Background to the VELS – The Arts domain
Standards in the Arts domain were developed following a detailed analysis of the Arts in the Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF) II, the previous curriculum guidelines for Victorian schools. The VELS focuses on the essential learning students need. Further information about the general relationships between the two curriculum frameworks is provided in tables for each level.
Essential aspects of Arts knowledge, skills and behaviour are the focus of The Arts domain in the VELS. The VELS describe learning students at each level will demonstrate through specific arts disciplines. This structure is different to that of the Arts Key Learning Area (KLA) in CSF II, where the specific characteristics of six arts disciplines are described as distinct strands, each with its own knowledge, conventions, skills and expressive forms.
The Arts domain structure in the VELS allows schools to develop programs based on specific arts disciplines, both as programs in their own right and as part of programs where learning in a range of strands and domains is interwoven in ways that are appropriate to the different stages of schooling.
For both the VELS and the CSF II, the organisation of the lower levels of schooling is different to the organisation at the higher levels. In both documents, this approach acknowledges students’ developing aesthetic sense and their capacity to respond to arts works in different styles and from different cultural and historical perspectives in their own works. At Levels 1-2 in the VELS, the Arts domain focuses on a single dimension which incorporates the two main emphases in arts education: creating and responding. From Level 3 creating and responding become the foci for two dimensions each of which draws on aspects of the other. In the CSF II, Levels 1-3 are organised in two strands – Performing Arts and Visual Arts, each with substrands focusing on Arts practice and Responding to the arts. Achievement of one outcome for each substrand is required at each level. At Levels 4-6 of the CSF II, individual arts disciplines are used as the strands and for each, the substrands of Arts practice and Responding to the arts are used. Achievement of two outcomes for each substrand is required at each level.
In the VELS, at Levels 1-3, all students should experience learning in Performing and Visual Arts disciplines and forms. At Levels 4-5, students should have experience in at least two Arts disciplines at each level. At Level 6, students should be able to continue sequential development of learning in arts disciplines they have undertaken in Levels 4-5. They may also engage in learning involving other arts disciplines to explore personal and/or vocational interests.
The CSF II recommends that throughout the compulsory years of schooling, students should experience different arts disciplines. At Levels 1-3, students should experience both Performing and Visual Arts and at Levels 4-6, students should engage in at least two strands at each level.
