Schooling - Reception to Year 6
The Australian Curriculum is taught in government schools for reception to year 10 students.
Teachers use curriculum to:
- plan student learning
- monitor and assess student progress
- report student progress to parents
- support student wellbeing.
Learning areas
Overview
The Australian Curriculum is designed to help all young Australians to become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens. Presented as a developmental sequence of learning from Foundation - Year 10, the Australian Curriculum describes to teachers, parents, students and others in the wider community what is to be taught and the quality of learning expected of young people as they progress through school.
The three-dimensional design of the Foundation – Year 10 Australian Curriculum recognises the importance of disciplinary knowledge, skills and understanding alongside general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities.
Disciplinary knowledge, skills and understanding are described in the eight learning areas of the Australian Curriculum: English, Mathematics, Science, Health and Physical Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, The Arts, Technologies and Languages. The latter four learning areas have been written to include multiple subjects, reflecting custom and practice in the discipline. In each learning area or subject, content descriptions specify what young people will learn, and achievement standards describe the depth of understanding and the sophistication of knowledge and skill expected of students at the end of each year level or band of years.
The curriculum learning areas are:
Humanities and social sciences – history, geography, economics and business, civics and citizenship
The Arts – dance, drama, music, media arts, visual arts
Technologies – design and technologies, digital technologies
General capabilities
Introduction
The general capabilities play a significant role in the Australian Curriculum in equipping young Australians to live and work successfully in the twenty-first century.
In the Australian Curriculum, capability encompasses knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions. Students develop capability when they apply knowledge and skills confidently, effectively and appropriately in complex and changing circumstances, in their learning at school and in their lives outside school.
