grace and saving work is experienced.

In Year Eight, students interact with peers, teachers, individuals, groups, and community members in a range of face-to-face and virtual environments. They experience learning in familiar and unfamiliar contexts that relate to an array of contexts.

Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, interpret, evaluate, and perform a range of spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts including newspapers, magazines and digital texts, early adolescent novels, non-fiction, poetry, and dramatic performances. Students develop their understanding of how texts, including media texts, are influenced by context, purpose, and audience.

Literary texts that support and extend students in Year Eight as independent readers are drawn from a range of realistic, fantasy, speculative fiction and historical genres and involve some challenging and unpredictable plot sequences and a range of non-stereotypical characters. These texts explore themes of interpersonal relationships and ethical dilemmas within real-world and fictional settings and represent a variety of perspectives. Informative texts present technical and content information from various sources about specialised topics. Text structures are more complex including chapters, headings and subheadings, tables of contents, indexes, and glossaries.

Language features include successive complex sentences with embedded clauses, unfamiliar technical vocabulary, figurative and rhetorical language, and information supported by various types of graphics.

Students create a range of imaginative, informative and persuasive types of texts, and continue to create literary analyses and transformations of texts.

English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) learners are those whose first language is a language or dialect other than Standard Australian English (SAE), which is the variety of spoken and written English used formally in Australian schools. While EAL/D learners bring with them a wealth of knowledge, understandings, and values from their own culture to a classroom, they require additional support to assist them to develop proficiency in SAE.

The EAL/D teaching, learning and assessment model shows how various building blocks interconnect to scaffold the language teaching process and to embed the students’ language development in SAE. With repeated practice, new learning becomes integrated and language development continues to progress as it becomes more complex.

The English as an Additional Language/Dialect (EAL/D) Progress Map is the Western Australian planning, monitoring and assessment tool for all students requiring support in developing Standard Australian English (SAE) who come from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds whether arriving from overseas or born in Australia, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

The purpose of the EAL/D Progress Map is to:

• describe student progress across listening, speaking, reading, and viewing and writing modes in four phases of schooling – early childhood, middle childhood, early adolescence, and late adolescence
• acknowledge the existing language skills and abilities of EAL/D students
• provide an effective and valid means of reporting EAL/D student proficiency in SAE. EAL/D progress Map – Secondary

In Year Eight, students develop increasing independence in critical thinking and skill application, which includes questioning, researching, analysing, evaluating, communicating, and reflecting. They apply these skills to investigate events, developments, issues, and phenomena, both historical and contemporary.

In Civics and Citizenship students investigate the types of law in Australia and how they are made. They consider the responsibilities and freedoms of citizens, and how Australians can actively participate in their democracy. Students explore the different perspectives of Australian identity.

In Economics and Business, students consider how markets work and the rights, responsibilities and opportunities that arise for businesses, consumers, and governments. Work and work futures are explored as students consider the influences on the way people work now and consider how people will work in the future. Students focus on national and regional issues.

In Geography, the concepts of place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, and change continue to be developed as a way of thinking and provide students with the opportunity to inquire into the significance of landscapes to people and the spatial change in the distribution of populations. They apply this understanding to a wide range of local and global places and environments.

In History, students investigate within the historical context of the end of the ancient period to the beginning of the modern period, c. 650 AD (CE) – 1750 AD (CE). They consider how societies changed, what key beliefs and values emerged, and the causes and effects of contact between societies in this period.

The proficiency strands understanding, fluency, problemsolving and reasoning are an integral part of mathematics content across the three content strands: number and algebra, measurement and geometry, and statistics and probability. The proficiencies reinforce the significance of working mathematically within the content and describe how the content is explored or developed. They provide the language to build in the developmental aspects of the learning of mathematics.

At this year level:
Understanding includes describing patterns involving indices and recurring decimals, identifying commonalities between operations with algebra and arithmetic, connecting rules for linear relations with their graphs, explaining the purpose of statistical measures and explaining measurements of perimeter and area.

Fluency includes calculating accurately with simple decimals, indices, and integers; recognising equivalence of common decimals and fractions including recurring decimals; factorising and simplifying basic algebraic expressions and evaluating perimeters and areas of common shapes and volumes of three-dimensional objects.

Problem-solving includes formulating and modelling practical situations involving ratios, profit and loss, areas and perimeters of common shapes and using two-way tables and Venn diagrams to calculate probabilities.

Reasoning includes justifying the result of a calculation or estimation as reasonable, deriving probability from its complement, using congruence to deduce properties of triangles, finding estimates of means and proportions of populations.

In Year Eight, students are introduced to cells as microscopic structures that explain macroscopic properties of living systems. They link form and function at a cellular level and explore the organisation of body systems.

Similarly, they explore changes in matter at a particle level, predict the properties and behaviours of substances and distinguish between chemical and physical change. They begin to classify different forms of energy and describe the role of energy in causing change in systems. They develop their understanding of the Earth being subject to change within and on its surface through studying the rock cycle.

Students use experimentation to isolate relationships between components in systems and explain these relationships through increasingly complex representations. They make predictions and propose explanations, drawing on evidence to support their views while considering other points of view.

In Year Eight, students focus on further developing understanding and skills in computational thinking. Students engage with a wide range of information systems as they broaden their experiences and involvement in national, regional, and global activities. They have opportunities to create interactive web applications or simulations of relationships between objects in the real world.

Students investigate the properties of networked systems and their suitability and use for the transmission of data types. They acquire, analyse, visualise, and evaluate various types of data, and the complexities of storing and transmitting that data in digital systems. Students use structured data to model objects and events that shape the communities they actively engage with. They further develop their understanding of the vital role that data plays in their lives, and how the data and related systems define and are limited by technical, environmental, economic, and social constraints.

Students further develop abstractions, identifying common elements, while decomposing apparently different problems and systems to define requirements; and recognise that abstractions hide irrelevant details for purposes. When defining problems, students identify the key elements of the problems and the factors and constraints at play. They design increasingly complex algorithms that allow data to be manipulated automatically and explore different ways of showing the relationship between data elements to help computation. They progress from designing the user interface, to considering user experience factors, such as user expertise, accessibility, and usability requirements.

Students have opportunities to plan and manage projects. They consider ways of managing the exchange of ideas, tasks and files, and techniques for monitoring progress and feedback. When communicating and collaborating online, students develop an understanding of different social contexts.

In Health, students further examine changes to their identity and ways to manage them. They continue to develop and refine decision-making skills and apply them to a range of situations, as well as in online environments. They investigate health-promotion activities that aim to improve the health and wellbeing of young people and continue to develop critical health literacy skills, including the ability to distinguish between credible and less credible sources of health information.

The Health and Physical Education curriculum provides opportunities for students to develop, enhance and exhibit attitudes and values that promote a healthy lifestyle.

In Health, students further examine changes to their identity and ways to manage them. They continue to develop and refine decision-making skills and apply them to a range of situations, as well as in online environments. They investigate health-promotion activities that aim to improve the health and wellbeing of young people and continue to develop critical health literacy skills, including the ability to distinguish between credible and less credible sources of health information.

In Physical Education, students continue to broaden their repertoire of specialised movement skills and knowledge of sophisticated tactical thinking skills, and apply these to an expanding array of physical activity contexts. They build on skills to analyse their own and others’ performance and use basic terminology and concepts to describe movement patterns and suggest ways to improve performance outcomes.

Students continue to reflect on, and refine, personal and social skills that support inclusive participation and fair play, and contribute to positive team cohesion.

The Health and Physical Education curriculum provides opportunities for students to develop, enhance and exhibit attitudes and values that promote a healthy lifestyle.

The Languages curriculum for Western Australia providesthe basis of the Languages program. All students study a Language subject in Year Eight.

The study of a language aims to develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to ensure that students:

• communicate in the target language
• extend their literacy repertoires
• understand language, culture, learning and their relationship, and thereby develop an intercultural capability in communication
• develop understanding of and respect for diversity and difference, and an openness to different experiences and perspectives
• develop an understanding of how culture shapes worldviews and extend their understanding of themselves, their own heritage, values, culture, and identity
• strengthen their intellectual, analytical, and reflective capabilities, and enhance their creative and critical thinking skills
• understand themselves as communicators.