Cross-curriculum priorities support the Australian Curriculum to be a relevant, contemporary and engaging curriculum that reflects national, regional and global contexts. Cross-curriculum priorities are addressed through learning area content.
Overview
The 3 cross-curriculum priorities in the Australian Curriculum are:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures
- Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia
- Sustainability.
In the Australian Curriculum, cross-curriculum priorities are incorporated through learning area content; they are not separate learning areas or subjects. They provide opportunities to enrich the content of the learning areas, where most appropriate and authentic, allowing students to engage with and better understand their world.
Opportunities to apply cross-curriculum priorities to learning area content vary. Cross-curriculum priorities are embedded in content descriptions where the development of knowledge, understanding and skills relating to the cross-curriculum priority are core to the delivery of the learning area content. They are also identified in content elaborations where they offer opportunities to add depth and richness to student learning.
In the learning areas of the Australian Curriculum, cross-curriculum priorities are identified, using icons, where they are developed or applied in the content descriptions and elaborations.
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Cross-curriculum priorities are incorporated through learning area content; they are not separate learning areas or subjects. They provide opportunities to enrich the content of the learning areas, where most appropriate and authentic to do so, allowing students to engage with and better understand their world. Opportunities to apply cross-curriculum priorities to learning area content vary; they are only embedded in content descriptions where the development of knowledge, understanding and skills relating to the priority are core to the delivery of the learning area content. They are also identified in content elaborations where they offer opportunities to add depth and richness to student learning.
Revisions to the Sustainability cross-curriculum priority reflect evolving understanding of the concepts that underpin sustainability and the features of effective sustainability education. In particular, the revisions position the priority with reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The revisions to the Sustainability cross-curriculum priority:
- broaden references to environmental sustainability to include all Earth’s systems, not just the biosphere
- focus on the interdependence of sustainability of environmental, social and economic systems expand the focus on sustainable design of products, environments and services
- broaden actions for sustainability to include the mitigation of human impacts and restoration of environments, in addition to preservation
- provide clearer support to explore how individuals and communities can take action and effect positive change
- ensure that organising ideas fit naturally within learning areas and can be applied to content descriptions and elaborations.
Cross-curriculum priorities have been explicitly and purposefully included in the revisions to content descriptions and elaborations across the learning areas. Some learning areas explicitly develop student understanding of one or more the organising ideas from each cross-curriculum priority through their content descriptions. For example:
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures in History and The Arts
- Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia in the Humanities and Social Sciences and Languages
- Sustainability in Geography, Science and Technologies.
ACARA has revised content elaborations in all learning areas to ensure they only include authentic illustrations of how the cross-curriculum priorities can support the teaching and learning of the learning area content.