Education And The National Curriculum Framework

Curriculum is designed to develop successful learners. Confident and creative individuals and active and informed citizens (MCEECDYA, 2008, p.13). In 2008, the Australian Government promised to deliver a fair and equitable curriculum for the national’s educational system, taking the task away from the State and Local Governments. The purpose of this was to create an even level of education throughout the country whether in Hobart of Cape York, and to ensure our nations position into the 21st century. This essay will demonstrate the Nation’s curriculum, its structure and development ready for its initial implementation in 2011.

Content area teachers can implement strategies and scaffold learning when planning and designing instruction so that students will actively engage in literacy. According to Dobbs, content area reading instruction includes: the information present in the text, and the instructional plan teachers use to help students understand the content (2003, p.3). Vacca, Vacca, & Mraz explain that in order to plan instruction effectively, teachers must be aware of the explicit and functional dimensions of content literacy. The explicit aspect of content literacy involves the development of skills and strategies that enable students to comprehend what they are reading. Functional instruction focuses more on the application of strategies needed to derive knowledge from a variety of sources of information.” (2014, p. 134). Forget defined literacy as “listening, thinking, reading, and speaking in such a way that information and ideas are processed and communicated to the benefit of self and society” (2003, p. 5). Content area teachers need to plan and design lessons so that students will actively engage in literacy. Forget goes on to discuss that poor performance in schools can be do to a lack of basic literacy skills. Therefore, teachers need to implement the skills and strategies found to be successful in literacy to ensure

The Australian Curriculum basically makes sure that it is setting out the essential knowledge, understanding, skills and universal competences that are very essential for all Australian students. The Australian Curriculum makes sure that it defines the learning power of students as groundwork for their future learning, development and vigorous contribution in the Australian society. It makes obvious what every young Australians need to learn as they advance through their schooling. It is the basis for high worth teaching to come across the requirements of everyone of Australian students. Curriculum is intended to progress fruitful learners. Secure and resourceful persons and functioning and informed people (MCEECDYA, 2008, p.13). In 2008, the Australian Government swore to distribute a reasonable and just curriculum for the national's educational system, pulling the job away from the Local and State Governments. The drive of this was to generate a smooth phase of education all the way through the nation, and to also safeguard their countries locus into the 21st century. This essay will reveal the Nation's curriculum, its organization and development that had already been implemented for its initial opening in 2011.

This chapter is all about redefining curriculum themes. The themes teachers do is just topical themes that actually may not benefit the students at all when it comes to development. We need to observe the children and find out what is their interests and use that to expand their learning. If we are going to have a curriculum it should be focus on were the kids are at and not from just a textbook. We need to go from traditional theme planning to developmental theme planning which is focused on the students and helping to develop them. This developmental theme planning will help when students are asking questions, their curiosity, their strengths and interests and their play. Children love to play whether it is pretend, exploration (they want to see how things work, feel, taste and etc.), construction or playing games with rules. Also, using things like birthday parties, fears of children like floods, earthquakes, cleanup, and setup to help provide developmental themes for the systems. It is important we have props beside toys that children can use when it comes to playing so they can explore different things. We should make themes off of observations that we see from our students.

Vouchers can either be downloaded from the canparent website to a computer or mobile phone, or paper vouchers are being distributed by children’s workforce professionals in the trial areas and vouchers can also be collected from Boots stores in the trial areas.

The Curriculum for Excellence, introduced in 2014, aims to transform education in Scotland for ages 3-18. It intends to progress the standards of education and learning in the country by moving away from more traditional methods of teaching. This strategy, developed by the Scottish Government, recognises that learning is a lifelong process, beginning at birth, and therefore it is important to employ methods which prepare children from a young age for a life of work. In order to do so, the curriculum is based on seven key principles which are designed to provide young people with the knowledge and skills for life in the 21st century. This knowledge and skill is learnt through experiences and opportunities which are carefully planned for each age group, encouraging space for learning out with the standard school subject boundaries. The programme has four main outcomes prompting children to become successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors. Once an individual has completed the education programme, reflections of the curriculum’s purpose can be assessed in the child or young person to see if they have met the proposed outcomes and therefore determining the overall success.

It is essential that educators create safe, welcoming environments that promote learning for all students in a classroom and to do this they must acknowledge issues of diversity and difference and know how to approach these issues. There are two key documents that guide educators in their planning and implementation of curriculum; The Australian Curriculum and The Early Years Learning Framework. Using these two documents to create learning programs, educators must enact an inclusive curriculum that empowers all students, regardless of differences. For educators to understand and address issues of diversity and differences such as socio-economic, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, language barriers and stereotypes around gender and sexuality, they must look at their own philosophy, values and beliefs around these issues.

A study conducted in 2003 by Ofsted that involved England, Denmark and Finland, showed England’s national curriculum compared to the other two countries was:

Hayes (2010) has suggested that cross – curricular approaches can be defined using a variety of legitimate meanings, as it does not have a single identity. Moreover, cross – curricular approaches can be referred to as ‘interdisciplinary’ and a cross – reference can be made to ‘Curriculum integration’. ‘Interdisciplinary’ learning incorporates several subjects. Similarly, ‘Curriculum integration’ can be emphasised as subject disciplines being planned which all link together through a theme which can be known as thematic teaching (Caroll and McCulloch, 2014; Savage, 2011; Jacobs, 1989). Ordinarily, thematic teaching allows learning to take place with links being made between combinations of subjects within the National Curriculum (NC) (Department for Education, DfE, 2014). A MTP (Appendix A) can incorporate thinking and learning activities relating to thematic teaching, which provide opportunities for teachers to enhance thinking and

Again, due to the fact that children's interests and experiences are used to form a platform for learning, the thematic approach tends to lend itself to be more motivating for pupils in conjunction with their wider life experiences, as suggested by Barnes (2009). (Mumford. D (2000) Planning a theme-based unit, Canada: Pacific Edge Publishing Ltd) This kind of assumption asserts that all children responds positively to the same style of teaching or the same stimulus. However, he neglects that motivation arises from many sources and children are inspired by different and unpredictable outputs. It is therefore understood that cross-curricular approach will not suit all children. But at the same time, as my role as a

What educators believe and think influences the learning of their students/children. Write an essay that agrees or disagrees with this statement.

A highly significant change to the national curriculum made at the 2014 update for KS3 is the introduction of assessment without levels (Department for Education, 2014). The system by which children were assigned a numerical level based on their attainment was ceased on the commencement of the new curriculum in September 2014 for all subjects, including science (Department for Education, 2013). This action was implemented based on a report by the Expert Panel for the National Curriculum review, which suggested that due to changes made to the curriculum over various reassessments, the concept of attainment targets, on which level descriptors were based, had been clouded, making levels difficult to understand and apply (Department for Education, 2015). This meant that level descriptors were no longer clear and should be removed to allow assessment to focus more closely on an individuals’ specific strengths and weaknesses on the content within the curriculum, rather than simply focus on ensuring that a child achieved a certain arbitrary level (Expert Panel for the National Curriculum Review, 2011). The abolition of levels has given schools more freedom to design their own assessment framework and address the perceived issue that emphasis of levels as a tool for measuring school performance had led to negative influence on the way individual pupils were assessed (Department for Education, 2015). Bell (2014) suggests that the introduction of assessment without levels is a

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” - Nelson Mandela. Without education, there is simply no telling of what this world would be like. There wouldn’t be doctors, lawyers, businesses etc. Life and everything around us would be fatuous. Schools and education give us a plan in life and help guide us. Throughout the years education has changed tremendously. It had its improvements throughout the decades, and it also has had its falters as well. Education in America is an issue in this country and it definitely needs to be tweaked and improved. Education is what makes us people who we are and what we will be. Nelson Mandela had it right, there is no weapon more powerful than education.

In order to teach successfully teachers must learn about first learn about their students. Teachers must assess the student’s capabilities and interests. Some students are visual learners, while others learn from hands on activities, or verbal communication. Not all students can learn through memorization, rather they learn through interest and relation to the topic. “To realize what an experience, or empirical situation, means, we have to call to mind the sort of situation that presents itself outside of school" (Democracy and Education). The curriculum should encompass material that is most useful for a student to learn. It seems that in the majority of schools, students are not given the flexibility to guide their own learning, but rather follow rigid instructions that destroy the student’s imagination.

Curriculum is a term often highlighted during discourse about education and most commonly understood as a policy with overt leaning outcomes for teachers to apply and achieve. Ornstein and Hunkins (1998), as cited by Selvaraj (2010), defined curriculum based on two lenses; micro and macro, which identify the term as both policy towards certain goals and what students experience with consideration for relevant theories and principles central to its development and implementation. However, Wilson (n.d.) argued that curriculum is not restricted to certain individuals, subjects and environments, since teaching and learning can also occur beyond the scope of official curriculum (Ebert & Culyer, as cited in Marsh, Clarke & Pittaway, 2014). I believe this interpretation is the closest to the true nature of curriculum, or education, as there are more complex layers to curriculum than just a written guideline. For example, not one curriculum is similar to another because it is subjected to influences from continuum number of factors, such as politics and economy. Hence, it is wise to conclude that curriculum could not be defined based on a singular perspective due to its dependability on context.