Australian Curriculum is a curriculum framework developed by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) for use in all states and territories of Australia. It covers Foundation to Year 12. It was first endorsed in December 2010.
- At that time, Victorian Government and Catholic schools (and independent Victorian schools if they chose to) were using the Victorian Essential learning Standards (VELS) Curriculum framework.
- The VELS curriculum was then adapted to conform to and extend the Australian Curriculum and the resultant Curriculum Framework, called AusVELS, was adopted in 2013.
- In 2016/2017 a new curriculum framework is being adopted to replace AusVELS called the Victorian Curriculum. It is less prescriptive in reporting requirements and addresses a number of weaknesses in the AusVELS framework especially in regard to high or low achieving students.
- Some parts of the Victorian Curriculum were able to be implemented in 2016 by Government schools but the Catholic sector is adopting the Victorian Curriculum in 2017.
- Some aspects of the Victorian Curriculum may not be ready to be adopted in 2017 (E.g. EAL) and therefore schools will be given some flexibility in some subjects as to whether they use AusVels or Victorian Curriculum in 2017.
Synergetic Implementation
