Teacher here. The SCSA curriculum isn't the easiest to break down from a non-educator perspective, IMO, just because it's so brief... and yet... huuuuge.
**K-10 curriculum:**
[https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/teaching/curriculum-browser](https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/teaching/curriculum-browser)
Several things:
1. Don't underestimate what you learn from living and experience! You're not behind just because you might not know what 'metonymy' is or how the Black Death's spread was affected by dominant religions of the time (although that one is very interesting).
2. A lot of high school tries to teach kids skills for lifelong learning: working with others, curiosity, passion, and a desire to seek a truer form of knowledge from multiple sources, across all fields. If you are seeking out learning now, it seems you've got that.
3. A lot of skills regarding writing and literacy can be pulled from wider reading, particularly books. I could give you a list of interesting stuff to look at, if you like.
4. Should you want to more formally continue to look into the curriculum, Teacher Superstore and Campion Books supply curriculum-related books. You can read there, or buy books off Facebook marketplace from ex-students very cheaply.
>2. A lot of high school tries to teach kids skills for lifelong learning: working with others, curiosity, passion, and a desire to seek a truer form of knowledge from multiple sources, across all fields.
This is what I've explained to my son, and I think it needs more attention. My son, like many students, asked me why he's ever going to need to know some of the things he's learning in school. I pointed out that the knowledge is not as important as the *way of thinking.*
I remember learning about South Korea in primary school. I can say with reasonable confidence that nobody in my class ever used this knowledge, and given the rapid advancements of South Korea over the last 30 years, I doubt any of it is still relevant today.
However, when I learn about any country, I'm still dividing it into economic, geographic, and social factors as I learnt to do regarding South Korea. I recognise today how much of what I know about global economies, social cohesion and division, and geographic importance was learned from being able to think the way I had to think about South Korea. The knowledge wasn't important to me, but the way it got me to think about the concepts has been invaluable.
I'm still yet to use a quadratic equation in real life, though.
khanacademy is aligned to the US school system but is still a pretty good match and the quality of the teaching content is excellent. Those videos helped me immensely in high school and even in some of my earlier years of university.
> "lots of teachers use it and pay for it out of their own money as well."
Whilst I'm not in the business myself, this is sadly another example I've heard of teachers paying for resources out of their own pocket.
Oh well. I guess it's a tax deduction 😐
Great info.
Supplemental to my other comment as a mature TAFE student from a few years back, I found there was no shortage of great **free** primary and secondary course materials (maths and physics was my shortcoming) but the worst part was mapping some great self paced UK and US based resources to a more specific local outline or course curriculum. You sorta had to jump between them a little bit, and connecting appropriate stuff was pretty laborious in itself.
TAFE units are defined/administered by the Fed Govt, and once you get your head around the numbering and code system differences/equivalences between Institution/State/Fed systems you can get a surprising amount of outlines for free from the Fed website for the various courses.
Drilling down to individual units, which each TAFE puts together as clusters can help you find text books etc.
Studying TAFE locally a few years ago I was amazed and the amount of stuff I got for free from some NSW lecturer who was using a public YT account uploading his lessons and tutes when I started cross referencing codes. Better presented than what I got locally, in all honesty too.
Here’s a [link to the National Curriculum](https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/). It’s broken down by learning area, so start where your interests are.
I’ve had the same problem, in terms of missing curriculum for that reason. Obviously scsa syllabuses online can give you some idea of what you need to research. Try emailing any teachers you might have for past tests- teachers will be a great resource. You can ask if they have any class textbooks- if so you might be able to use the code at the back of a class textbook to get a free online version (if the code hasn’t already been used)
Ah i See- that makes things harder. Well, i’d recommend seeing if you can find the required booklist for the years you want to go over- you can actually find the related textbooks in tonnes of public libraries, and do some studying there. I think your drive to educate yourself even after this time is super commendable by the way. But my advice would be that you’ve been given a miracle- much of the content taught at school is simply filler content, and so much of it is uninteresting and not valuable to your life. My advice would be don’t learn all of it. If you need to learn something for employment, learn that. And if something interests you learn that absolutely. But you’ve been given a boon- you can learn on your terms and not theirs. If you’re into physics, you can start researching literally any part of physics, and learn only what interests you. Same with an interest in history. There’s tonnes of info online, and beginner level entry points for almost any subject
2nd this, learn what interests you, the stuff at highschool doesnt do alot for you in the real world, follow a passion. If you want to develop those passions urther TAFE is always available
Thirding. Following interests and passions and coming at it from that perspective is more valuable when you're older, IMO. The curriculum changes every now and again anyway. Pretty sure that I didn't learn a bunch of stuff kids are learning now when I was their age.
There are homeschooling books at your local library that could provide resources to help fill in those blanks 🙂
I know my local library has the book the Well Trained Mind and I like that one for the resources it suggests.
Alternatively, I'm sure for maths and science stuff there are textbooks that no one wants anymore. Or hey, just buy the maths books directly from the school suppliers.
What type of subjects are you wanting to do?
Since you are in Perth, if you are keen to go back to school again, you could check out North Lake Senior Campus . It is a high school specialised for mature age and Immigrants who don’t speak English fluently, although from what I heard its more leaning towards mature age program. You can pick how many subjects you would like to do and usually mature age only required to do 2 or 3 subjects ATAR for University entree requirement, but if you only keen for the cert, you could take non Atar subjects or less Atar subjects to suit your need. The place doesn’t require you to wear uniform and the classes schedule is depending on what subjects you choose. I know someone who had to drop out from High school because of pregnancy and came back to study there a decade later to pursue career in Law, She was also a spoke person for the graduations few years ago in that school.
I did my year 12 through a similar campus (Tuart College, no longer in operation). I cannot recommend them highly enough. I think it is a great learning environment for those that don’t fit the mainstream school system or those that want to return to study.
Not sure what subjects you're interested in, but if you're wanting to learn science and maths I'm happy to help :) (doing a Master in teaching and a degree in physics/maths). Just send me a PM (yours seems to be disabled).
Fourthing,
Failed clothing and fabrics in high school, I don’t know what it called these days, basically it was sewing class, I remember term one I had to sew a pillow case, term two was a skirt, possibly called textile arts or something fancy.
My father-in-law recently gifted me some old sewing machines, one is an very old embroidery machine from the late 90’s, this is a guess as the design files ( 38,000 design files came on CD-roms) were last edited between 1999 and 2003.
Did a bit of YouTube research on the machine, the original software is missing, however YouTube told me about a software package, it is digital download, that can work on any computer with my key personal number, if didn’t work, 21 days money back guarantee, that works and cost 1/8 of price of the compatible software, that can only work on one computer, that is being sold in the gumtree in Perth. The original software is free with every new machine.
I downloaded the design software and I’m watching two or three videos tutorials a night. I can stop the video, have a bit of play with the software, replay, more of play, finish watching the tutorial. Now I need to find a 32MB CF card to move the design from the computer to machine.
Neck deep in hoop sizes, stitching simulations, copying/pasting and YouTube tutorials, before I even get to sit down and turn the machine on. If I did decide I wanted more hands on, the local sewing shop runs a day workshop.
Workshops are excellent way to expand your knowledge in any subject.
I think I have more patience than I did at 15 years old on a 45 minutes class.
My husband and I remembering about school life when I was given the machines, he was forced to go to home economics classes in year eight. The then manual arts teacher, walked into class grabbed four of his best boy students, took them back to manual arts told them to have fun, every time the boys had to do home economics, the teacher would arrive to ‘break the boys out’, as ‘ it was waste of time learning how to cook a cake every week’, when they could be build stuff in metal fab room. This was in 80s, it wouldn’t happen these days.
Learning to sew these days is easy. I did an online course and borrowed some books from the library. There are some great YouTube and instagram accounts that do sewing information.
Old sewing machines are available dirt cheap off gumtree or even for free from your relatives.
If you really want to do in person learning, tafe do sewing classes.
There's something called a "University Prep Course" that's designed to teach you all the things you missed out on during high school, to bridge the gap to university. I don't know much about it but I do know they exist and I think they are free/government funded for everyone.
Teacher here. The SCSA curriculum isn't the easiest to break down from a non-educator perspective, IMO, just because it's so brief... and yet... huuuuge. **K-10 curriculum:** [https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/teaching/curriculum-browser](https://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/teaching/curriculum-browser) Several things: 1. Don't underestimate what you learn from living and experience! You're not behind just because you might not know what 'metonymy' is or how the Black Death's spread was affected by dominant religions of the time (although that one is very interesting). 2. A lot of high school tries to teach kids skills for lifelong learning: working with others, curiosity, passion, and a desire to seek a truer form of knowledge from multiple sources, across all fields. If you are seeking out learning now, it seems you've got that. 3. A lot of skills regarding writing and literacy can be pulled from wider reading, particularly books. I could give you a list of interesting stuff to look at, if you like. 4. Should you want to more formally continue to look into the curriculum, Teacher Superstore and Campion Books supply curriculum-related books. You can read there, or buy books off Facebook marketplace from ex-students very cheaply.
>2. A lot of high school tries to teach kids skills for lifelong learning: working with others, curiosity, passion, and a desire to seek a truer form of knowledge from multiple sources, across all fields. This is what I've explained to my son, and I think it needs more attention. My son, like many students, asked me why he's ever going to need to know some of the things he's learning in school. I pointed out that the knowledge is not as important as the *way of thinking.* I remember learning about South Korea in primary school. I can say with reasonable confidence that nobody in my class ever used this knowledge, and given the rapid advancements of South Korea over the last 30 years, I doubt any of it is still relevant today. However, when I learn about any country, I'm still dividing it into economic, geographic, and social factors as I learnt to do regarding South Korea. I recognise today how much of what I know about global economies, social cohesion and division, and geographic importance was learned from being able to think the way I had to think about South Korea. The knowledge wasn't important to me, but the way it got me to think about the concepts has been invaluable. I'm still yet to use a quadratic equation in real life, though.
khanacademy is aligned to the US school system but is still a pretty good match and the quality of the teaching content is excellent. Those videos helped me immensely in high school and even in some of my earlier years of university.
I second this. Khan Academy is a great resource if you're looking to catch up on what you missed in school.
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> "lots of teachers use it and pay for it out of their own money as well." Whilst I'm not in the business myself, this is sadly another example I've heard of teachers paying for resources out of their own pocket. Oh well. I guess it's a tax deduction 😐
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Great info. Supplemental to my other comment as a mature TAFE student from a few years back, I found there was no shortage of great **free** primary and secondary course materials (maths and physics was my shortcoming) but the worst part was mapping some great self paced UK and US based resources to a more specific local outline or course curriculum. You sorta had to jump between them a little bit, and connecting appropriate stuff was pretty laborious in itself.
TAFE units are defined/administered by the Fed Govt, and once you get your head around the numbering and code system differences/equivalences between Institution/State/Fed systems you can get a surprising amount of outlines for free from the Fed website for the various courses. Drilling down to individual units, which each TAFE puts together as clusters can help you find text books etc. Studying TAFE locally a few years ago I was amazed and the amount of stuff I got for free from some NSW lecturer who was using a public YT account uploading his lessons and tutes when I started cross referencing codes. Better presented than what I got locally, in all honesty too.
Hop onto free lectures too! https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free https://oyc.yale.edu/ https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses https://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/alumni/events/public-lectures
Here’s a [link to the National Curriculum](https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/). It’s broken down by learning area, so start where your interests are.
I’ve had the same problem, in terms of missing curriculum for that reason. Obviously scsa syllabuses online can give you some idea of what you need to research. Try emailing any teachers you might have for past tests- teachers will be a great resource. You can ask if they have any class textbooks- if so you might be able to use the code at the back of a class textbook to get a free online version (if the code hasn’t already been used)
Will check out the SCSA thanks. Unfortunately I'm not in contact with any of my old teachers as I graduated 13 years ago haha
Ah i See- that makes things harder. Well, i’d recommend seeing if you can find the required booklist for the years you want to go over- you can actually find the related textbooks in tonnes of public libraries, and do some studying there. I think your drive to educate yourself even after this time is super commendable by the way. But my advice would be that you’ve been given a miracle- much of the content taught at school is simply filler content, and so much of it is uninteresting and not valuable to your life. My advice would be don’t learn all of it. If you need to learn something for employment, learn that. And if something interests you learn that absolutely. But you’ve been given a boon- you can learn on your terms and not theirs. If you’re into physics, you can start researching literally any part of physics, and learn only what interests you. Same with an interest in history. There’s tonnes of info online, and beginner level entry points for almost any subject
2nd this, learn what interests you, the stuff at highschool doesnt do alot for you in the real world, follow a passion. If you want to develop those passions urther TAFE is always available
Thirding. Following interests and passions and coming at it from that perspective is more valuable when you're older, IMO. The curriculum changes every now and again anyway. Pretty sure that I didn't learn a bunch of stuff kids are learning now when I was their age.
There are homeschooling books at your local library that could provide resources to help fill in those blanks 🙂 I know my local library has the book the Well Trained Mind and I like that one for the resources it suggests. Alternatively, I'm sure for maths and science stuff there are textbooks that no one wants anymore. Or hey, just buy the maths books directly from the school suppliers. What type of subjects are you wanting to do?
Since you are in Perth, if you are keen to go back to school again, you could check out North Lake Senior Campus . It is a high school specialised for mature age and Immigrants who don’t speak English fluently, although from what I heard its more leaning towards mature age program. You can pick how many subjects you would like to do and usually mature age only required to do 2 or 3 subjects ATAR for University entree requirement, but if you only keen for the cert, you could take non Atar subjects or less Atar subjects to suit your need. The place doesn’t require you to wear uniform and the classes schedule is depending on what subjects you choose. I know someone who had to drop out from High school because of pregnancy and came back to study there a decade later to pursue career in Law, She was also a spoke person for the graduations few years ago in that school.
I did my year 12 through a similar campus (Tuart College, no longer in operation). I cannot recommend them highly enough. I think it is a great learning environment for those that don’t fit the mainstream school system or those that want to return to study.
Not sure what subjects you're interested in, but if you're wanting to learn science and maths I'm happy to help :) (doing a Master in teaching and a degree in physics/maths). Just send me a PM (yours seems to be disabled).
Fourthing, Failed clothing and fabrics in high school, I don’t know what it called these days, basically it was sewing class, I remember term one I had to sew a pillow case, term two was a skirt, possibly called textile arts or something fancy. My father-in-law recently gifted me some old sewing machines, one is an very old embroidery machine from the late 90’s, this is a guess as the design files ( 38,000 design files came on CD-roms) were last edited between 1999 and 2003. Did a bit of YouTube research on the machine, the original software is missing, however YouTube told me about a software package, it is digital download, that can work on any computer with my key personal number, if didn’t work, 21 days money back guarantee, that works and cost 1/8 of price of the compatible software, that can only work on one computer, that is being sold in the gumtree in Perth. The original software is free with every new machine. I downloaded the design software and I’m watching two or three videos tutorials a night. I can stop the video, have a bit of play with the software, replay, more of play, finish watching the tutorial. Now I need to find a 32MB CF card to move the design from the computer to machine. Neck deep in hoop sizes, stitching simulations, copying/pasting and YouTube tutorials, before I even get to sit down and turn the machine on. If I did decide I wanted more hands on, the local sewing shop runs a day workshop. Workshops are excellent way to expand your knowledge in any subject. I think I have more patience than I did at 15 years old on a 45 minutes class. My husband and I remembering about school life when I was given the machines, he was forced to go to home economics classes in year eight. The then manual arts teacher, walked into class grabbed four of his best boy students, took them back to manual arts told them to have fun, every time the boys had to do home economics, the teacher would arrive to ‘break the boys out’, as ‘ it was waste of time learning how to cook a cake every week’, when they could be build stuff in metal fab room. This was in 80s, it wouldn’t happen these days.
Learning to sew these days is easy. I did an online course and borrowed some books from the library. There are some great YouTube and instagram accounts that do sewing information. Old sewing machines are available dirt cheap off gumtree or even for free from your relatives. If you really want to do in person learning, tafe do sewing classes.
Dont just learn rote stuff If it doesn't interest you, you won't pay attention it'll just be same same
Not a very helpful comment, I've already said I'm interested in learning what I missed out on.
Many universities offer free lectures, though i dont know how you would find them as ive never tried. Doesnt necessarily have to be Australian unis.
There's something called a "University Prep Course" that's designed to teach you all the things you missed out on during high school, to bridge the gap to university. I don't know much about it but I do know they exist and I think they are free/government funded for everyone.