New English and Maths syllabuses for the State’s youngest students have been released by the NSW Education Standards Authority, a milestone in its Curriculum Reform Agenda.
Announced by Premier, Dominic Perrottet, students in Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 2 are to begin the new curriculum next year, following the first comprehensive review in more than 30 years.
Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning, Sarah Mitchell said that, for the first time, the curriculum was completely online and came with explicit teaching examples.
“We heard clearly from teachers that navigating syllabuses was unnecessarily arduous,” Ms Mitchell said.
“The new online curriculum removes any ambiguity for teachers, and comes with explicit teaching advice on an online platform,” she said.
“This will be particularly helpful for early-career teachers.”
Ms Mitchell said changes to the syllabuses included simple language which identified key knowledge and skills; easy access and navigation on a new Digital Curriculum platform; clear expectations on student reading progression; renewed focus on handwriting; new supports for students with significant intellectual disability; emphasis on ‘reasoning’ in Mathematics; and advanced counting strategies.
The new syllabuses can be accessed on the Authority’s website at this PS News link.
