THE State Government has released new English and Mathematics syllabuses for kindergarten, year 1 and year 2.

The Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning, Sarah Mitchell, said that for the first time the curriculum is completely online and comes with explicit teaching examples.

This initiative will cost $13.6 million.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said students 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 21st century,” 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.”

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.”

According to the Minister, changes in the new K to 2 English and Mathematics syllabuses include simple, concise language which identifies key knowledge and skills which is easily accessed and navigated on a new digital curriculum platform.

The new English curriculum has clear expectations on student reading progression and a renewed focus on handwriting.

The emphasis in the new mathematics curriculum is on ‘reasoning’ in mathematics and advanced counting strategies.

There are also new supports for students with significant intellectual disability.

Ms Mitchell has also announced $15 million for teachers to have extra release time to implement the new curriculum, and cited a previous announcement that 1,350 new Assistant Principals will be supporting 1,755 schools with K-6 enrolments with a focus on literacy and numeracy.

Implementation begins next year, with all NSW schools teaching the syllabuses from 2023 and the Government hopes to deliver the new K-12 NSW Curriculum by 2024.

The new syllabuses are available at www.curriculum.nsw.edu.au.

 

By Andrew VIVIAN