Do you know ACARA's Mission?

As a Teacher Development School we develop workshops that always provide teachers the background regarding the development of the Australian Curriculum - and in a way the "chain of command"...who developed what and why?  We believe it is important for teachers to be informed educators - don't just take my word for things - WHERE did that information come from? WHY do you need to know this? WHO is responsible? When we present information we often remark, "This isn't the thought or opinion of our TDS, this information is located..."

Soooooooooooo to that end - WHY do we have a "national" curriculum? Wellllllllll it all began, (in very simple terms), with a meeting of Education Ministers in Melbourne where the development of the Melbourne Declaration in 2008 occured. If you have not engaged with this document, I would encourage you and your teams to do so as it sets out the background for WHY we have a "national" curriculum and WHAT is is trying to achieve. Talk about engaging a moral purpose! I have attached a link below for you to download the Melbourne Declaration of 2008.

The Melbourne Declaration

From this declaration, a national curriculum was devised as part of the "call to action".

On 31 July 2014, ACARA tweeted a photo from their Twitter account, @ACARAeduau, with the statement, "Some reflections aligned to our mission, which is to improve learning outcomes for all young Australians". 

Here is the graphic, (click to enlarge):

We now have this framed in the Conference Room at Woodlands Primary School as a little reminder of a very important mission.

By the way, you can also follow Woodlands on Twitter @WoodlandsTDS !

Something else of interest might be that the Cross Curriculum Priorities are not a mandated part of AC! This is because they were selected as CURRENT priorities for young Australians BUT these priorities might change in the future if the goals change nationally! I did not know this until I heard ACARA reps speak at the WAPPA Conference in Perth this year.

I hope you found this information of interest and use.

Kind regards

Carlene Thorpe
Teacher Development School Coordinator
Woodlands Primary School