Fire in the Classroom

Why I’m excited about the new National Curriculum

Over the weekend I caught up with a librarian from an independent school who is in the process of re-structuring the school’s entire P-12 curriculum to align with the National Curriculum. Ugh. So much work! At Campfire, we too, are wading through the new Curriculum framework, the terminology, and the ideas behind it all. We also feel the weight of this immense project being implemented around Australia. But there’s one thing that has me excited. The official promotion from ACARA says that the National Curriculum is solely online and directly aligned with digital learning resources.

So what does that mean?

In a word: MATCHING.

As a teacher, it means I can look up any specific area of study and find matching digital resources that are freely available online for Australian schools.

For example, consider Year 9 English in the Language strand.

Once I work out what the tag icons symbolise, I can see that this sub-strand called Language for interaction looks for

General Capabilities in Literacy, Intercultural understanding, Personal and social capability, and Information and communication technology capability

and has

Cross-curriculum priorities in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures, and Asia and Australia´s engagement with Asia.

Here’s the really good bit: by selecting on the code above these tags (here it is ACELA1551), we can find out the resources available online…

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