(Paul Cahill)
Good morning, everyone.
Today is a very exciting day for me and my team and at the moment, both Paul Martin and the Deputy Premier are doing a press conference.
But we did think that we would start with a Welcome to Country. And it's my great pleasure to invite Binowee Bayles from the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council to come and welcome us to Country.
(Binwee Bayles)
Thank you, Paul.
(Indigenous language spoken). So, my name is Binowee Bayles and I'm a proud Aboriginal woman born and raised in Redfern, where I'm living and raising my children, who are the 9th generation to live on the block in Redfern.
My mother's people descend from the Eora, Wonnarua and Bundjalung nations of New South Wales, and my father's people descend from the Birri Gubba, Gangulu, Wakka Wakka and Wooli Wooli people of Queensland.
I'm here today as the cultural representative for the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council.
And on behalf of my families, I want to welcome you all to Gadigal land.
(Indigenous language spoken).
Welcome to Gadigal land.
Last week we saw the end of NAIDOC Week, where the theme was to keep the fire burning, Blak, loud and proud.
It was actually two weeks ago. And it was a really, really important theme for all Australians and all of us that call this place home.
Whether we were born here or born overseas and moved here later in life, it's important for us all as we walk this journey to reconciliation.
Gadigal land extends from South Head to Petersham.
It's one of 29 clans of the Eora nation, which is nestled between the Hawkesbury river, the Georges river, the Nepean river and the Pacific Ocean.
Our Gadigal clan, we identify ourselves as saltwater people, as the grass tree clan, and our totem is the sand goanna.
Traditionally, our lands right here where we stand today, were swamplands.
Black mud and mangroves covered this place.
And after the rain, the stormwater runoff flowed down the hilly terrain that surrounded the CBD, creating the tank stream that opened up into Birrabirragal, the (indistinct) harbour. Welcoming you to Gadigal land is a privilege.
And as our old people have always maintained strong connections to this land, to our waterways and to the sky, we still practice these cultures and these traditions today.
And we want to pass this knowledge on to you and to our next generations as well.
My elders always told us kids growing up about the significance of welcoming to Country and acknowledging Country.
They are ancient diplomatic protocols.
No matter if we are frequent visitors or we are here for the first time, we must let the ancestors, the spirits of the land, know who we are and why we are here, that we come with love, respect and good intentions.
We are taught from a very young age to announce ourselves, to introduce ourselves to Country.
We say who we are, we say where we're from and what our intentions are so the spirits of the land give us safe passage and guide us whilst on Country.
And in return, the spirits of the land remember our voices and our spirits.
So when we come back, they know who we are.
We've got that relationship with Country. These old ways, our laws, reminds us of how we must conduct ourselves whilst we are on Country.
It's important that we also acknowledge the elders, not only the elders of this land, but the elders of more recent arrivals.
Because without our elders, we would not be here today.
We acknowledge the strength and the wisdom of our old people.
And we thank them for looking after us and our Country so that you and I can live here, connect and raise our families in this beautiful place that we call home.
I would also like to recognise the many nations across Australia and extend our respect to all our brothers and sisters, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
In closing, I want to remind you of this invitation that I am extending to you to keep Country and our cultures alive.
And in turn, we will all help each other to thrive.
Our ancestors and the spirits of this land do not see colour, but feel the love, the respect and authenticity that we have to offer.
As my grandmother always said to us kids, our actions today determine the kind of ancestor we will be to the children of the future.
So with that, I welcome you to Gadigal land. (Indigenous language spoken).
(Paul Cahill)
Thank you. - Binowee, thank you so much for your Welcome to Country.
One of the things that always strikes me, and I share this with my team, is that through Welcome to Country, Acknowledgement of Country, always we learn something new.
And I thank you because I've learned something new today.
So very much appreciated and thank you.
As I said before, we are waiting for the NESA CEO and the Deputy Premier to finish a press conference.
So I thought I might take this opportunity to be a little self indulgent and just make a couple of observations.
Can I say, it's really delightful to see a lot of familiar faces in the audience and there's a lot of familiar faces because I know there's a lot of people in the room who have worked in one way or another with the development of these syllabuses, something that I think everybody in this room can be very well proud of.
I want to acknowledge, particularly the NESA team.
It's really important that members of our editorial team, members of our web team, members of our Aboriginal education team and our syllabus development team are here.
This is a momentous occasion for them.
It is something which has not come easy.
It's come with a fair bit of sweat, blood and tears.
And I think people close to the process know that there's been a lot of consideration, a lot of feedback and a lot of response to that feedback.
I think as a result of that, of the participation and engagement of so many teachers, the support we've had of so many primary principals across the three school sectors, we've ended up with a product that I've got to say I'm quite proud of.
I think my team are very proud of and I think we've produced syllabuses that are going to serve the students of New South Wales into the next decades, which I think is a very positive thing
(Paul Martin)
- Good morning.
I just fumble and stumble around a little bit before I start.
I just as I was coming down the stairs, I said I felt like, well, it'd be a very small audience for Bruce Springsteen, but I'd also firstly, of course, like to thank Binowee Bayles, who did the Welcome to Country.
Unfortunately, the Deputy Premier and I were at the press conference and so, with no discourtesy intended, thanks to Binowee.
And I would also like then to acknowledge that we are on the lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation and pay respects to elders, past and present. And of course, again, thank Binowee for her words.
Good morning.
My name is Paul Martin.
I'm the CEO of the New South Wales Education Standards Authority, known by most teachers as NESA.
Fondly, I hope, from most teachers, not always.
Maybe today we are.
That's right.
Welcome to today's event.
It's a real milestone in primary school education for New South Wales with the release of the new syllabuses that complete the revised kindergarten to year six curriculum.
First time in 50 years all syllabuses have been done together.
We're very proud of them and we hope that teachers enjoy them.
The Honourable Prue Car, Deputy Premier of New South Wales and Minister for Education and Early Learning, is with us today because it was important for Ms. Car and the New South Wales Government to launch these syllabuses to the teachers, writers and other education experts who have been part of the development of a new NSW primary school curriculum.
Welcome also to our distinguished representatives here today from the school sectors.
Murat Disdar, representing the department, Kelly Borg, the Association of Independent Schools.
Marjorie Evans sends her sincere apologies.
And Dallas McInerney, representing Catholic Schools New South Wales.
Thanks very much for coming.
It is my pleasure to first invite the Deputy Premier and Minister for Education to speak.
(Prue Car)
- Thanks very much, Paul.
Of course, I also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land that we're meeting on this beautiful auditorium today, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.
I know Paul said he felt like Bruce Springsteen.
I think probably this audience is as excited about the new curriculum as the audience at a Bruce Springsteen concert.
I know this has been a very, very long time coming and there's a lot of people in this room and beyond this room who have put so much expertise, blood, sweat and tears, love into what has evolved into something that I think we can all be very, very proud of because it's based on what works.
Novel idea.
Very proud to be part of a government that is unveiling this today, a new and coherent primary school curriculum.
Of course, the idea behind this is beguilingly simple.
And, you know, because these people, you in the room are the ones that have been telling us this whole time that what we needed was a clear and coherent primary curriculum that explicitly outlines what every child is expected to know, to be able to understand and to be able to do whatever their background or circumstances.
The remaining four syllabuses that we release today complete the new primary curriculum.
Of course, the new English and Mathematics courses are being taught in schools.
And I was just saying to the throng of media, and I say this everywhere when I'm in schools, particularly in early stage one, in kindergarten and year one classes, seeing that literacy work in particular, it's amazing.
And it just shows that the work that went into those English and Math syllabus, it's just, it's actually taking shape in classrooms in such a brilliant way.
Of course, it was essential to start with those strong foundations of literacy and numeracy that unlock a child's potential to enter the incredible world of learning.
But the syllabuses we release today, history, geography, the creative arts, science, technology and PDHPE complete the suite of syllabuses across six key learning areas, from kindergarten through to that all important transition year, from year six to year seven.
Building on our new English curriculum, which represents the most explicit and unequivocal commitment to early literacy in Australia.
We need clear and detailed content to give children subject knowledge because words matter.
Literacy matters because it is the key to knowledge.
The more a child knows about a subject, the more they can learn and understand, creating that beautiful cycle where knowledge builds upon knowledge.
And that's how these syllabuses work, because they've been informed by expertise.
They stack knowledge on the building blocks that came before, they're sequenced.
They talk to the other syllabuses.
These primary syllabuses have been designed drawing on the evidence of how children actually learn and what is important to know, because it takes knowledge to gain knowledge.
So much of what is said here seems so obvious, and I can only imagine how frustrating it is to have arrived at this situation when so many of you have been saying this for so many years.
It is also a commitment to the wider community about what students will learn, irrespective of their circumstances.
That that is consistent in every classroom in New South Wales.
And I think that is such an important equity piece as well, of what we're doing today.
And I'm really proud of that in particular.
And I think that commitment to the wider community, particularly to the parent community, that will, I think, being able to easily, more easily understand the syllabus and the curriculum, I think that's really powerful in the partnership that we're in with parents.
I'm really particularly proud of the new and strengthened civics and citizenship content.
I got a lot of questions about that this morning in the media, and I can’t, I’ve lost count of how many people have raised this with me since I've been minister about why do we not teach compulsory civics, even though teachers have been doing this forever?
And I acknowledge that embedded in other subjects.
But this commitment, I think we can be really proud of that explicit commitment where students are learning about Australia's democracy, of which we can be very proud in the context of other democracies around the world, and how to become active, informed members of the community.
That can only be a good thing in a world where democracy and our democratic institutions are actually increasingly under threat.
Providing an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, the rule of law and the privilege that we have to have a say in our own futures, and that our own people have fought for and laid their lives down for.
That's more important than ever.
And I'm really proud that we're doing this.
In history, of course, our children will learn significant events of Australian and world history.
This includes newly developed curriculum on Aboriginal histories and cultures.
It's important that we say more about that and I'm proud that we're doing that.
The curriculum reform committed to establishing a new curriculum that specifies what every student should know and understand about our whole Australian history.
And that includes the incredible Aboriginal culture and history.
For the first time, and only in New South Wales, we have a curriculum that shares the essential knowledge that was developed by Aboriginal educators about the oldest living continuous culture in the world.
In geography, our students will learn about unique Australian and global environments, how we plan for a sustainable future, and anyone that goes into or all of you in primary schools, like, the fact that there's such a desire to know more from our young children about sustainability and that just continues to blow my mind.
So this is going to be well received.
We can be confident that in science and technology, all students will learn about life, earth and physical sciences.
And interestingly, for the first time, students will develop an understanding of how their own bodies work, including the skeletal, respiratory and circulatory systems.
And as you expect, of course, continuing that incredible mind altering work about the planet, the solar system, climate, energy, food chains and electricity, all updated in this new curriculum.
In creative arts, our students will learn the elements of dance, drama, music and visual arts.
And in PDHPE they will, as ever, engage in physical activity, learn about the importance of movement for wellbeing, as well as respectful relationships and online safety.
A lot's been said about that this morning and I think we can be really, really proud of that work.
We ask our primary teachers to teach six key learning areas, which is a testament to the incredible capacity of our teaching workforce in our primary schools, their incredible professionalism and their dedication to all of our children.
That's why during the development of these syllabuses, we made sure that they were user friendly for teachers and they work together in sequence.
Topics, subjects and stages have been carefully interconnected.
That was what was called for very clearly.
Skills learned in one subject are applied and reinforced in another.
Of course, that means that if students are learning about graphs in Maths, then they'll have to be reinforcing that in science and geography at the same time. These connections will be helped by the new digital curriculum providing a more effective tool to reduce teacher workload.
We have moved and we can't do enough on that, we have moved away from syllabus PDF's and printouts.
Sounds like I should be saying that we've moved away from overhead projectors, but we've moved away from syllabus PDF's and printouts.
What was the thing they once asked me to say? Gestetna. Still don't know what that is.
You all do, obviously.
Moving away from PDF printouts towards a purpose built digital curriculum, providing one stop access to syllabuses, resources, support materials, links, teaching advice and evidence.
It is just a remarkably big achievement, and I have to thank the incredible hard work of the officers of NESA and the board of NESA.
Many of the members of the board I know have been here today and they have overseen this every step of the way, through every step of consultation, making sure these syllabus documents are not only less crowded, more explicit, and far more interactive, but also that they are adaptable for all of the different contexts and settings that we're all in in New South Wales.
These important syllabus documents will work in all of our systems, in independent schools, in catholic schools, and in our Department of Education schools.
Importantly too, they will work in support class and specialist school settings.
And with the increasing complexity that all of our systems are having to face every day, this is an important development.
I know just how many people have worked so hard to make that happen.
I'm really proud of the efforts, the care and the dedication in making sure that these are actually accessible and thoughtful documents.
This is such a significant step forward in ensuring our children, all of our children, receive a robust and a well rounded education by providing this clear, coherent and purposeful content. We hope we are equipping our students with the tools they need to succeed in this rapidly changing world.
Thank you to our teachers, to our schools, and to the wider community, all who provided so very much feedback to these world class syllabuses.
I'm confident this is going to change the way our children learn in New South Wales and this is all to do with the people in this room and all the people that you represent.
I really think that this is going to lift our outcomes, no matter the setting, statewide, because at its heart, this is actually doing what works based on evidence.
And that's, I think, something that we can all be proud of.
I want to say that I'm especially grateful to the CEO of Nesar, Paul Martin, whose legacy this will be.
I think, Paul, you have led this huge, this important reform to our curriculum for generations, driven by the ideals of providing the very best education to our kids.
And I know I am biased, but it is the most important thing that any government does.
So what we are doing today is actually setting up future generations.
And I thank you.
And I cannot wait from 2027 to see this in classrooms.
Thank you so much.
(Paul Martin)
- Thank you, Deputy Premier.
And for those, particularly those kind words at the end, I'm still beating myself up because I was talking to the press out there and I said less outcomes and I meant fewer.
And I'm still an English teacher and I'm sure the staff will remind me of this later anyway, if those syllabuses have been in place, well, the last century, actually.
So thank you.
I know many of you are here today because you've been involved in contributing to writing, user testing, and giving professional expertise to NESA.
Thank you.
As we redevelop the syllabuses for teachers and our youngest learners.
So I would like to invite someone up now who you have likely worked with and who really has steered the ship on the final syllabuses that are being released today.
I will gloat a little bit that we pinched Catherine from the department and their loss was our gain.
Please join me in welcoming director of K-6 curriculum implementation, Catherine Thomson.
(Catherine Thomson)
- Thanks, Paul.
I too would like to acknowledge Country, to the Honourable Prue Car, Deputy Premier and Minister for Education and Early Learning and distinguished guests.
Welcome.
When we started this work, we wanted to put students and teachers first.
Our aim was to create a curriculum that was user friendly for teachers but rigorous for students.
So we asked these questions and throughout the development process, we kept coming back to them, sometimes daily.
What is the shared learning entitlement for all of our students?
What are the essential foundations?
How do we support teachers by bringing clarity?
And how can we continue to build literacy and numeracy skills?
We leant into the research about how students learn, and of course, the research about how students learn to read.
Because reading changes lives.
Absolutely.
And we found that for students to be readers, for them to be critical and creative thinkers, for them to be able to reason and infer, they need background knowledge and vocabulary to build language comprehension.
The new English syllabus does a lot of heavy lifting in the area of learning to read.
However, the role of all syllabuses is in building background knowledge of their associated discipline and the vocabulary.
We found that the research also shows that very young children are capable, very capable of learning new things.
The brain needs inputs to learn, which fits nicely with the Latin origins of the term education, meaning to lead or go forth.
So with that in mind, the syllabuses are not only a mirror, but they're a window into a shared world for all of our students.
Throughout the process, we were privileged to have teachers and the broader educational community involved.
We worked with teachers in the writing, in the many focus groups, and leant into their feedback via the online surveys.
We worked with them.
We listened to them.
We worked with principal groups, sectors and unions.
We asked teachers to help us write the practical teaching advice.
This reform has enabled us to meet and talk with teachers right across New South Wales.
We listened to perspectives and tapped into expertise.
Today is a celebration of how the New South Wales education community can come together and work towards a shared goal of excellence and equity for all our students in New South Wales.
To everyone here this morning, thank you for your time, your commitment, your feedback, and your expertise.
We look forward to the journey ahead and I'll now hand back to Paul Martin.
(Paul Martin)
- Thank you, Catherine.
I mentioned Catherine before that we, I think I used the phrase ‘poached’, but we stole from the department.
I noticed Paul Burgess here this morning.
I think we have some of your teachers working at NESA.
We've got plenty of catholic teachers in the place, and government school teachers, of course, in the midst of a teacher shortage, when there are incredible demands on schools, the courtesy and commitment provided by the system to let us use their teachers, and not just any teachers, their best teachers, to work on this has been absolutely astonishing and we couldn't be more grateful.
And it shows your commitment to the thing that is NESA and the shared purpose we have. As you all know best, the education landscape today is very different to what it was when many of your current syllabuses were first written.
The changes today are for the better.
We do know much more than we did two, three, four decades ago about how students learn.
I just wish to make a point.
I think that it's too easy to criticise the past when we're putting these syllabuses out.
We have had generations of very, very hard working, dedicated teachers and students have been learning all the way through.
We are a really highly educated population.
We haven't necessarily, as a curriculum authority, provided you with the best tools to do that teaching.
You've had to do more of the heavy lifting yourselves.
So what these syllabuses are about is taking up some of the burden and giving you advice and help and guidance in doing the work that we know that you do best.
So it's not about being critical of the past.
It's building from the past and recognising the hard work of teachers over generations.
We know that the old syllabuses were too open to interpretation.
They had so much content in them that teachers found it impossible to get through it.
Every teacher, every day felt guilty about how much they weren't getting done.
They put too much pressure on teachers trying to decipher what was essential content.
These new syllabuses have emerged under a completely different understanding of both teaching and learning.
They are sequenced, they are coherent, they are knowledge explicit, and they infer, they don't state it, they don't tell you what to do, but they infer an explicit teaching pedagogy.
That means the essential content is clear and it's in the right order.
It means the content across each KLA can be addressed at the same time to ensure students develop deep knowledge and understanding.
And you've had some examples about literacy I think that will work within.
We are focused on the knowledge rather than processes.
Processes are important, but you can only put those in place, you can only teach students about them if they have the knowledge in the first instance. When we say they are streamlined, we mean that they have been clear in the organisation of content to identify essential learning.
And we have considered the daily work of primary teachers in the design of the syllabuses.
You can't have six syllabuses that nobody can possibly teach in a day, a week or a year.
You have to have some alignment of the content amount in the syllabuses to give teachers an opportunity to get it done.
We haven't necessarily in the past helped you with that.
We've relied way too much on teachers having to make those decisions.
We're not saying teachers don't have autonomy, they'll still have plenty of autonomy in these syllabuses.
But we needed to have less content in there so that you could make better decisions.
And we've considered the daily work of primary teachers.
Now the syllabuses are clear about the knowledge and skills students need to establish essential foundations of learning that will be built on over the course of their education.
As the research tells us, knowledge is not only cumulative, it grows exponentially.
A knowledge rich curriculum is a powerful lever to support excellence and equity in schooling by setting a high expectations and making explicit the shared knowledge that all students should be supported to access.
I might go into a slightly controversial area which will worry everybody and the staff.
We live in very, very contested times.
There are a number of issues in syllabuses and in content areas that arouse passions amongst the media and amongst the community.
These syllabuses are designed to generate light and not heat.
We don't want any of the larger arguments necessarily playing out in the classrooms of kids.
We want teachers to be able to explain to students how best to participate in both conversation and knowledge and understanding in a productive way.
So we've tried to settle in as far as you can some of those issues within these syllabuses, and we think we've done okay.
But you will be the ones who tell us.
We heard from school community through focus groups, written submissions, survey responses and workshops.
Two rounds of consultation on the four syllabuses received feedback from teachers in their thousands.
This gives NESA and hopefully you, the school community, confidence that these final syllabuses reflect practical insights from your profession.
So thank you to the teachers who joined us on the journey, including those who came on board as writers.
These syllabuses and their impact on New South Wales teachers and students are all the better for your expertise.
They can't just be written in Clarence Street.
They have to have teachers writing them.
We have coherent syllabuses.
They are informed by research and evidence about the way children learn.
Thank you very much for coming today and please join us for some morning tea, which is the best bit of that speech, I think.
Thanks everybody.
