Tuesday 18 September 2007

The curriculum was in the mail

I was just beginning to think it wasn't coming and it is finally here. My curriculum framework from the Curriculum Council of Western Australia, that is. It's big, but possibly not as big as I was expecting: 324 A4-size pages and they have stuff on the inside covers as well. Not exactly bedtime reading. At least with my background as an ex-teacher I should be able to interpret most of the educationalese.

A quick flick through it, however, has me interested to read more. It has a basic scope and sequence for each of the 8 official learning areas. Given that I have already planned and plotted my own curriculum sequence based largely on the ideas of classical education, with a little Charlotte Mason pedagogy thrown in, it should be interesting to see what overlap exists, if any.

I am particularly interested in the portions related to the early years. Of course, all my kids are under five so that has something to do with it. Having been a high school teacher gives me confidence at that level but I am sometimes at a loss to know what the 'basics' that we are meant to be getting back to actually consist of. This could be largely due to the great gaping holes in my own early education, of course. I didn't learn my times tables properly until I was teaching maths to high school students - and that was after I got my BSc with a minor in mathematics. My knowledge of grammar is below miserable. I have real and honest difficulty with anything beyond article, noun, adjective and verb. It is truly a blessing to be given the opportunity to learn along with my children!

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