Primary curriculum


Overview

The Australian Curriculum sets consistent national standards to improve learning outcomes for all young Australians. It sets out, through content descriptions and achievement standards, what students should be taught and achieve, as they progress through school. It is the base for future learning, growth and active participation in the Australian community.

Following the release of the Australian Curriculum school leaders across Australia have used different approaches to manage professional learning and change in their schools based on their local context.

The following films capture the journey of this curriculum management process from 20 diverse settings across Australia.

In each setting, leaders demonstrated the key characteristics of “Highly Effective Schools”, as outlined in the research conducted by Melbourne University and AITSL; 2010 Teaching Australia – The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. The attachments below include the research and a sheet to use as a professional learning tool when viewing the films with staff.

These illustrations of primary curriculum management are not licensed under the creative commons license used for other material on the Australian Curriculum website. Instead, you may view, download, display, reproduce, and distribute these materials in unaltered form only for your personal, non-commercial educational purposes or for the non-commercial educational purposes of your organisation, provided that you retain this copyright notice. This means you cannot edit, modify or adapt any of these materials and you cannot sub-license any of these materials to others. Apart from any uses permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), and those explicitly granted above, all other rights are reserved by ACARA.

The schools and illustrations of primary curriculum management were selected by ACARA based on a range of factors. ACARA believes that the illustrations collectively may be of assistance to schools. While ACARA has chosen to publish the material on the Australian Curriculum website it has not played a role in the strategies and decisions taken by the schools that are featured. ACARA has not assessed individual school outcomes or sought to understand the student cohorts of these schools. Decisions about primary curriculum management should be made on a school by school basis, taking into consideration jurisdictional and local context and capability.