Developing a twenty-first century school curriculum for all Australian students

ACSA continues its commitment to providing leadership in promoting productive national curriculum work. This work commenced in 2006 when ACSA hosted a National Approaches to Curriculum Forum and a national symposium on Approaches to National Curriculum Work which resulted in the Guide to Productive National Curriculum Work for the Twenty First Century.

Report - National Approaches to Curriculum Forum, February 2006.
Report - National Approaches to Curriculum Forum, August 2006.
Guide to Productive National Curriculum Work for the Twenty First Century.

To ensure the continuation of this national curriculum work ACSA convened the Curriculum Standing Committee of National Education Professional Associations (CSCNEPA), the first meeting being in February 2007 to agree the purposes and work program of the group.

The membership of CSCNEPA is made up of the Chairs and Directors of fourteen National Professional Associations. CSCNEPA has been established to encourage a full, rigorous and wide ranging dialogue around the development and implementation of a twenty first century curriculum for Australian schools.

CSCNEPA Membership and Purposes

In May 2007 CSCNEPA developed a statement on what a 21st century curriculum must achieve for all Australian students and how we can achieve it. Amongst the papers used to inform the thinking of the group during the development of this statement were two discussion papers on School Curriculum for the 21st Century by Bruce Wilson and Peter Cole. These papers may be accessed at the links below and we hope will serve the purpose of informing your own discussions around national curriculum.

Paper - School Curriculum for the 21st century by Bruce Wilson
Paper - School curriculum for the 21st Century: A Rough Guide to a National Curriculum by Peter Cole

At the ACSA Biennial Conference - July 2007 an exposure draft of the statement What a 21st Century Curriculum must achieve for all Australian students and how we can achieve it, developed for CSCNEPA, was tested during a panel session with input from participants. As a result of this input and the work undertaken by CSCNEPA a working paper - Developing a Twenty-first Century School Curriculum for All Australian Students has been developed. The working paper, which can be accessed at the link below is intended to provide an informed basis for continued thinking and sharing of perspectives about what a 21st Century curriculum should achieve for all Australian students and how we should achieve it.

Working Paper - Developing a Twenty-first Century School Curriculum for All Australian Students.

The work of the CSCNEPA has continued during 2008 with the members meeting three times to progress its work. The members of CSCNEPA, which include the Chairs and Directors of the peak National Professional Associations, are committed to ongoing meetings.

At the first meeting in February 2008 Barry McGaw Chair, National Curriculum Board and Tom Bentley, Senior Advisor on Schools to the Minister attended to brief members on the then newly established National Curriculum Board and to hear members' views.

The second meeting of the year was held in June on the evening prior to the National Curriculum Board's first national consultation to allow members to prepare responses to the consultation which centred around a development paper.

Barry McGaw , along with Rose Naughton from the Office of the National Curriculum Board, again attended the last meeting for CSCNEPA for the year held in September to further inform members on the work of the National Curriculum Board and to hear the views of CSCNEPA members.

Consistent with CSCNEPA's desire to appropriately include the voices of the subject associations that are obviously essential to the first round of work by the National Curriculum Board, representatives of Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers, Australian Association for the Teaching of English, Australian Literacy Educators Association, e:lit, Australian Science Teachers Association and the History Teachers Association of Australia have been invited to join CSCNEPA meetings.

In October 2008 CSCNEPA released a stimulus paper Aligning curriculum with the goals of schooling: developing a Twenty-first Century School Curriculum for All Australian Students which was written, for CSCNEPA, by Peter Cole.

This paper takes a fresh look at the way that curriculum in the post-compulsory years (Years 10-12) is structured and delivered in schools. Its starting point is a concern about the apparent divide between the national goals for schooling in the 21st Century and the actual curriculum that schools are expected to deliver in the post-compulsory years. It does not address all learning that a student might choose to undertake in the post-compulsory years but focuses particularly on discipline based learning and how this might be reconceived so that all students can leave school with a broad understanding of core concepts and big ideas in the key discipline areas. It advocates alternative ways of packaging and delivering post-compulsory curriculum to those generally adopted in Australian jurisdictions and proposed in the national curriculum project, and where available references arrangements in jurisdictions nationally and internationally that illustrate the proposed alternative practice.

Stimulus Paper 2008 - Aligning curriculum with the goals of schooling by Peter Cole.

CSCNEPA continues to meet three times a year.