The Western Australian Curriculum

Parents, schools and us

Children are learning all the time and parents are their first educators. The development of your child is part of the long term and day-to-day care you provide.

Children benefit when parents work in partnership with schools to ensure their child’s individual learning needs are met.

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority (the Authority) is responsible for Kindergarten to Year 12 curriculum, assessment, standards and reporting for all Western Australian schools.

The Authority's role is to:

set out the mandated curriculum that shows teachers what they are expected to teach
provide guiding principles for teaching, learning and assessment that promote equity and excellence in Western Australian schools
support teachers in their assessment of student progress and reporting of student achievement.

The Guiding Principles provided by the Authority set the scene for learning that meets the educational needs of our children. Students develop the Western Australian Values of Schooling through the programs they undertake in Western Australian schools. The Authority’s Principles of Teaching, Learning and Assessment focus on class and school environments.

What will my child learn?

Our curriculum has been designed to meet the needs of students in Western Australia. In Western Australia, there is one curriculum for Pre-primary to Year 10 and another for Years 11 and 12. Both curriculum's have been adopted and adapted from the Australian curriculum.

You will find the Pre-primary to Year 10 curriculum in the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline (the Outline). The Outline also contains information about assessing student progress and reporting student achievement. The Outline is in the Kindergarten to Year 10 section of the website.

The Years 11 and 12 curriculum is in the Years 11 and 12 section of the website where you will find information about courses and programs for senior secondary students. This section of the website is also where you can see what students need to do to achieve a Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE).

Schools and teachers are responsible for organising student learning. To effectively deliver the curriculum, teachers respond to their students’ needs and interests, which inform their approach to teaching, learning and assessment.

What about the Kindergarten curriculum?

Kindergarten is not a compulsory year of schooling in Western Australia.

Planning for children in the Kindergarten year is supported by the Kindergarten Curriculum Guidelines (the Guidelines).

The Guidelines are part of the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline and draw on the Australian Government’s Early Years Learning Framework (the Framework). They build on the following five learning development areas from the Framework.

How does the Pre-primary to Year 10 curriculum work?

Schools use the Western Australian curriculum for Pre-primary to Year 10 to:

plan student learning programs
assess student progress
report student achievement to parents.

The Western Australian curriculum outlines the content for students to be taught each year. It is designed to be coherent and comprehensive. Achievement standards describe expected student performance in relation to the curriculum content for each year level.

The curriculum is organised into eight learning areas. Each learning area contains a year-level syllabus. This syllabus includes a year-level description, specific curriculum content and the Achievement Standard for each year of schooling, from Pre-primary to Year 10.

General capabilities in the Australian Curriculum:

General capabilities are a key dimension of the Australian Curriculum and are addressed explicitly in the content of the learning areas. They play a significant role in realising the goals set out in the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians that all young people in Australia should be supported to become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens.

The Melbourne Declaration identifies essential skills for twenty-first century learners – in literacy, numeracy, information and communication technology (ICT), thinking, creativity, teamwork and communication. It describes individuals who can manage their own wellbeing, relate well to others, make informed decisions about their lives, become citizens who behave with ethical integrity, relate to and communicate across cultures, work for the common good and act with responsibility at local, regional and global levels.

The general capabilities encompass the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that, together with curriculum content in each learning area and the cross-curriculum priorities, will assist students to live and work successfully in the twenty-first century. They complement the key learning outcomes of the Early Years Learning Framework – that children have a strong sense of identity and wellbeing, are connected with and contribute to their world, are confident and involved learners and effective communicators.

The Australian Curriculum includes seven general capabilities:

Cross-Curriculum Priorities

The Australian Curriculum has been written to equip young Australians with the skills, knowledge and understanding that will enable them to engage effectively with and prosper in a globalised world. Students will gain personal and social benefits, be better equipped to make sense of the world in which they live and make an important contribution to building the social, intellectual and creative capital of our nation.

Accordingly, the Australian Curriculum is both relevant to the lives of students and addresses the contemporary issues they face. With these considerations the curriculum gives special attention to these three priorities:

These Cross-curriculum priorities are embedded in all learning areas. They will have a strong but varying presence depending on their relevance to the learning areas.

***** ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The information on this page is derived from the Australian Curriculum.
Further details about any aspect can be found on their website.