Cross-curriculum priorities support the Australian Curriculum to be a relevant, contemporary and engaging curriculum that reflects national, regional and global contexts. Cross-curriculum priorities are addressed through learning area content.
Overview
The 3 cross-curriculum priorities in the Australian Curriculum are:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures
- Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia
- Sustainability.
In the Australian Curriculum cross-curriculum priorities are incorporated through learning area content; they are not separate learning areas or subjects. They provide opportunities to enrich the content of the learning areas, where most appropriate and authentic, allowing students to engage with and better understand their world.
Opportunities to apply cross-curriculum priorities to learning area content vary. Cross-curriculum priorities are embedded in content descriptions where the development of knowledge, understanding and skills relating to the cross-curriculum priority are core to the delivery of the learning area content. They are also identified in content elaborations where they offer opportunities to add depth and richness to student learning.
In the learning areas of the Australian Curriculum, cross-curriculum priorities are identified, using icons, where they are developed or applied in the content descriptions and elaborations.
Cross-curriculum priority structure
Each cross-curriculum priority has an overview statement that provides a description of the cross-curriculum priority and a rationale for its inclusion in the Australian Curriculum.
Each cross-curriculum priority identifies a number of organising ideas that provide a scaffold for developing the knowledge, understanding and skills of the cross-curriculum priority and promoting connections between the priority and learning area content. Organising ideas are embedded in a learning area according to the relevance of its content to the organising ideas.
View each cross-curriculum priority
Select a cross-curriculum priority from the list below to view the Understand this cross-curriculum priority page and to see the organising ideas.