What is the Australian Curriculum?¶

Purpose¶

From my correspondence with ACARA (Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority), the Australian Curriculum sets out the essential knowledge, understanding and skills students need to learn. It sets out the quality of learning that is expected of the students as they progress through the first 12 years of schooling.

Content Entities¶

The Australian Curriculum contains many curriculum standards. In Learning Now Curriculum Planner I call them content entities. They describe what is to be learnt. As set out in the Australian Curriculum there are different types of content entities: Content Descriptions, Elaborations, Achievement Standard Components, Indicators, and Organising Ideas. Each content entity can be identified and searched for by a notation, which is a unique code. These content entities are categorised within three dimensions: learning areas, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities.

Table 1: Australian Curriculum categories and content entities

Note: in the Australian curriculum, there are references to Learning Area Content. This term is referring to both Content Description and Achievement Standard Component, but not Elaboration.

Achievement Standard Components¶

• Teachers assess students against the achievement standard components.
• The achievement standard provides the level of achievement (quality) expected by the end of a year or band. The achievement standards are written ‘at’ standard for the year or band level.
• The achievement standard components provide a holistic view of what a student should be able to demonstrate by the end of a year or band (combination of 2-year levels) after being taught the content descriptions.
• The relationship between the content descriptions and the achievement standard can be seen on the Version 9.0 Australian Curriculum website. You click an achievement standard component, and it will highlight the content descriptors that need to be taught. Select an achievement standard statement to see which content descriptions are related (they will be highlighted).
• If the content description(s) have been taught, the student should be able to demonstrate evidence of the achievement standards by the end of a year or band.

Content Descriptions¶

• Teachers are expected to teach the content descriptions.
• Time allocated to content descriptions will vary based on the students’ needs.
• Once a student has learnt the content description (and has demonstrated proficiency against the related achievement standard component), they no longer need to revisit that content description.
• Most states and territories would expect the content for a year level to be taught in that year level. However, if students are unable to grasp some content in the designated year it can be repeated.

Elaborations¶

• Elaborations are examples or suggestions on how to teach content descriptions.
• Content elaborations are optional, so are not required to be taught.

Organising Idea and Indicator¶

• If you teach the content descriptions, you will be addressing all the organising ideas and indicators because they have been embedded in the learning area content where appropriate and relevant.
• Some indicators are organised into learning progressions that could inform the teaching and learning program.

Summary¶

To do the required minimal amount when implementing the Australian Curriculum, you need to:

• Teach the content descriptions
• Assess against the Achievement Standard Components