Consultation plays an integral role in establishing the directions for the design and development of the curriculum. ACARA’s consultation processes are described in the Curriculum Development Process v. 6.0 document (PDF 1.4 mb). Feedback is sought from a range of people and organisations including education authorities, parent bodies, professional education associations, academics and business, industry and community groups. At critical points in the process, there is broad national public consultation on draft materials, notably at the draft shape paper stage and the draft curriculum stage. In between these periods of consultation, there are also opportunities for the representative stakeholder groups to provide feedback.
Consultation feedback is provided by a wide range of stakeholders throughout Australia in the form of online surveys and detailed written submissions. ACARA has comprehensive processes in place, with advisory groups and national panels to review all consultation feedback and take appropriate action to improve draft curriculum documents.
Formal consultation reports summarise the key findings received from the stakeholder consultation and are available on the learning pages via the links below. These reports outline the methodology used to collect and analyse consultation data, the quantitative and qualitative feedback itself, and recommendations.
During consultation on the draft Foundation – Year 10 Australian Curriculum for English, Mathematics, Science and History, ACARA undertook an independent analysis of similarities and differences between the Australian Curriculum, and state and territory curricula. An international mapping process was also undertaken for the final Foundation – Year 10 Australian Curriculum for English, Mathematics and Science against international comparison curricula.