Letters, sounds at core of new curriculum
Justine Ferrari, Education Writer From: The Australian February 25, 2010 12:00AM
ALL states and territories will be forced to follow a set program for teaching reading under the first national English curriculum, which stipulates the letters, sounds and words students must learn in each year of school.
The curriculum, obtained by The Australian, dictates what students from kindergarten until the end of Year 9 are expected to know and be able to do in English, history, science and maths.
The English curriculum, to be released for public consultation next week, enshrines the importance of teaching letter-sound combinations, or phonics, giving examples of the sounds and words to be taught from the start of school. Students in their prep year will learn to sound out simple words such as "cat", recognising the initial, middle and end sounds; by Year 1, they will have learned two consonant sounds such as "st", "br" and "gl".
The national curriculum ends the piecemeal approach to what is taught in schools, with state curriculums emphasising different course content and teaching it at different stages of school.
The new curriculum is a detailed document that provides specific examples and is longer than many existing state syllabuses, some of which are a couple of pages long for each subject.
The curriculum for the senior years of school, from Years 10 to 12, will be released separately by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority later this year.
The English curriculum places a strong emphasis on the study of grammar, from learning different classes of words such as verbs and nouns in the early years through to the difference between finite and non-finite clauses in high school.
In a speech to the National Press Club yesterday, Education Minister Julia Gillard welcomed the "strong appearance" of grammar in the national curriculum.
Announcing its release next Monday, she said the curriculum set out the essential content for each year of learning as well as the achievement standards students should be expected to perform.
"This will not be a curriculum `guide' or a supplement to what states and territories currently teach," she said.
"It will be a comprehensive new curriculum, providing a platform for the highest quality teaching."
Ms Gillard also outlined the next phase of Labor's education revolution, including the external assessment of schools and the introduction of student identity numbers to enable parents and schools to track a child's individual progress through school.
After the speech, a spokesman for Ms Gillard said the government would investigate different systems for assessing school performance in coming months, including a form of school inspectors and the method used in Britain, where the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills conducts detailed inspections of schools and publishes its findings.
"The government believes that some external inspection or assessment of schools would be an additional way of ensuring that our schools are providing the best possible education for our children." the spokesman said.
Ms Gillard said the government would examine "how every school can get the right support and scrutiny to make sure it is performing well and improving in the areas where it needs to improve".
The idea of external assessment of schools was mooted by the national teachers union for public education, the Australian Education Union, in a charter of school accountability reported by The Australian in December.
The AEU proposal advocates a system of regular assessments against a set of standards by a panel of principals, teachers and education experts, and then working with struggling schools to lift performance.
AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said yesterday teachers wanted to see the detail of the government's proposal on school assessment before giving their support, although they were still committed to the principle of accountability and external review.
"But the government must consult with teachers," he said.
"We're seeing announcement after announcement without consultation and the Rudd government has to realise that it needs to consult with the profession.
"Ultimately, we're the ones who implement education policy."
Mr Gavrielatos said the union was also not opposed in principle to the idea of student identity numbers and welcomed moves to improve the measure of student progress than that currently used on the My School website.
Tony Abbott said students already had unique identifiers in the form of names, and questioned why their results could not be tracked using their names.
DEBATE enabling gay couples and singles to have a baby through altruistic surrogacy was held in the Queensland Parliament overnight.
State Parliament sat until the early hours to discuss the Bill which decriminalises altruistic surrogacy but it is now not expected to be passed until later today with dozens of MPs still to speak on it, The Courier Mail reports.
The Opposition is opposing the Bill while Labor MPs will be given a conscience vote although this is not expected to block it.
LNP MP Rob Messenger compared surrogacy arrangements to the Stolen Generation.
"Surrogacy still involves taking away a baby from its birth mother and it is fraught with moral, ethical and physical danger," he said.
Mr Messenger said single people who were not in a committed relationship should not seek to have a child because it was nature's way of saying they were not ready to be a parent, while he also rejected gay men as appropriate parents.
"Two daddies cannot give a child a mother's love...all two men can do is provide that child with double the daddy love."
Earlier, an LNP MP questioned how a lesbian couple could raise a son during the fiery debate.
Condamine MP Ray Hopper said he could not support the proposed Government laws because they would allow gay couples to have a baby through a surrogate and went on to question how a boy could grow up with two mothers.
"Just look at the first five years of a child's life when you've got two mothers,'' he said.
"How do you take them to a public toilet when you go on a so-called family outing.
"They will have to go to the ladies toilet won't they.
"They (the mothers) are not going to let a little boy go to the male toilet.
"This is the sort of situation that these members (Labor MPs) over here haven't even thought of.
"What about a father's input into a little boy's life?
"How dare we try and break down the morals of a family by agreeing to this legislation.''
Mr Hopper said he was "disgusted" by the proposed changes which would reduce children to the status of pets.
"Children aren't pets...children are human beings,'' he told Parliament.
"My description of a family is a father and a mother and children...not two mothers...not two fathers.''
Premier Anna Bligh has defended her Government's proposed surrogacy laws saying same sex couples and singles were already becoming parents through IVF and artificial insemination.
Ms Bligh told Parliament it would be wrong to ban them from having a child through surrogacy.
"The time for putting our heads in the sand on this issue is over," she said.
Ms Bligh told the story of a Queensland couple who wrote to her urging the decriminalisation of altruistic surrogacy after losing three premature babies in two years.
The Premier said surrogacy would be their only hope for a family along with many other Queensland couples.
