The Australian Curriculum — The Arts

The National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) welcomes the endorsement of The Australian Curriculum: The Arts by the Australian Education Council, and the release this week of the updated Australian Curriculum website (version 8.0).

Australian curriculum

The National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) welcomes the endorsement of The Australian Curriculum: The Arts by the Australian Education Council, and the release this week (October 2015) of the updated Australian Curriculum website (version 8.0). NAAE_statement_Oct2015-FINAL

Implementation of the Australian curriculum in the Arts is recommended for 2016, but many schools have already written programs and begun teaching Australian Curriculum Media Arts. The impetus for this has been the arrival of Year Seven in high schools for 2015, and the resulting adjustment in primary schools.

There is currently a union directive in force that requires QTU members to not participate in any new Australian Curriculum work. However this does not apply to work that has already been started. It only applies to schools embarking on new curriculum work for the very first time. Schools that have begun work on their Media Arts program are free to continue with it.

QCAA Support materials for the Australian Curriculum are already being uploaded to their website. Support videos and draft standards elaborations are available here. https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/32902.html

Education Queensland’s Curriculum to the Classroom (C2C) program is expected to be available from October this year. It should provide assessment materials for Media Arts and a considerable wealth of support resources.

Text-books & Documents:

To see the current scope and sequence, select: Media Arts Scope and Sequence
or to see the full ACARA curriculum for Media Arts see: Australian Curriculum

Junior Secondary Media
For an excellent textbook to support junior media, please see Media Remix by Michael Dezuanni and Anita Jetnikoff. This textbook is based around the use of media activities to teach the key concepts.
A textbook with more of a content focus is Media Reloaded by Hugh Mason-Jones and Augusta Zeeng
Senior secondary Film, Television and New Media
For senior FTVNM see Colin Stewart’s Media New Ways and Meanings third edition (print based). A fourth edition of the textbook, written wholly as an electronic textbook, is titled VCE Media new ways and meanings and has a lot of extra and updated material.

VCE Media textbooks are equally useful for the Queensland curriculum. See also Heinemann Media by Roger Dunscombe et al, and Nelson Media VCE Units 1-4 by Jo Flack https://cengage.com.au/product/title/nelson-media-vce-units-1-4/isbn/9780170220194

Past Information

The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) is finalising the Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts following from public consultation from 8 October 2010 to 17 December 2010.

The Shape of the Australian Curriculum: The Arts outlines the direction for the development of the national Arts curriculum for years K-12. Following the finalization of the Shape Paper, curriculum writers will begin their work in writing the Australian Curriculum from October 2011.

Australian Teachers of Media will continue our strong engagement and representation of Media teachers to ensure that the curriculum that is written is world-class and that teachers and schools are supported in its implementation.

Further information on the development of the national Arts curriculum, including a proposed timeline, can be accessed on the ACARA website – http://www.acara.edu.au/arts.html

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