Many teachers across Australian schools are in various stages of trialing or implementing The Australian Curriculum: The Arts. It's been some time since we've had any definitive updates trickled down to teachers.
A few weeks ago, attendees of the Drama Queensland State Conference were treated to a keynote by Dr Sandra Gattenhof. In her address, Dr Gattenhof took a moment to update the attendees on the current state of the The Australian Curriculum: The Arts.
At the meeting of state and federal education ministers in December last year the decision was taken to hand the review back to ACARA for response. This response, yet to be made public, has been developed and will go through a series of consultations with the ACARA board and the Education Council of Ministers throughout this year. It is hoped that the end of this calendar year will achieve a resolution. In the meantime, it is important to note that, at state and territory level, work around the development of curriculum materials for the five art forms and implementation continues. In brief, each state or territory is approaching this differently. Tasmania, South Australia and ACT are at the beginning stages of implementation with reporting on the arts from end 2016. Northern Territory follows the South Australian curriculum so they are at a similar stage as their counterpart. Queensland has appointed a team of seventeen arts educators to develop C2C materials for the five arts subjects for trial and implementation. These materials will be available to all schooling sectors – public, Catholic and independent. Western Australia is developing a year-by-year syllabus rather than working in the band structure that was developed in the Australian Curriculum: The Arts. The syllabus is currently with the Western Australian School Curriculum and Standards Authority Board for approval. Victoria has a new state education minister who is currently reviewing all state curricula. Victoria may move to implement the Arts via AUSVels, time frame to be advised. NSW has not indicated time frame as yet. (Dr S. Gattenhof)
As you can see, it's all systems go! Dr Gattenhof later suggested the following links for your perusal:
Following the Minister’s meeting, this was released:
https://ministers.education.gov.au/pyne/better-national-curriculum-all-australian-students
This question and response from Parliament and put online:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/EhfpfYgbabc