Overview.

The ‘basic’ school curriculum includes the ‘national curriculum’, as well as relationships, sex and health education, and religious education.

The national curriculum is a set of subjects and standards used by primary and secondary schools so children learn the same things. It covers what subjects are taught and the standards children should reach in each subject.

Other types of school, like academies and private schools, do not have to follow the national curriculum. Academies must teach a broad and balanced curriculum including English, maths and science. They must also teach relationships and sex education, and religious education.

The dictionary defines it as: curriculum - the subjects comprising a course of study in a school or college: course components of the school curriculum.
syllabus - the subjects in a course of study or teaching: there isn't time to cover the syllabus | the history syllabus. Are you now clear on that?

It is my contention that a curriculum should be a brief statement of intent to inform educators the aims and objectives to which they are to be held accountable. Syllabus documents are prepared to provide suggested content to fulfill the overall aims of said curriculum. Whilst it is admirable that all Australian children should strive to achieve the aims and intent of a common curriculum the ways in which each and every school across the nation chooses to reach that goal must be as diverse as the districts and places in which they learn. Our National Curriculum, now mandated in all states and territories, has morphed into a highly detailed combination of curriculum intent and syllabus documentation to the degree that it is now a multi-headed monster with an insatiable appetite for more and more data, demanding to be fed daily. It has become so unwieldy that teachers are driven to distraction trying to fulfil the demands of the beast, supposedly to prove they are doing their jobs properly. The truth that about forty percent of learners, some say more, are either so far ahead of the said curriculum or so far behind its demands that they stop loving learning. They just stop! School for them has no meaning, no reward, no point in enjoying it any more.

The political decision to standardise learning across the nation was undertaken by the then Federal Education Minister, Julie Bishop, and is a major component of the Global Education Reform Movement which began its fateful journey in the late eighties to early nineties of the last century. It needed a NAPLAN hammer, a MySchool website and a commitment to Parent Choice to complete the GERM package which has brought the dreadful outcomes now before us, our great inequity and falling standards.

Stop Press: 2007 - Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop is continuing with her push for a new national board of studies to set a model school curriculum. The Government is unhappy with what is being taught in Australian schools and wants to take responsibility for setting curriculum off the states and territories. Many state and territory leaders, and educators have called the proposal a power grab by the Federal Government. But Ms Bishop has told ABC TV's Insiders program that criticism of the proposal is misguided. "Parents are sick of left-wing ideology in curriculum, just as I would suggest you don't need right-wing ideology," she said. "Let's have a sensible centre in education and ensure that our students have a Commonsense curriculum, with core subjects, including Australian history, and a renewed focus especially on literacy and numeracy."

When the debate over the adoption of a National Curriculum was raging in 2007 Ross Farrely wrote this piece. Julie Bishop had her way though the following year. The National Curriculum was a political decision in the guise of benefitting our nation’s families and their children. Poor teachers, poor kids.

“National Curriculum: A Bipartisan Bad Idea.” - Ross Farrely

https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/PJlPubPI/2007/27.pdf

This is an excerpt of his article:

Julie Bishop gives a number of reasons as to why she supports moves towards a national curriculum. Her first and most compelling reason is that a national curriculum would eliminate unnecessary replication under the current system whereby each state develops its own curriculum. In a speech to the National Press Club in February this year, Ms Bishop said, ‘In a country of 20 million people, why do we need to develop eight curricula in eight jurisdictions?’

The second reason Ms Bishop gives for a national curriculum is that it will raise standards across the country. This appears to be her strongest motivation for introducing these measures. Her reasoning is that by selecting the best of all the state curricula and combining the cream of the crop into a single national curriculum, all students in every state would be better off. Again, at first glance, this seems to be a reasonable argument.

However, this line of reasoning ignores one very important fact. Consolidating the eight different state and territory curricula into a single national curriculum changes the curriculum development environment from one which has some scope for competition, comparison and diversity into a monoculture in which there is a single solution imposed on every school in the country. This consolidation of decision-making is a recipe for the lowering of standards, not for raising them.

The third reason Julie Bishop gives for the introduction of a national curriculum is that it will assist families which move interstate with school-aged children. However, this argument does not hold water for two reasons. Firstly, the percentage of school-aged children who move interstate each year is very low. In 2006 approximately 80,000 out of a total school population of 3.3 million moved interstate. That is 2.4% of the school population. The introduction of a measure which will disadvantage all students through lowering standards cannot be justified on the grounds of making things a little easier for such a small number. Furthermore, since the curricula are already very similar in many areas, the difficulties experienced when moving from state to state would be minimal.

In February this year, Labor set out its case for a national curriculum in a document entitled New Directions for our schools: Establishing a National Curriculum to improve our children’s educational outcomes. The reasoning in this document is similar to the case put forward by Julie Bishop. While paying lip service to ‘school autonomy, local innovation and choice’ as important aspects to a healthy school system, the authors list assistance for those who move interstate and increased national consistency as the main justifications for a national curriculum. There is no substantial evidence to support the assertion that more consistency leads to higher standards. This is taken as a given.