English aims to ensure that students learn to listen to, read, view, speak, write, create and reflect on increasingly complex and sophisticated spoken, written and multimodal texts across a growing range of contexts with accuracy, fluency and purpose appreciate, enjoy and use the English language in all its variations. Students will develop a sense of its richness and power to convey information, form ideas, facilitate interaction with others, entertain, persuade and argue understand how Standard Australian English works in its spoken and written forms and in combination with non-linguistic forms of communication to create meaning, develop interest and skills in inquiring into the aesthetic aspects of texts, and develop an informed appreciation of literature.
Mathematics aims to ensure that students are confident, creative users and communicators of mathematics, able to investigate, represent and interpret situations in their personal and work lives and as active citizens develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of mathematical concepts and fluency with processes, and are able to pose and solve problems and reason in number and algebra, measurement and geometry, and statistics and probability recognise connections between the areas of mathematics and other disciplines and appreciate mathematics as an accessible and enjoyable discipline to study.
The Australian Curriculum in Science provides opportunities for students to develop an understanding of important science concepts and processes, the practices used to develop scientific knowledge, of science’s contribution to our culture and society, and its applications in our lives. It provides an understanding of scientific inquiry methods, a foundation of knowledge across the disciplines of science, and develops an ability to communicate scientific understanding and use evidence to solve problems and make evidence-based decisions. The curriculum supports students to develop the scientific knowledge, understandings and skills to make informed decisions about local, national and global issues and to participate, if they so wish, in science-related careers. The AC in Science leads to senior secondary subjects of Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Environmental Science and Physics.
The Australian Curriculum in Humanities and Social Sciences includes: HASS, Civics and Citizenship, Economics and Business, Geography and History. The Civics and Citizenship curriculum is all about ensuring students have the skills and values to become active and informed citizens. Students will investigate political and legal systems, and explore the nature of citizenship, diversity and identity in contemporary society.
The Economics and Business curriculum explores aspects of economics and business that affect daily life. Students will learn about the role that individuals, businesses and governments play in the economy, the way they make decisions about how to allocate resources and the effects of these decisions.The Geography curriculum provides opportunities for students to investigate, analyse and explain the characteristics of the places that make up our world.
The Australian Curriculum in History provides opportunities for students to investigate Australian and world history. Australian history is to be taught within a world history context. Students develop knowledge, understanding and skills through their study of societies, events, movements and developments. There are opportunities to study the role of individuals and groups and their significance.
In the Australian Curriculum, The Arts is a learning area that draws together related but distinct art forms. While these art forms have close relationships and are often used in interrelated ways, each involves different approaches to arts practices and critical and creative thinking that reflect distinct bodies of knowledge, understanding and skills. The curriculum examines past, current and emerging arts practices in each art form across a range of cultures and places. The Arts comprises five subjects:
The arts have the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich all students, exciting the imagination and encouraging them to reach their creative and expressive potential. The five arts subjects in the Australian Curriculum provide opportunities for students to learn how to create, design, represent, communicate and share their imagined and conceptual ideas, emotions, observations and experiences.
The Australian Curriculum in Technologies draws together the distinct but related subjects of Design and Technologies, and Digital Technologies. It ensures that all students benefit from learning about, and working with, traditional, contemporary and emerging technologies that shape the world in which we live. In creating solutions, as well as responding to the designed world, students will contribute to sustainable patterns of living for themselves and others. Technologies describes two distinct but related subjects:
Design and Technologies, in which students use design thinking and technologies to generate and produce designed solutions for authentic needs and opportunities
Digital Technologies, in which students use computational thinking and information systems to define, design and implement digital solutions.
Health and Physical Education offers experiential learning, with a curriculum that is relevant, engaging, contemporary, physically active, enjoyable and developmentally appropriate. Integral to Health and Physical Education is the acquisition of movement skills, concepts and strategies that enable students to participate in a range of physical activities confidently and competently. In Health and Physical Education, students develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to support them to be resilient, to develop a strong sense of self, to build and maintain satisfying relationships, to make health-enhancing decisions in relation to their health and physical activity participation, and to develop health literacy competencies in order to enhance their own and others’ health and wellbeing.
Languages is designed to enable all students to engage in learning a language in addition to English. The design of the Languages recognises the features that languages share as well as the distinctiveness of specific languages. The key concepts of language, culture and learning, as described in the Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Languages, underpin the learning area. They also provide the basis for a common rationale and set of aims for all languages. Each language has its own distinctive structure, systems, conventions for use, related culture(s), place in the Australian and international communities, as well as its own history in Australian education.
Learners of languages in Australia comprise three major groups: