Hey everyone, welcome to the Learning Network, you're with Kelly Bell. Today I'm going to take you through understanding a little bit more about community and family studies and hopefully dispel some of the myths that you've heard about our course. This has been designed for PDHPE and TAS head teachers and coordinators as well as schools thinking about offering CAFs for the very first time.
If you're a year 10 student who's also considering taking CAFs into year 11 this is also designed for you. for you guys. If you're a year 11 CAF student who is just about to embark on your journey, or if you're a CAFs newbie, a CAFs teacher in your first couple of years of teaching, this also might be suitable for you. It's really hard to put into words how I feel about this course.
It's been part of my life for 16 years. And it's really hard to really talk about what it is in a nutshell. But hopefully today I'm going to share a little bit about our course.
The course first and foremost is about building positive relationships. Relationships that are built within your classroom is amazing. The relationships that grow and develop over the time with your CAFS crew is second to none and the students are also able to build really important relationships with their peers but also within their own families and communities.
CAFS is a stage six course offered in year 11 and year 12. It is based on two 120-hour courses and they're also board developed. They're a Category A course which also contribute to an ATAR. We also have a Life Skills course as well in Community and Family Studies.
In Year 11, we have three core modules at the student study and in Year 12, we have three cores as well as well as an option. The Year 12 students also undertake what's called an IRP and that's called an Independent Research Project. In Year 12, we also have our CAF's HAC examination and that's a three-hour paper.
with five minutes reading time and two sections. Section one is part A which is multiple choice and part B is our 55 marks short answer section. These are based on our core concepts in CAFs and our core modules.
Our section two is also comprising of our option which is 25 marks. CAFs stem from our K-6 PDHPE course as well as our 7-10 PE course. as well as some touch points in our Year 9 and 10 Child Studies courses.
The connections that are made within our course have significant effect on our students, not just across our course itself, but the concepts that students learn within the course. So why do I actually study Community and Family Studies? CAFS is about life and the links that students have with their own life within this course are life-changing. The concepts that students learn are all about themselves where they fit within their own family and their community and within groups but also about those other individuals and groups within our community. Students learn about themselves, about how they can enhance their well-being, how can they possibly can gain that balance back but also how they can contribute to their own community.
Students also learn about advocating for other people and really making a contribution to the wider community. The application that the students make to their own lives is so important here and they can have lots of touch points along the way within our course. The discussions that are had within our class are rich, robust discussions that the students can delve a little bit deeper into some of the main concepts that we discover in CAFs.
So what's gained from actually studying CAFs? The knowledge, skills and the future that the students are able to delve into. have amazing benefits for the kids. So being able to become a responsible citizen in their community but also being a mindful family member as well.
Students also gain really important skills within our course that they can take into their own life in their future and also in their career pathway. And really, CAFs is the one subject that I really often think that links to their life. They can have lots of different connections across the course.
The things that they learn in CAFs they will never ever forget. This future connection is paramount in lots of discussions I've had with my past students. I might see them at the shops or in other places and they talk about CAFs still to this day. All right, so what do you actually study in Community and Family Studies?
So concepts like well-being, resources, needs and wants, family types, roles and changes, community levels, roles, as well as changes within communities and the support that community members might need. Things like socialisation, group dynamics, leadership and conflict, as well as some key research methodologies that are embedded in Tier 11. That then stems into Year 12 concepts when we study research methodology and the IRP within that. The students also delve a little bit deeper into parenting and caring as well as group diversity, equity and support.
Things like advocacy are also paramount in our course. When we study the options we have a look at the impact of technology on our lifestyle, we also have a look at some workplace issues and rights and responsibilities and also the legislative and community support available for different individuals and groups. The skills that the students learn are lifelong.
And that's pretty rare in a course. So students learn things like managing resources, conflict resolution, problem solving, leadership, communication, decision making, key research skills, empathy building, advocacy, using technology safely, as well as the support that they can provide for themselves and other people. And these again are very rare in our courses.
It's not a maths formula. It's not a scientific equation. It's really about life and the students are very, very lucky to take this course and to be able to apply these concepts into their wider life. So let's have a little explore about what is involved in the course. As I mentioned before, Year 11 consists of three core modules and these are mandatory.
So resource management, which is the foundational unit within Year 11, individuals and groups, families and communities. In Year 12, we look at three core modules again. research methodology with that IRP in there. We also have groups in context and we have parenting and caring.
We also have an option that the students can choose and that's often based on the strengths of the teacher or possibly the choice of students. Here is our common grade scale and our performance descriptors for Year 11 and 12 CAFs. You'll notice that this particular common grade scale has lots of important connections.
with extensive knowledge of content and the understanding of that. The application is really important here, so developing those highly developed skills and being able to effectively communicate those is paramount. Students in Year 12 have to have extensive knowledge and understanding of a range of different societal influences. The application to the content is important, that prediction, that providing really clear strategies, using lots of examples, proposing different ideas.
is really what the course is about in Year 12. And obviously the students have to be able to write. Having that really logical and cohesive answer, as well as using appropriate terminology, is really important in the course. The key skills that the students develop are lifelong, future focus skills, things like discussion, being able to sustain an argument within a classroom, really robust and rich discussions, being able to collaborate with their classmates and their teacher. analysing data, so looking at trends and statistics from ABS, but also possibly predicting the future of those trends.
Looking at research skills and actually doing hands-on research. Critical thinking and application is really important as we're looking at scenarios and case studies and how our content might relate to that, as well as writing. They need to have really good written skills.
And CAFs is about life and I think We're really, really lucky to be able to offer this course to our students and the conversations that are had in our classrooms are life-changing. CAFS has changed my life as a person but it's also changed my life as a teacher. What I've learned about myself and about other people in other groups has really completely changed the way I think about other people.
The advocacy and that acceptance that I've learned in our CAFS classroom is very different to what I would experience in any other course. The learning opportunities that the students will gain from this are tenfold, so application of research, analysing different case studies or possibly watching some really key documentaries, team building, group work, different leadership opportunities that they might be able to be offered within the course, project-based learning, analysing data, exploring trends, also doing some advocacy work possibly or volunteering for different organisations. Often the direction the students have who take CAFs is in this area.
So again, connecting with students who possibly go into university or TAFE or in the workplace often have a connection to our CAFs course. So I'm talking about things like working in welfare, health promotion, counselling, psychology, sociology, teaching, nursing, policing, community services, possibly working for the government advocacy roles. And also, if they're thinking about becoming a parent one day down the track, or if they're faced with the caring experience they can actually apply their content knowledge of CAFs in their own life.
Again this is so rare in a course in our schools. I really hope you're able to make a really positive choice about taking CAFs or offering CAFs at your school. As I mentioned CAFs is life-changing for many students and for many teachers and you will not regret at all offering CAFs at your school or Taking the course for yourself.
The impact CAFS will have on your life, when you sit back and reflect, and after teaching it for 16 years, I'm able to do that now, to think how grateful and how lucky that I chose CAFS. I was a fresh-faced 23-year-old when I first took CAFS as a course. I didn't take it as a student. I took CAFS in my first year of teaching, and I've never looked back.
I absolutely love it. I know there's many, many CAFS teachers out there. who are completely passionate and dedicated to this course. Okay the reality is real there is a perception about our course not being as rigorous as what it should be and let me tell you now after all of my experience in the CAFS world it is rigorous it is life-changing the discussions that I had in that classroom are so important for our kids the perceptions that people have about the course need to be dispelled and if you're thinking about taking CAFS don't listen to your friends or your parents or your teachers. CAFS is a really great course and you'll absolutely love it.
The CAFS course connects our past with our past experiences, our culture, our heritage, our background to our present and what we can really do to shift our current understanding about different groups and individuals, but how can then possibly develop other people in our life and look at the future. And CAFS generally is about life. and I feel so grateful that this came into my own life.
So if you have any questions about the course please don't hesitate to reach out. Of course you can head over to the NESA website to gain all the information about the syllabus but if you're wanting to chat to someone who has lived and breathed it for a really long time I'd really love to hear from you. You can find me at thelearnet.com or you can head over to Facebook at thelearnetwork. If you're on Instagram I'm at thelearnet. And if you're a CAFS teacher, I'd really love you to join our free Facebook group.
And if you're thinking about offering CAFS for the first time at your school, I'd really love to be able to help you do that. So you can reach out to me and join me in one of my CAFS coaching and mentoring sessions. And my email is kellyatthelonet.com. Good luck guys, and welcome to the world of CAFS.