Years 3-4 Science: Every Victorian Curriculum Code, Explained

The Victorian Levels 3 and 4 Science band is eighteen content descriptions covering two years of school, and it contains five ideas that the Australian Curriculum does not introduce until Year 5, Year 10, or at all. Fossils. Offspring that resemble their parents without matching them. Gases named as a state of matter. Climate, and the fact that human activity affects it. Electrostatic force. A Victorian teacher working from a national scope and sequence will be missing every one of them.

The band is coded VC2S4, and the number is the top of the band rather than a level, so Level 3 and Level 4 share one code set. There is no VC2S3. This is a working guide to all eighteen codes: what Victoria asks for that ACARA does not, what each strand is doing collectively, the three descriptions that are hardest to get right, a two-year split with a term-by-term order, and the checks that tell you whether a student is ready for Level 5.

What changes coming out of Foundation to Level 2

Five shifts, and they arrive together rather than one a term. A student who was comfortable across the F–2 band can look like they are struggling by the middle of Level 3, and it is usually the method rather than the content.

• Measurement stops being informal. VC2S2I03 accepted observation by the senses with informal measurement. VC2S4I03 asks for formal measurement following procedures, using familiar scaled instruments. Thermometers, measuring cylinders, rulers with millimetres on them, kitchen scales.
• The scaffold moves. This is the shift that is easiest to read past. At F–2 the teacher provided the table and the student filled it in (VC2S2I04). At Levels 3 and 4 the teacher provides the plan (VC2S4I02 refers to provided scaffolds) and the student builds the table, the graph and the model (VC2S4I04). The support has not been withdrawn, it has been relocated from the recording to the planning.
• Fair testing arrives. VC2S4I02 asks students to identify the attributes of a fair test as part of planning. Nothing in the F–2 band mentions fairness at all.
• Conclusions become the point. VC2S2I05 asked for observations to be compared against predictions and against what others saw. VC2S4I05 keeps that and adds drawing conclusions, plus judging whether a test was fair, plus generating further questions. Three jobs where there was one.
• Communication acquires an audience. VC2S2I06 asked for findings to be shared using everyday and some scientific vocabulary. VC2S4I06 asks for communication to an identified purpose and audience, using scientific vocabulary and digital tools. This is the point at which written scientific texts become effectively unavoidable in Victoria, having been genuinely optional for the previous three years.

The questioning code shifts underneath all of that too. VC2S2I01 built questions and predictions out of experiences. VC2S4I01 builds them out of observations, and adds predicting the outcome of an investigation. That is the difference between what a student already believes and what they have just recorded, and it is the reason to make students collect data before they predict from it rather than after.

The band at a glance

Reading the codes

The pattern is VC2 + S + band + strand letter + number, with U for Understanding, I for Inquiry and H for Human Endeavour. The band number is the top level in the band, not the level itself:

• VC2S2 is Foundation to Level 2
• VC2S4 is Levels 3 and 4, which is this page
• VC2S6 is Levels 5 and 6, then VC2S8 and VC2S10

The odd numbers do not exist in Victorian Science, which catches out anybody fluent in VC2M codes or VC2E codes, because Maths and English are numbered level by level. Searching for VC2S3U01 will find nothing, and there is nothing wrong with your search. The rest of the framework is covered in our Victorian Curriculum 2.0 explainer.

Five things Victoria teaches years earlier than ACARA

Most of this band lines up with the national Year 3 and Year 4 Science descriptions. Five pieces do not, and they are the reason a converted national program will have gaps in it. Our full comparison of the two curricula covers the structural differences across every learning area; these are the Science ones.

• Fossils, at VC2S4U01. Victoria asks students to distinguish living things from non-living things and from things that were once living, and names fossils as an example. The word fossil does not appear in a single Australian Curriculum Science content description, Foundation to Year 10.
• Variation between parents and offspring, at VC2S4U02. Alongside life cycles, Victoria asks for the idea that offspring resemble their parents without being identical to them. Nationally, the nearest Science descriptor is AC9S10U01, in Year 10, which is meiosis, chromosomes and Mendelian inheritance. Victoria is asking for the observation six years earlier, with none of the mechanism.
• Gases, at VC2S4U04. Victoria names solids, liquids and gases as having observable properties and treats change of state as happening between all three. The national Year 3 descriptor (AC9S3U04) covers solids and liquids only, and gases are not named until AC9S5U04 in Year 5.
• Climate, and human influence on it, at VC2S4U08. Weather events and climate affecting land, air, water and living things, with human activity able to affect climate. In the national Science curriculum, climate first appears at AC9S10U04, in Year 10. It is a cross-curriculum priority earlier than that, and a priority is not a content description a reviewer can ask you to evidence.
• Electrostatic force, at VC2S4U10. The Victorian forces description names frictional, gravitational, electrostatic and magnetic. The national equivalent (AC9S4U03) names frictional, gravitational and magnetic. Electrostatic appears nowhere in AC9 Science F–10.

There is a sixth difference that is a matter of degree rather than presence. The national water cycle descriptor names three processes: precipitation, evaporation and condensation. VC2S4U07 names nine, adding transpiration, melting, freezing, crystallisation, infiltration and run-off. That is not a rewording, it is roughly triple the content, and it is discussed below because it is one of the hardest codes in the band.

Strand by strand

Science Understanding (VC2S4U01 to VC2S4U10)

Ten descriptions across two years is one every eight weeks, which is the honest way to think about pacing. They group into four clusters, and the clusters matter more than the numbering because two pairs of codes should be taught as single units.

Living things (U01 to U03). Living, non-living and once-living, then life cycles and variation, then feeding relationships. This is a strict sequence and should be taught in order across the two years. Producers and decomposers at U03 are unintelligible without the once-living category from U01: a decomposer eats things that used to be alive, which is a sentence a student cannot parse if their world contains only living and non-living.

Matter and materials (U04, U05). The states of matter and change of state, then the properties of natural and made materials and how those properties drive use and re-use. U05 carries a Victorian emphasis worth noticing: it says use and re-use, which connects it straight back to VC2S2U09 on conserving Earth’s resources. Teaching U05 without the re-use half leaves a thread from the previous band unfinished.

Earth and space (U06 to U08). Rocks, minerals and soils, then the water cycle, then weather events and climate. These three are one continuous story if you teach them in that order, because soil is what infiltration happens into and weathering is what turns rock into soil. Splitting them across two years is fine; splitting them out of order is not.

Energy and forces (U09, U10). Heat generation and transfer, and forces exerted by contact or at a distance. U09 pairs naturally with U04, since change of state is what heat transfer does to matter, and running them together halves the thermometer work.

Science Inquiry (VC2S4I01 to VC2S4I06)

Six descriptions forming one cycle, run repeatedly rather than taught six times. The whole cycle should run at least four times across the two years, and the sensible way to build it is to add one new element per term rather than attempting the full Level 4 grain in the first semester of Level 3.

Two qualifiers protect you from over-teaching. VC2S4I02 says provided scaffolds and says identifying the attributes of a fair test: the student is not designing an investigation from a blank page, and they are not expected to control variables unaided. That comes at VC2S6I02, where deciding which variables to change, measure and control is named explicitly. VC2S4I04 asks for tables, graphs and visual or physical models, which at Level 3 means one categorical variable and a count on axes you may still be labelling.

The load-bearing code is VC2S4I05, and it is the one most often reduced to a class discussion. It carries three separate obligations: compare findings with others, judge whether the test was fair, and draw a conclusion. A student who compares and never concludes has completed two thirds of it, and the missing third is the one Level 5 builds directly on.

Science as a Human Endeavour (VC2S4H01 and VC2S4H02)

Two descriptions, and they are a sequence rather than a pair. H01 is data becoming explanation: observations were gathered through inquiry, and the explanation of the natural phenomenon came out of them. H02 is explanation becoming application: because this is understood, a need can be met or a problem solved.

The most efficient carrier for both in this band is the heat and change of state unit. People measured how fast buildings lose heat (data), worked out that trapped air slows the transfer (explanation), and that is why insulation batts and wetsuits exist (need met). Run that arc deliberately once and both codes have real evidence behind them, rather than a poster about famous scientists that evidences neither.

The three hardest codes in the band

VC2S4U01: dead is not the same as non-living

The misconception: that there are two categories, alive and not alive, and that a dead thing belongs in the same bin as a rock. This is the code’s whole point and it is the one with no national equivalent, so it is also the one most likely to be skipped.

What you will see: a fallen leaf sorted as non-living with no hesitation. A fossil sorted as a rock, which is defensible chemically and misses the descriptor entirely. A seed sorted as non-living because it is not doing anything, and a piece of firewood sorted as non-living because it is furniture rather than a tree. Running it the other way, students who have been taught the standard characteristics of living things will insist that fire is alive because it moves, grows and consumes.

The fix: sort into three piles from the first lesson, never two, and build the sort out of hard cards only. Dog, rock and chair prove nothing. A fossil, a fallen leaf, a wooden spoon, a seed, coal, a seashell, a woollen jumper and a car are the cards worth arguing over, and roughly half of them belong in the once-living pile. Then make the criterion explicit each time: the question is not is it moving, it is was this ever part of something that reproduced. A fossil is a once-living thing whose material has been replaced, which is why it belongs in the third pile and also looks like a rock. That distinction is the single best piece of evidence you will collect against this code.

VC2S4U04: where the water went

The misconception: that a gas is not a substance. Water that evaporates has gone rather than moved, and air is closer to nothing than to something.

What you will see: a puddle dries and the class says the water disappeared, or the sun ate it, or it soaked into the concrete. Asked where the water in a boiling kettle goes, students point at the visible plume, which is condensed droplets rather than steam. Asked whether a bag of air weighs anything, most say no. Asked to draw the three states, students draw a solid and a liquid and leave the gas box empty or draw a cloud in it.

The fix: make the gas do something measurable before naming it. Seal a shallow dish of water in a clear container in the sun and leave a second dish uncovered next to it, both marked at the starting level. The uncovered one loses water and the sealed one does not, because the water in the sealed container is still in the container. Weigh the sealed container before and after: the mass does not change, and the class can see that nothing left. Then run the reverse with condensation on the inside of the lid. The sentence to insist on is that the water changed state and moved, never that it disappeared. Victoria puts gases in this band while ACARA leaves them to Year 5, so there is no national resource pitched at this and you will be building the demonstration yourself.

VC2S4U07: the four processes nobody draws

The misconception: that the water cycle is a circle with three arrows on it: water goes up, clouds form, rain falls. It is reinforced by almost every poster on the subject, and by the national curriculum, which names only those three processes.

What you will see: students who can recite evaporation, condensation and precipitation flawlessly and cannot say what happens to rain after it lands. Ask where the water in a river came from and the answer is the sky, with nothing in between. Transpiration, infiltration, run-off and crystallisation are all named in VC2S4U07 and all missing from the diagram students have internalised, and the four of them are precisely the ones that happen at or below ground level where nobody draws them.

The fix: teach the cycle from the ground up rather than from the sky down, and use the school grounds. After rain, walk the class and find where water is sitting, where it soaked in, where it ran across the surface and where it went afterwards. That is infiltration and run-off observed rather than labelled, and the difference between the asphalt and the garden bed makes the point about soil without a single diagram. For transpiration, tie a clear bag over a leafy branch on a warm morning and come back at lunch. Reserve crystallisation for a salt water dish left on a sunny windowsill, which also does double duty as evidence for VC2S4U04. Only after all four have been observed should the summary diagram be drawn, and it should be drawn by the student, which is VC2S4I04 discharged at the same time.

What students need to arrive with

From the Foundation to Level 2 Science band, three codes gate this one. VC2S2U04, the distinction between an object and the material it is made of, is the prerequisite for VC2S4U04 and U05 both, and a student who has not got it will treat a change of shape and a change of state as the same event. VC2S2U06, physical change without a change in composition, is what change of state is tested against. VC2S2U03, external features performing functions for survival, is what food chains at VC2S4U03 assume: a decomposer is defined by what it does, not by what it looks like.

Outside Science, two Maths codes are the real gate. VC2M3M02, measuring and comparing with familiar metric units and instruments with labelled markings, is exactly what VC2S4I03 requires, and VC2M4M01 extends it to reading between the markings. VC2M3ST02, creating and comparing graphical representations of a data set, is what VC2S4I04 leans on. Both are in our guides to the Level 3 Maths codes and Level 4 Maths codes. Sequence Science after them where the timetable allows, or accept that the Science lesson is where the measurement is being taught. The Victorian Capabilities attach cleanly here too: Critical and Creative Thinking sits underneath the whole inquiry strand, and Ethical Understanding attaches to VC2S4U08 in a way that is worth recording rather than leaving implicit.

What this band sets up

• Living things (U01 to U03) become VC2S6U01 and VC2S6U02, where habitats are described by their physical conditions and changing those conditions affects survival, and where structural features and behaviours are connected to thriving in an environment. The once-living work pays off directly, because VC2S6U02 brings fossils back as evidence of organisms changing over time.
• Change of state (U04) becomes VC2S6U03, where the observable properties of the three states are explained by modelling the motion and arrangement of particles, and VC2S6U04, reversible and irreversible change. Getting gases established here is what makes the particle model possible there.
• Rocks and soils (U06) become VC2S6U05, weathering, erosion, transportation and deposition, with the water cycle from U07 as the mechanism that drives all four.
• Weather and climate (U08) become VC2S6U06, on sudden geological change and extreme weather, and on reducing the impact of natural hazards through human action.
• Forces (U10) split: gravity becomes VC2S6U07 holding the planets in orbit, and the energy thread from heat at U09 runs to VC2S6U08 (light) and VC2S6U09 (electrical circuits, insulators and conductors).
• The inquiry cycle keeps its six-code shape at VC2S6I01 to VC2S6I06, and one qualifier changes decisively: VC2S6I02 asks students to decide which variables to change, measure and control, and VC2S6I03 asks for repeated measurements. Identifying the attributes of a fair test becomes designing one.

Splitting the band across two years

Victoria will not do this for you, and the VCAA site will not tell you which level a code belongs to, because officially none of them belong to one. This split keeps the inquiry cycle running every term, puts the two paired units together, and takes advantage of the fact that Victorian weather does half the teaching if you sequence around it.

Level 3

1. Term 1: living, non-living, once-living, and the ruler. Open VC2S4U01 with the three-pile sort using hard cards only, and plant seeds in week two so life cycles have three terms to actually happen in. Introduce VC2S4I03 here on plant growth, because measuring a stem in millimetres each week is the gentlest possible way into scaled instruments and it matches what VC2M3M02 is doing in Maths. Hold fair testing back completely. One new procedure at a time, and this term the new procedure is the ruler.
2. Term 2: rocks, minerals and soils, and building the graph. VC2S4U06 is the cheapest content in the band to resource and it sorts and counts naturally, which makes it the right vehicle for VC2S4I04: students construct their own table of observable properties and turn a count into a column graph. Run a soil permeability or settling test as the first fair test of the band, because with soils the thing to hold constant is obvious. Attach VC2S4H01 here, since geology is explanation built directly out of collected data.
3. Term 3: heat and change of state, in the cold. VC2S4U09 and VC2S4U04 as one unit, with VC2S4I02 fair testing in full. Term 3 is the coldest part of the Victorian year, which makes insulation investigations genuinely motivated and gives a larger temperature difference to work with. Open with a metal and a wooden object in the same room, predictions committed before the thermometer appears, then run the sealed and open dish comparison for the gas half. Close with VC2S4H02: what problem does this explanation let people solve.
4. Term 4: life cycles close, and writing for a reader. The Term 1 plants have flowered and set seed, so VC2S4U02 can be run as a comparison against an animal life cycle rather than as a diagram, and the variation half of the code has real evidence: no two of the class’s plants are identical, and neither are the seeds. Term 4 is where VC2S4I06 should carry weight, with a written report of the Term 3 heat investigation aimed at a named audience and containing a conclusion rather than a recount.

Level 4

1. Term 1: the water cycle, while it is hot. VC2S4U07 belongs in February and March, when evaporation and transpiration are fast enough to observe within a lesson. Run the transpiration bag, the salt dish for crystallisation and the paired evaporation dishes. Start a daily weather log in week one and keep it all year, because VC2S4U08 in Term 3 needs data that cannot be collected retrospectively.
2. Term 2: food chains, in the leaf litter. VC2S4U03 in autumn, when decomposers are visible without any equipment. A square metre of leaf litter turned over weekly is a better decomposer unit than any worksheet, and it makes the producer, consumer, decomposer distinction physical. This is also the term to re-run the full inquiry cycle at Level 4 grain, with VC2S4I05 requiring all three of its parts.
3. Term 3: weather, climate and the ground. VC2S4U08, with three terms of weather log now available and winter providing the contrast with the Term 1 heat. Winter rain is also when infiltration and run-off can be walked around the school grounds, which closes the half of VC2S4U07 that could not be observed in Term 1. The distinction to insist on is weather against climate: one is today, the other is the pattern of many years, and conflating them is what makes the human influence part of the code incoherent.
4. Term 4: materials and forces. VC2S4U05, natural and made materials and their re-use, which connects back to the recycling work in the F–2 band and pairs neatly with a design task. Then VC2S4U10, and electrostatic force specifically, because late-spring Victorian air is dry enough for balloons and hair and cling film to work reliably, which they will not do on a humid day. Finish with the contact and non-contact sort: which of these forces needs the two things to be touching.

Two decisions worth defending if a reviewer asks. Fair testing sits in Term 2 rather than Term 1 because it is the hardest new demand of the band, and introducing it alongside scaled instruments guarantees students fail at both and you cannot tell which. And VC2S4U08 sits at Level 4 rather than Level 3 because a climate is a pattern across years, which is a harder abstraction than anything else in the band, and it needs the graphing from VC2S4I04 to already be secure.

Assessment checkpoints

One diagnostic per cluster, each pointing at a named reteach.

• Living things. Hand over a fossil, a fallen leaf, a seed and a piece of coal, and ask for three piles with a reason each. Once-living used correctly for at least three of the four means VC2S4U01 is secure. Two piles, or a fossil filed as a rock, means reteach the third category from scratch: the two-pile habit is durable and telling a student the answer does not shift it.
• Matter. Point at a dried puddle and ask where the water is now. In the air, as a gas, still existing, means VC2S4U04 is secure. Gone, disappeared, or soaked into the concrete means rerun the sealed and open dish comparison and weigh the sealed one, because the argument has to be made by the balance rather than by you.
• Earth and space. Ask what happens to rain after it hits the ground. Any answer naming soaking in or running off means VC2S4U07 is past the three-arrow diagram. Silence, or a return to evaporation, means the cycle was taught from the sky down and needs the walk around the school grounds after the next rain.
• Energy and forces. Ask what a jumper does to a bottle of iced water. Slows the warming, because heat moves from the warmer thing to the cooler thing, means VC2S4U09 is secure. Warms it up, or keeps the cold in, means the transfer language has not replaced the everyday language, and the fix is a measured comparison rather than a correction. For VC2S4U10, ask which forces work without touching: gravity, magnetism and electrostatic named without prompting is the target.
• Inquiry. Show a comparison in which two things were changed at once and ask what it proves. You cannot tell which one caused it means VC2S4I02 is secure. A confident single cause means reteach with the three-things-the-same, one-thing-different frame said out loud before every trial. Separately, give a small result set and ask for a graph plus one sentence about what it shows: a graph with no conclusion sentence is the most common Level 3 outcome and it means VC2S4I05 is being treated as optional.
• Human endeavour. Ask what somebody had to measure before insulation batts could be invented. An answer that starts with data means VC2S4H01 and H02 are joined up. An answer about a clever inventor means the arc from data to explanation to application has not been run explicitly.

Records and evidence

Banded codes make record keeping harder rather than easier, because the obligation is to show all eighteen covered by the end of Level 4 rather than a tidy year’s worth of each. For a VRQA registration portfolio, keep a running band map: eighteen codes down one side, and the date and activity against each, with the level you taught it at. Keep the raw data sheets as well as the neat write-ups, because a sheet with thermometer readings on it is direct evidence of VC2S4I03 and a typed report is not. Caption with the code and the date: “VC2S4I02 and VC2S4U09, fair test, insulation, 14 August” answers the reviewer’s question before it is asked, where “Science: keeping warm” does not.

Our Victorian homeschooling resources guide and state-by-state registration requirements cover what VRQA reviewers actually ask for, and which curriculum your state uses settles which code set applies to you. If you are working to the national codes instead, the equivalents to this band are our guides to the Year 3 Science AC9 codes and the Year 4 Science AC9 codes, and in New South Wales the K–6 Science and Technology outcomes put fair testing at Stage 2, at almost exactly the same point in a student’s schooling as Victoria does.

One practical note on this band specifically. Every new demand in it is procedural, which means the content is free to be anything that produces measurable results, and a student who has just been handed formal measurement, student-built graphs and fair testing in the space of three terms will engage with all three far more willingly on content they chose. Using an interest as the way in costs nothing against the descriptor: a fair test on which lolly dissolves fastest discharges VC2S4I02 exactly as well as a fair test on soil. Sprout Lessons builds an interactive lesson from any of these eighteen codes, pitched at Level 3 or Level 4 and wrapped in whatever the student is currently interested in, with the VC2 code recorded in the footer. Try it free.

Curriculum codes reference the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0 © VCAA. The curriculum can be accessed directly at f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. The VCAA does not endorse this product. Always verify against the current content descriptions and achievement standards.

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