The Australian Curriculum

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The Australian Curriculum
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Outline

• Context, background and developments
• Key Concepts of the Australian curriculum
• The Implementation issue

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acara

• Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting
  Authority
• Commonwealth independent statutory authority
• Established 1 June 2009
• Policy determined by the Council of state and
  federal education ministers

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Why an Australian Curriculum?

• Curriculum (what we want young people to learn at
  school) has become too important and too big a
  task to not do it nationally
• Because we are a very mobile society national
  consistency is important
• We need to pool our talents and resources to
  ensure the best
• Combination of efficiency and effectiveness
  arguments

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The vision

• Entitlement to a world-class curriculum for all
  young Australians
• Commitment to work together collaboratively to
  design and deliver it

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What do we want all young Australians to learn at
school?
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Preparation for life

• Australian governments commit to working in
  collaboration with all school sectors to support
  all young Australians to become
• successful learners
• confident and creative individuals
• active and informed citizens.

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Shape of the curriculum

• Learning areas
• General capabilities
• Cross-curriculum priorities

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The Learning Areas
Learning areas Timeline
English Phase 1
Mathematics Phase 1
Science Phase 1
Humanities and social sciences History Geography Economics, Business, Civics and citizenship Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3
The Arts Phase 2
Languages Phase 2
Health and Physical Education Phase 3
Technologies Phase 3
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General capabilities

• Literacy
• Numeracy
• ICT
• Thinking skills
• Creativity

• Self management
• Teamwork
• Intercultural understanding
• Ethical behaviour
• Social competence

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Cross-curriculum priorities
Focus Dimension
National Indigenous culture and history
Regional Asia and Australias engagement with the region
Global Sustainability
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Learning areas
Learning Areas
K-10
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Learning areas and general capabilities
Learning Areas
General capabilities
K-10
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Cross curriculum priorities
Indigenous culture
Sustainability
Asia
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Elements of the curriculum

• Curriculum content
• Content elaborations
• Achievement standards
• Work samples that will be inclusive

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Curriculum content

• A core of knowledge, skills and understandings
  what students will be taught
• Importance of parsimony and avoiding overcrowding

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Achievement standards

• The expected standard or quality of work
• World class and thus aspirational, but achievable
• Aligned to a C in an A-E system of grades

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Implementation Issues

• Degree of specification
• Curriculum cultures/history
• Relationship to other policies
• The state of federalism
• Monitoring evaluation - innovation