Autumn 2004

Talking English

Progress report: the national consistency in curriculum outcomes project

Education in Australia is the constitutional responsibility of the States and Territories. To achieve some national consistency in curriculums for Australian schools the Federal, State and Territory Ministers of Education have commissioned a project to write nationally consistent Statements of Learning for English. JOAN HOLT, CHRISTINE LUDWIG, TONY MOORE and ROBERT RANDALL report.

Why do we need national curriculum consistency? This is not a movement towards a tight national curriculum as exists in England, which federalism in Australia will always mediate, but a move to greater national curriculum consistency. The National Consistency in Curriculum Outcomes (NCCO) project aims to reach national agreement about the essential knowledge, skills, understandings and capacities that we want all young Australians to have the opportunity to learn and develop.

There are many reasons for national consistency. Greater national agreement about what is considered essential will:

• give support to children who move interstate, and bring a sense of confidence for students and families that the curriculum at each school shares the same intentions, thereby alleviating the educational and emotional impacts of moving school. Between 1991 and 1996 about 220,000 students aged 5–19 moved to a different State or Territory.
• stimulate the development of high quality resources to support implementation and allow governments, jurisdictions and schools to direct more of allocated curriculum development resources to professional development.
• assist jurisdictions in their endeavours to uncrowd the curriculum and allow for the pursuit of higherorder thinking.
• be useful to the development of Australian citizens by providing better possibilities to transmit our shared culture, promote common values and work together for our preferred futures.
• help to articulate what distinguishes Australian education.

What is the background to the project?

In the early 1990s there was a move towards a national curriculum framework, a broad attempt to achieve national consistency in curriculum and assessment. This was led by the then federal Minister of Education, John Dawkins. The effort saw the development of the Hobart Declaration of the National Goals of Schooling and national curriculum Statements and Profiles. In July 1993, the movement faltered when the Ministers decided to refer the Statements and Profiles to the States and Territories for consultation and review. The final version of the Statements and Profiles became a dominant influence on curriculum development in each of the States and Territories.

As new curriculum documents were developed by States and Territories, the degree of consistency in the documented curricula decreased. Each jurisdiction made its own decisions, initially about how to develop its curriculum approach to use the Statements and Profiles, and later about how to redesign its curriculum approach altogether. The trend has continued and a greater diversity of approaches is now evident.

Some elements of national collaboration, relevant to curriculum, have continued. Firstly, in the area of broad intentions of schooling, the national goals were revised and approved at the Adelaide Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) meeting in 2000. Secondly, in the area of standards, national benchmarks of student achievement in literacy and numeracy at years 3, 5 and 7 were finalised in 2000. While primarily focussed on assessment and reporting, the benchmarks themselves are an example of national consistency,

At the July 2002 MCEETYA meeting, the Ministers expressed concern about the differences and lack of curriculum consistency among States and Territories. They commissioned a review of curriculums around Australia and asked for advice on how States and Territories could collaborate further to achieve consistent curriculum outcomes.

Under the direction of the Student Learning and Support Services taskforce, Curriculum Corporation undertook the review, developing a comprehensive report entitled Curriculum Provision in the Australian States and Territories 2003. The report identified trends, similarities and differences across the country and confirmed the Ministers’ concerns about consistency. Representatives from every State and Territory and the Catholic and independent sectors collaborated to produce the recommendations for Ministers on how greater consistency could be achieved.

At the July 2003 MCEETYA meeting, Ministers endorsed the development of Statements of Learning in the four domains of English, Maths, Science and civics and citizenship. They decided that the Statements of Learning are to build upon areas of commonality identified in the report and should be used by jurisdictions for integration within their own curriculum documents as they are reviewed. They approved, in the first instance, the development of one set of Statements of Learning in English to be ready February 2004 so th make a decision ab on the additional three domains. The project is to be managed by the Australian Education Systems Officials Committe (AESOC).

What are Statements of Learning?

The Statements of Learning in Englis represent what is common among State and Territory curriculums, as well as what is seen to be essential for all Australian students to learn. They describe the knowledge, skills, understanding and capacities that all students should have the opportunity to learn and develop. They do not attempt to encompass the whole of what could be included in English curriculums, but only what is agreed to be essential for all young Australians.

The Ministers’ decisions about the Statements of Learning in English were based on a set of specifications which provide guidance to the development of the Statements. These specifications state that the Statements of Learning will:

• encapsulate the essential knowledge, understanding, skills and capacities of the four domains
• identify and build on elements that are common among jurisdictions’ curriculums
• integrate some of the generic and transdisciplinary capacities and understandings of the National Goals of Schooling, in particular, information and communication technologies
• be integrated within system curriculum documents as part of each system’s normal renewal processes and time period, or
• help achievement of high standards of knowledge, skills and understanding and represent a level of skill that is reasonable, challenging and appropriate to the majority of young Australians
• differ from outcomes in that they will be more specific about skills, understandings, knowledge and capacities
• outline a sequence of learning across four points of schooling— years 3, 5, 7 and 9
• allow students to demonstrate their mastery of particular knowledge and skills in a number of ways and imply the potential for teachers to use a wide repertoire of teaching styles
• have a sound theoretical base, draw on data about current levels of student achievement and also on professional judgement.

The specifications also indicated that the Statements of Learning will NOT:

• attempt to describe the whole of learning within a domain
• be statements of minimum knowledge, skill and understanding as represented by the national literacy and numeracy benchmarks
• assume their use in systemwide monitoring and reporting.

How will the Statements of Learning be used?

It is intended that the Statements of Learning will be integrated within system curriculum documents as part of each system’s normal renewal processes and time period or, in the case of the independent sector, within school curriculum documents. By describing the knowledge, skills, understandings and capacities that will be common among State and Territory curriculums, greater consistency will be achieved. Ministers will be able to assure parents moving interstate that they can expect a reasonable degree of consistency between the curriculums of one State or Territory and another.

While Statements of Learning will provide a common reference point, stopping the drift of curriculums away from each other, the limited scope of the Statements of Learning will avoid overly constraining State and Territory systems, which will retain the flexibility and autonomy to integrate them into the conceptual frameworks and philosophical approaches adopted in their curriculum documents. In this respect the Statements of Learning differ from the Statements and Profiles which were intended to be a national curriculum framework, although never used as such. Systems will also continue to determine their own outcomes and levels of achievement while looking to the Statements of Learning to provide a description of the knowledge, skills, understandings and capacities that all students should have the opportunity to learn.

Joan Holt is project manager for the NCCO project at Curriculum Corporation.

Christine Ludwig is a writer for the NCCO project.

Tony Moore is a writer for the NCCO project.

Robert Randall is writer manager for the NCCO project.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au