What is the role of curriculum? What makes a quality curriculum?

In a report released on Monday 27 November, 2023, educational reform consultancy Learning First claims to have conducted the first detailed benchmarking of the content of the Australian science curriculum against seven high-performing and comparable systems around the world.  

The claim that this is the first benchmarking activity is just one of many errors in the report, which is rife with unsubstantiated claims, incomplete evidence, and gross assumptions, the most disturbing of which is that more “content” is a key indicator of quality curriculum (with the implication that good teaching is all about transmission of content). 

Learning First is a company that claims to “build relationships… based on honesty, integrity and deep experience and expertise” and whose clients “include federal governments in various parts of the world.” Given their activities and clients, this report is worth scrutiny.  

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Is jelly a liquid or a solid? And why this is a great inquiry question

I’m a big fan of inquiry questions, and some in particular stand out as worth embedding in our teaching. One inquiry question (from the Year 3 year level description in the revised Australian Curriculum: Science) in particular — “Is jelly a liquid or a solid?” — stands out. It’s there to support learning of the Science understanding sub-strand Chemical sciences content description “investigate the observable properties of solids and liquids and how adding or removing heat energy leads to a change of state,” as well as several of the Science inquiry strand content descriptions. Read on to find out why this is such a useful question for driving learning in Year 3…

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Hypothetical learning styles (modalities)

As teachers, our decisions about these will also be informed by the students in our class, who they are, what they already know and understand, what their particular needs and interests are, but it would not be necessary or even helpful to know if they are a ‘visual learner,’ and it would be downright unhelpful to limit learners’ access to particular modes on this basis.

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