Dr Michele Bruniges AM
Secretary
Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE)
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Dear Dr Bruniges
Fol owing on from my correspondence of 8 March 2021, I write to provide you with a further update
on the progress of the Review of the F-10 Australian Curriculum ahead of the upcoming Education
Ministers Meeting.
As you know, ministers agreed to the terms of reference for the Review in June last year. The terms
of reference required ACARA, by the end of 2021, to “improve the Australian Curriculum by refining,
realigning and decluttering” the content of the curriculum within its existing structure. This
structure comprises:
• eight learning areas (English, Mathematics, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Health
and Physical Education, Technologies, the Arts, and Languages);
• three cross-curriculum priorities (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures,
Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia, and Sustainability); and
• seven general capabilities (literacy, numeracy, ICT literacy, critical and creative thinking,
personal and social capability, ethical understanding, and intercultural understanding).
The existing structure also retains the presentation of curriculum content in its three core elements:
• content descriptions - that specify the essential knowledge, understanding and skil s that
young people are expected to learn, and teachers are expected to teach;
• achievement standards - that describe the expected quality or standard of learning students
should be able to typical y demonstrate by the end of each year; and
• content elaborations - as optional support material that provide teachers with suggestions
and illustrations of ways to approach the learning area content.
Neither the development of the initial Australian Curriculum nor the 2014 Review involved public
consultation on the ful set of curriculum documents. This is the first time this has been done, and
ACARA always hoped and anticipated that it would give rise to considerable public engagement and
discussion.
This has proven to be the case since the release of the proposed revisions on 29 April. ACARA
welcomes the debate. As the inaugural chair of ACARA, Emeritus Professor Barry McGaw, wrote at
the time of the 2014 review:
The school curriculum expresses a nation’s aspirations for its next generations. The
curriculum must strike a balance between developing young people’s understanding of
their national history and culture and preparing them for a future that is increasingly
global and largely unpredictable.
What constitutes essential school learning wil always be contested because behind it
is a debate about what knowledge is of most worth. Curriculum stirs the passions –
and that is a good thing. Curriculum is never completed. It is never perfect and should
always be a work in progress.
