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Draft principles

Principles for developing national curriculum

The development of national curriculum is underpinned by certain principles. The National Curriculum Board is currently working with the following seven principles, which will be refined after the consultation forum on 27 June:

  1. The national curriculum needs to provide students with an understanding of the past that has shaped the society and culture in which they are growing and learning, and with knowledge, understandings and skills that will help them in their future lives.
  2. The curriculum should be based on the assumptions that all students can learn and that every child matters. It should, however, also take account of the markedly different rates at which students develop, while not allowing those differences to become a reason to abandon some students to low expectations that will arbitrarily limit their development.
  3. The curriculum should make clear to teachers what has to be taught, and to students what they should learn and what achievement standards are expected of them in each stage of schooling.
  4. The curriculum needs to be feasible. It must be based on reasonable expectations of time and resources available to teachers. Consideration needs to be given to the length of documentation, extent of specification, and accessibility of language. The use of plain language is important but the complexity in ideas appropriate for professional practitioners must be preserved.
  5. The development of the national curriculum is intended to establish essential content and achievement standards for all Australian students to invigorate a national effort to improve student learning in the selected subjects.
  6. The curriculum needs to be flexible. It must allow jurisdictions, systems and schools the ability to deliver the national curriculum in a way that values teachers’ professional knowledge and reflects local school and regional differences and priorities.
  7. The national curriculum needs to be developed collaboratively with jurisdictions, systems and schools across Australia. To ensure its success, its development will be grounded on a strong research base of learning and pedagogy, and on what works in professional practice as well as on the ‘best practices’ across Australia and overseas.