ACARA Update, February 2022

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February 2022

Australian Curriculum Review update

Following the Education Ministers Meeting (EMM) in February 2022, ACARA is to provide a revised Version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum to EMM for approval by April 2022. An Australian Curriculum sets high aspirations for what all students should know and be able to do, and supports improvement in Australia’s educational performance. This review of the Australian Curriculum was the first time the curriculum has been released for public comment since its creation in 2010. ACARA will provide updates to our valued stakeholders as they are available.

New videos: Illustrations of practice

A series of new videos that help to illustrate education practices has been launched by the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO) together with Ochre Education. The videos focus on teaching practices that have been proven to make a difference to learning outcomes for children and students – one video showsYear 1 teachers at Loxton Primary School demonstrating explicit instruction in their classroom. The lessons have been taught by 14 leading teachers from across the country and in all schooling systems.

Teachers can now access:

over 80 high-quality video lessons in primary maths and English
about 350 resources such as lesson slides, worksheets and quizzes
fully sequenced curriculum maps, detailing overviews of the content, units and principles for each subject.

Lessons are around one hour long and include introductory and exit quizzes, a video explanation from the teacher and a worksheet. In addition, AERO's partnership with Ochre Education, a new Australian education not-for-profit organisation, sees AERO supporting Ochre to work with teachers to produce hundreds of free teaching resources. These include around 300 high-quality video lessons and about 550 resources such as lesson slides, worksheets and quizzes in primary maths, English and secondary science. Ochre resources are suitable for face-to-face and remote learning and will be made progressively available to teachers from Term 1, 2022. Find them on AERO’s website and the Ochre platform.

Back to school resources: computational thinking in practice

These computational thinking practice cards for F-2 students are a great resource for teachers to share with parents, who are often looking for ways to get involved with their child's learning from home. Computational thinking is a core concept in the Australian Curriculum: Technologies. It includes:

organising information (data) logically
breaking down problems into parts
defining abstract concepts
designing and using algorithms (step-by-step instructions)
understanding patterns and creating models.

Many everyday tasks that require a step-by-step approach or learning a routine involve computational thinking, such as following a recipe, getting dressed and ready for school in the morning, and following the rules of a game involve computational thinking.
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