Workplace Practices

About the subject

Students learn about the changing nature of work, industrial relations, legislation, safe and sustainable workplace practices, and local, national, and global issues in an industry and workplace context. Students can undertake vocational education and training (VET), as provided under the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), and develop and reflect on their capabilities, interests, and aspirations.

Course content

Stage 2 Workplace Practices can be studied as a 10-credit subject or a 20-credit subject.

At Stage 2 there are three enrolment options:

• Workplace Practices A (10-credits)
• Workplace Practices B (10-credits)
• Workplace Practices (20-credits)

There are three focus areas of study of this subject:

• Industry and Work Knowledge
• Vocational Learning
• Vocational Education and Training (VET).

For both a 10-credit and 20-credit subject, students must include the following areas of study:

• Industry and Work Knowledge, and
• Vocational Learning and/or Vocational Education and Training (VET).

For the Industry and Work Knowledge component, students undertaking:

Workplace Practices A (10-credits) and/or Workplace Practices B (10 credits), study two or more negotiated topics in each subject;

Workplace Practices (20-credits), study the three or more topics from the list below:

• Topic 1: Work in Australian Society
• Topic 2: The Changing Nature of Work
• Topic 3: Industrial Relations
• Topic 4: Finding Employment
• Topic 5: Negotiated Topic.

Assessment

Students demonstrate evidence of their learning through the following assessment types:

Information on the External Assessment

The Investigation may be either a practical investigation or an issues investigation. The investigation should be up to a maximum of 1000 words for a 10-credit subject, or 2000 words for a 20-credit subject, if in written form, or the equivalent in other forms.

• Practical Investigation – Students undertake a practical investigation based on a product, task, or service in which they have been involved. The practical investigation may be presented in written, oral or multimodal form. Students complete a report on their practical investigation in which they document the process of planning, making, delivering, and evaluating.
• Issues Investigation – Students undertake an investigation of a local, national, and/or global issue, culture or environment relating to the focus industry. It should be based on one or more of the topics studied. The issues investigation may be presented in written, oral or multimodal form.

The investigation is double graded, firstly by the student’s teacher and secondly by an external assessor appointed by the SACE Board. The teacher and the external assessor make a decision about the quality of the investigation with reference to the performance standards.

Performance Standards

The Workplace Practices Subject Outline includes performance standards, which describe five levels of achievement that are reported with the grades A to E at the student’s completion of the subject.

The school-based assessments and the external assessment will be graded with reference to the performance standards.