In years 11-12 at Pal, we follow the Compressed Curriculum or what we like to call the "Master Curriculum". Simply put, instead of students studying 6-7 courses over 2 years, our students study 2-4 in one year and 2-4 in the next year. Why?
Benefits of the Master Curriculum
Making a mistake in HSC subject selection is always a possibility — they’re teenagers, after all.
The first benefit of the Master Curriculum is that students only make half as many subject choices for Year 11. And they commit to seeing those choices through to the end. This gives students more experience of the HSC before making their final selections.
The second benefit is that they get a second shot at that difficult journey — from their Preliminary course to the HSC course, through school assessments and exams, all the way to the final external HSC examinations. We can tell students exactly what to expect, but even the most conscientious ones still need to learn some things the hard way. Sitting a three-hour exam that tests all your learning, with nothing but your brain and a pen, is tough. You can feel completely prepared and still find your mind not cooperating. By sitting half of your HSC exams in the first year and the other half the next, students get the chance to learn from experience and apply those lessons the second time around.
The third benefit relates to how the mind and memory work. Switching between six or more subjects every week isn’t natural. Halving the number of subjects each year allows for deeper, more focused learning. That’s why we call it the Master Curriculum. That’s the Pal difference.