New English and Mathematics syllabuses for the State’s youngest students were released today, marking a major milestone in the NSW Government’s Curriculum Reform agenda.
Premier Dominic Perrottet said students in kindergarten, year 1 and year 2 would be the first to benefit from the changes, following the first comprehensive review in more than 30-years.
“One of the most important things a government can do is provide a quality education and reform was needed to bring our curriculum into the 21stcentury,” Mr Perrottet said.
“The new approach will ensure our youngest learners are provided with a solid foundation to grow from, with a focus on literacy and numeracy skills.”
Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning Sarah Mitchell said for the first time the curriculum is completely online and comes with explicit teaching examples.
“We heard clearly from teachers that navigating syllabuses was unnecessarily arduous,” Ms Mitchell said.
“The new online curriculum removes ambiguity for teachers, and comes with explicit teaching advice on an online platform. This will be particularly helpful for early-career teachers.”
Changes in the new K to 2 English and Mathematics syllabuses include:
- Simple, concise language which identifies key knowledge and skills.
- Easily accessed and navigated 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.
- Advanced counting strategies.
The reformed curriculum will be delivered to schools on a new Digital Curriculum platform, a $13.6 million NSW Government investment.
The new syllabuses are available at curriculum.nsw.edu.au. Implementation begins next year, with all NSW schools teaching the syllabuses from 2023. The NSW Government continues its work to deliver the new K – 12 NSW Curriculum by 2024.
