The curriculum has landed!

Image above: Finally an Australian geography curriculum for all of Australia.

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:  
manning@chariot.net.au

We have the green light!

After 4 years and 6 months of meetings, advisory groups, writing panels, draft documents, consultation periods, teacher forums and robust discussions, the Australian Curriculum: Geography has been published for Australian schools to use. On Friday, 10 May 2013 the Education Ministers met and signed-off on the final document and today the curriculum was published on the ACARA site.

The Australian Geography Teachers Association (AGTA) and geography teachers in Australia started working towards the creation of the curriculum when AGTA, the Institute of Australian Geographers (IAG) and the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland (RGSQ) established the 'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project way back in October 2008.  Since then there has been 4 advisory panels and over 10 writers who have crafted the many iterations of the curriculum leading to this final document. The publication of the curriculum is a very important day for geography in Australia because for the first time we have a geography curriculum for all of Australia - a 21st Century curriculum deserving plaudits as a world class geography curriculum. To view the curriculum go to the ACARA Australian Curriculum Portal at http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/Geography/Rationale.  The published on-line curriculum can be filtered and downloaded as required. A paper version of the curriculum can also be downloaded.

The next important event is the publication on 31 May of the ESA resources (GeogSpace) to support the Australian Curriculum: Geography. As mentioned in a previous Spatialworlds posting, the GeogSpace resource has been developed by AGTA and will be on-line as a standalone website called GeogSpace. We expect this resource to go live by the end of May and be the perfect support for classroom teachers engaging with the new geography Curriculum. More on that when it is launched. In the meantime keep an eye out for the GeogSpace  link coming alive  http://www.geogspace.edu.au

So at last the planets are lining up for the implementation of a national geography Curriculum. The next step is for geography teachers around Australia to offer professional learning for our teaching colleagues who are not geographers and require support in teaching this new discipline based conceptual geography curriculum - to help these teachers to think geographically.  This blog will certainly play a part in providing resources to support teachers to teach the curriculum with rigour, engagement and passion. It is an exciting time for geography in Australia schools.  We must not let this opportunity slip.