K–6 Science and Technology: Every NSW Syllabus Outcome, Explained

New South Wales does not have a primary Science syllabus. It has a Science and Technology syllabus, one document covering Kindergarten to Year 6, and eighteen outcomes for the whole seven years. That is the fact that makes NSW primary science different from every other framework in the country, and the reason a teacher moving from an Australian Curriculum school finds the planning unrecognisable. Design and digital technologies are not a separate learning area you timetable next to Science. They are outcomes inside the same syllabus, in the same stage, often in the same unit.

Eighteen outcomes across seven years is also a very coarse grain. A single NSW outcome carries what the Australian Curriculum splits across six or eight content descriptions, which makes the outcomes easy to report against and easy to under-teach. This is a working guide to all eighteen: how the codes are built, what each outcome family actually progresses through, the three that go wrong most often, a stage-by-stage sequence and the checks that tell you whether a stage has landed.

What makes the NSW version different

Three structural decisions, all of which change what you plan rather than just what you call things.

Science and Technology are one subject until Year 7. Of the eighteen K–6 outcomes, six are design and digital technologies outcomes. A third of primary science time in NSW is, on paper, technology time. Then at Stage 4 the syllabus splits: Science becomes SC4 and technology moves to Technology Mandatory in the TAS learning area. That break at the end of Year 6 is abrupt, and it is worth knowing about while you are still in Stage 3.

Stages, not years. Early Stage 1 is Kindergarten. Stage 1 is Years 1 and 2, Stage 2 is Years 3 and 4, Stage 3 is Years 5 and 6. An outcome is what a student demonstrates by the end of the stage, so a Year 3 teacher and a Year 4 teacher are working towards the same five Stage 2 outcomes and have to agree between them who does what. Our guide to how NSW syllabuses are structured covers stages, outcomes and content in more detail.

The focus areas are propositions, not topics. Each stage organises its outcomes under named big ideas rather than under Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Earth Science. Early Stage 1 runs on curiosity from observation and questioning. Stage 1 is about investigating change. Stage 2 is about energy in physical and living systems. Stage 3 is about sustainability, framed as knowledge of the world being used to build sustainable solutions. If you are looking for a strand called Chemical Sciences you will not find one, and content that would sit there is distributed across whichever focus area needs it.

The eighteen outcomes at a glance

Reading the codes

The pattern is stage + subject, then the outcome family, then a number. The stage prefix is the part that catches people out:

• STE- is Early Stage 1. Not ST0, not STES1. Searching for “STES1-SCI-01” returns nothing, and this is the most common reason a Kindergarten outcome cannot be found.
• ST1-, ST2- and ST3- are Stages 1, 2 and 3, which is the same convention the MA maths outcomes and the EN English outcomes use.

The five outcome families are worth learning as a set, because they repeat across stages:

• PQU - posing questions and predicting. Present in every stage.
• SCI - the science knowledge outcome. Present in every stage.
• DAT - data. Present from Stage 1 only. Early Stage 1 has no data outcome, because collecting data is folded into STE-PQU-01 itself.
• DDT - design and digital technologies. Present in every stage, and it splits into two outcomes from Stage 2, separating the design process from algorithms and digital systems.
• CWT - creating written texts. Stage 3 only. There is exactly one writing outcome in the whole K–6 Science and Technology syllabus, and it appears in Years 5 and 6.

What each family progresses through

PQU: from questions to variables

The questioning outcome is the spine of the syllabus and the clearest progression in it. At Early Stage 1 questions come from observation and lead to collecting data. At Stage 1 they lead to investigating cause and effect. At Stage 2 they lead to fair tests, with energy as the content. At Stage 3 they lead to identifying variables and conducting fair tests to gather data.

Fair testing is therefore a Stage 2 expectation, not a Stage 3 one, and identifying variables explicitly is what Stage 3 adds on top. Programs that leave fair testing until Year 5 are a full stage late. There is a second detail visible in how the outcomes are grouped: at Early Stage 1 and Stage 1, PQU sits across both the science and the technology focus areas, so the same questioning outcome serves an investigation and a design task. From Stage 2 it sits with the science focus area only, and the technology side gets its own design process outcome instead.

SCI: from describing to explaining

The knowledge outcome moves through four verbs. Early Stage 1 identifies and describes: what living things are like, what materials are like, how things move. Stage 1 measures and describes change, and widens the content to Earth and the sky. Stage 2 investigates using information, with the solar system and the effects of energy on living, physical and geological systems. Stage 3 uses evidence to explain how scientific knowledge supports sustainable practices.

The jump worth planning for is Early Stage 1 to Stage 1, which is the move from describing a state to measuring a change. Those are different cognitive tasks. A child who can describe a seed and describe a plant has not necessarily noticed or quantified the change between them, and the Stage 1 outcome is about the change.

DAT: from collecting to arguing

Stage 1 collects, represents and uses data to find patterns. Stage 2 uses and interprets data to describe patterns and relationships. Stage 3 interprets data to support explanations and arguments. The Stage 3 wording is the important one, because data stops being the end of the investigation and becomes evidence for a claim. That is also where this outcome starts leaning on ST3-CWT-01, and why the two Stage 3 outcomes should be taught together rather than in different terms.

DDT: from making to engineering

Early Stage 1 identifies and uses technologies to make products for a user need. Stage 1 adds materials and the word design. Stage 2 splits the outcome in two: one for using a design process to create products, one for algorithms, data representation and digital systems. Stage 3 keeps the split and adds evaluation and modification to both, so a Stage 3 student is expected to improve a solution and an algorithm, not just produce them.

Note that a user need or opportunity is named from Early Stage 1 onwards. A design task with no identified user is not meeting the outcome, however good the product is, and this is the single most common gap in primary technology programs.

CWT: the Stage 3 writing outcome

One outcome, Stage 3 only, asking for written texts that communicate scientific and technological concepts and processes. It uses the same CWT family name as the Stage 3 English writing outcomes, and it is deliberately the same skill applied to a different purpose. This is the outcome most often left entirely to the English program, which does not discharge it, because the assessable thing here is writing that carries scientific content accurately.

The three outcomes that go wrong

ST2-PQU-01: what a fair test actually is

The misconception: that fair means everyone gets a turn, or that fair means being nice. Eight-year-olds have a strong everyday meaning for the word and it is not this one.

What you will see: asked whether the test was fair, a child says yes because everyone in the group got to hold the stopwatch. Or, in the version that looks more like science, the group tests two ramps and changes both the surface and the angle, then reports confidently that the rough surface was slower.

The fix: stop using the word fair on its own and always attach the test to it, then teach the idea as same, same, same, different. Say out loud what is being kept the same before every trial, and physically write those on the board. The strongest diagnostic is to run a deliberately broken test in front of the class and ask what is wrong with it, because spotting the error is easier than avoiding it and it gives children the language before they need to use it themselves. By Stage 3 the same routine gets its proper name: the thing you changed, the things you kept the same, and the thing you measured.

ST2-DDT-02 and ST3-DDT-02: algorithms without a computer

The misconception: two of them, pulling in opposite directions. The first is that this outcome requires devices, so a school without a reliable set of tablets quietly skips it. The second is that any list of steps is an algorithm.

What you will see: a Stage 2 class that has produced a numbered list of how to make a sandwich and called it an algorithm. It has no decision point and no repetition, so it is a recipe. When those students meet the Stage 3 requirement to modify an algorithm, there is nothing to modify, because a straight list has no structure to change.

The fix: introduce a decision and a repeat from the first algorithm, on paper. If the cup is full, stop; repeat until you reach the wall. Unplugged work genuinely meets the outcome, and it is easier to see a broken algorithm on paper than on a screen. Then let students run each other’s algorithms literally, obeying exactly what is written, which surfaces every missing step in about thirty seconds and is the most reliable way to make the Stage 3 evaluate-and-modify requirement mean something.

ST3-CWT-01: writing a scientific text, not a recount

The misconception: that writing up an investigation means telling the story of the lesson.

What you will see: “First we got the beakers out. Then Miss put the salt in. Then it was really cool and Jayden spilled his.” It is a personal recount, it is often well written, and it carries no scientific content at all. The failure is invisible if you mark for sentence structure.

The fix: name the text type before the writing starts and give the structure. A procedure has a purpose, materials and numbered steps in the imperative. An explanation is a sequence of causes. A report is organised by category, not by chronology. The tell is the pronoun: a text that opens with “we” is usually a recount. Ban the timeline as an organising principle and require the writing to answer a question rather than describe a morning.

What students need at the start of each stage

Because outcomes are demonstrated at the end of a two-year stage, the useful prerequisites are the entry expectations for each one. Into Stage 1: the ability to describe what something is like and to stay with an object long enough to notice detail. Into Stage 2: some sense that a result can be caused by something, which is Stage 1 PQU territory, plus enough measurement from the Stage 1 maths outcomes to record a change in numbers. Into Stage 3: fair testing as a routine, and the data handling in the Stage 2 maths outcomes, because ST3-DAT-01 assumes a student can already read a graph before being asked to argue from one.

What Stage 3 sets up

The end of Year 6 is a harder break in Science and Technology than in any other primary subject, because the subject itself stops existing:

• The science half becomes SC4, a Stage 4 Science syllabus with eight Working Scientifically outcomes (SC4-WS-01 to SC4-WS-08) and eight knowledge outcomes across named topics: cells and classification, forces, living systems, observing the Universe, the periodic table, solutions and mixtures, change, and data science.
• The technology half leaves Science entirely and becomes Technology Mandatory in the TAS learning area, on a separate timetable line with separate outcomes.
• The single Stage 3 questioning outcome expands into eight Working Scientifically outcomes. ST3-PQU-01 alone maps to roughly SC4-WS-02 and SC4-WS-03, and ST3-DAT-01 to SC4-WS-05 and SC4-WS-06. Everything that was implicit inside one primary outcome gets its own reportable outcome in Year 7.
• ST3-CWT-01 becomes SC4-WS-08, communicating scientific concepts in a range of forms. This is the clearest argument for taking the Stage 3 writing outcome seriously: it is the only primary preparation for it.

A stage-by-stage sequence

Outcomes are stage-level, so the real planning question is which of the two years carries what. This split keeps the questioning outcome running continuously and puts the heavier demands in the second year of each stage.

1. Early Stage 1 (Kindergarten). Terms 1 and 2 on STE-SCI-01: living things, materials and movement, all descriptive, all oral. Terms 3 and 4 add STE-DDT-01 with a real user, ideally somebody in the school, since a made product with a named user is what separates the outcome from craft. STE-PQU-01 runs through every term as a routine rather than a unit.
2. Stage 1, Year 1. ST1-SCI-01 with the emphasis on measuring change: growing things, melting things, moving things, always recording a before and an after. Introduce ST1-DAT-01 in the second half of the year, on data the class has collected themselves.
3. Stage 1, Year 2. ST1-PQU-01 pushed properly into cause and effect, which is the demanding half of Stage 1, plus ST1-DDT-01 design tasks that use the materials knowledge built in Year 1. Extend Earth and sky content here, because it needs a full year of repeated observation to show a pattern.
4. Stage 2, Year 3. ST2-SCI-01 energy content and ST2-PQU-01 fair testing together, because fair testing needs content that produces surprising results and energy provides it. Run ST2-DAT-01 alongside from the first investigation. Fair testing is the make-or-break skill of the stage and it needs a full year.
5. Stage 2, Year 4. The solar system half of ST2-SCI-01, plus both design outcomes: ST2-DDT-01 as a full design process with a genuine user, and ST2-DDT-02 as algorithms, started unplugged with decisions and repetition from the first lesson.
6. Stage 3, Year 5. ST3-PQU-01 with variables named explicitly, ST3-SCI-01 sustainability content, and ST3-DAT-01. Begin ST3-CWT-01 here rather than in Year 6, using procedure and explanation text types, so the writing has a year of practice before it has to carry an argument.
7. Stage 3, Year 6. ST3-DDT-01 and ST3-DDT-02 as a single extended project where evaluating and modifying is the point rather than an afterthought, with ST3-CWT-01 producing the written argument from ST3-DAT-01 data. This is also the year to be honest with students that the subject splits in Year 7.

Five checks, one per outcome family

• PQU: run a broken investigation and ask what is wrong with it. Naming the thing that should have been kept the same is Stage 2. Naming it as a variable, and saying which one was measured, is Stage 3.
• SCI: show a before and an after and ask what changed. A description of the two states is Early Stage 1. A statement about the change, with a number in it, is Stage 1.
• DAT: hand over a graph the class did not make and ask what it shows. A reading of the tallest bar is Stage 1. A pattern is Stage 2. A claim the data supports, with the data given as the reason, is Stage 3.
• DDT: ask who the product is for and what they needed. No user means the outcome is not met, at any stage. Then ask what they would change and why, which is what Stage 3 adds.
• CWT: read the first sentence. If it starts with “First we”, it is a recount, and ST3-CWT-01 has not been met no matter how long the piece is.

Records and evidence

Eighteen outcomes across seven years sounds easy to track and is not, precisely because each one is so broad. An outcome ticked in Term 1 of Year 3 and never revisited is not evidence that a Stage 2 student has met it, since the outcome is a Year 4 endpoint. The practical answer is to record the outcome code and the date against each activity and to expect several entries per outcome per stage, so that the pattern of evidence covers the two years rather than one moment in them. For NSW home education, this is what a NESA authorised person is looking for: not a tick, but a sequence. “Science: magnets” tells a reviewer nothing. “ST2-PQU-01 and ST2-DAT-01, fair test on ramp surfaces, results graphed, 14 August” answers the question before it is asked. Our state-by-state registration guide covers the NSW process, and which curriculum your state uses settles which code set applies to you. If you are comparing against the national framework, our guide to the Foundation Science AC9 codes shows how much finer that grain is at the same year level.

Primary science also lives or dies on whether the child wants to know the answer, which is why the focus area names are all about curiosity and questions. A Stage 2 student will run four fair tests on which paper plane design flies furthest and about half of one on ramp surfaces. The outcome is identical either way, and using an interest as the way in costs nothing in syllabus terms. Sprout Lessons builds an interactive lesson from any of these eighteen outcomes, pitched at the right stage and wrapped in whatever the child is currently obsessed with, with the NSW outcome code recorded in the footer. Try it free.

Outcome codes reference NSW syllabuses © NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, accessed via curriculum.nsw.edu.au. NESA does not endorse this product. Always verify against the current syllabus outcomes and content.

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