Labor takes school classes back to basics

Experts have warned that maths will become more difficult, pre-primary children could be turned off learning and English teachers will have to polish their grammatical skills as a result of the introduction of the new national schools curriculum.

The Federal Government yesterday unveiled the draft Australian Curriculum, which outlines what every child should know in English, history, maths and science from pre-school to Year 10.

Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers past president Judy Anderson said the curriculum was more rigorous than what had gone before. "Certainly we believe that there are increased expectations for students and teachers," she said.

The association was concerned that Year 7s in WA, South Australia and Queensland were at primary school instead of high school, which meant those children did not have the benefit of specialist maths teachers.

Edith Cowan University early childhood education program director Jenny Jay said it was detrimental to force pre-primary children into activities before they were ready or had developed the necessary skills.

The new curriculum says pre-primary children should be able to write "short texts of one or two sentences" to retell events. They should also be able to read aloud short texts.

"I think that it's important that we have goals for children to achieve, as long as children aren't forced to do things before they're able or ready," she said. "What that does is causes children to turn off learning."

Dr Jay said play should remain at the heart of pre-primary. The aim was to increase children's skills without putting "unreasonable expectations" on them. Peter Freebody, who chaired the English curriculum committee, predicted some teachers would need to read books on introductory grammar to improve their skills.

Primary school teachers would need to be shown how to teach literature studies, because the subject would be introduced in primary school for the first time.

High school teachers would also have to tutor children in basic literacy skills - which are traditionally taught in the early years - because many needed remedial help when they reached high school.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the curriculum embraced back to basics, saying the States had allowed "less than adequate standards and less than adequate content" to creep into the classroom.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the national curriculum had been influenced too heavily by political correctness while shadow education minister Chris Pyne labelled it "unbalanced" and threatened to scrap it if the Liberals won the election.

Mr Pyne said there were 118 mentions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and culture in the history curriculum but none of Westminster and the Magna Carta - the basis of Parliament and laws.

Education Minister Liz Constable said WA would have to do more work in a short time than some others to overcome differences between the new curriculum and its own version.