Too much on curriculum: principals
Australia's new national curriculum will be "impossible" to teach properly in primary schools because too many extra subjects are being crammed in, principals have warned.
WA Primary Principals Association president Stephen Breen said primary schools previously had eight main learning areas but under the new curriculum they would have to teach across 11.
He was confident the curriculum's first phase - which includes English, maths, science and history - would be integrated "painlessly". But so much was being pushed into a crowded curriculum that subsequent phases would become academically and physically "impossible" to teach. Mr Breen said the association would write to WA's School Curriculum and Standards Authority to ask it to review local implementation and provide guidance on whether schools could drop some subjects if they lacked resources. He said the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority was "charting a course for mediocrity" by refusing to limit the learning areas.
Subjects which schools will be expected to teach in more depth include geography, civics and citizenship and economics and business.
ACARA said the curriculum had been designed in consultation with school leaders, teachers and the community.
