The Arts and the National Curriculum for Australian Schools

Dr Sandra GattenhofQUT Creative Industries

Dramas.gattenhof@qut.edu.au

All children and young people should have a high quality arts education in every phase of learning.

(Ministerial Council for Education, Employment. Training and Youth Affairs and Cultural Ministers Council, 2007, 5)

NAAE advocates for arts education in both institutional and community settings, develops arts education policy, and promotes quality teaching and learning in the arts. As the recognised peak association in the arts learning area, the NAAE provides access to an extensive network of arts educators and artists, and represents the interests, concerns, values and priorities of arts educators in Australia.

NAAE believe that individual art forms must be properly resourced within the curriculum, but have common concerns about:

• the lack of mandated representation of the arts within the curriculum K to 12;

• inadequate pre-and in-service teacher education and professional development in the arts;

• the lack of adequate arts resources, teaching standards and research.

The arts foster imagination, risk-taking and curiosity—important aspects of creativity. Governments, businesses and communities now widely regard creativity and innovation as fundamental to social, economic, cultural and technological growth.

We now need to mobilise our arts and education systems to reap the full benefits of

creativity in our lives as individuals and communities, making us a creative and innovative nation.

Individuals’ creative skills and capacities are nurtured through a balanced and dynamic

education rich in arts and cultural experiences. Every child deserves such an education, with carefully planned opportunities to learn in and through the arts. Education systems that value and develop individuals’ creative capacities help to position Australia as a vibrant nation in the global context.

A growing body of international and Australian research demonstrates the multiple

benefits of an arts-rich education from an early age. Over and above the obvious development of individual creativity and self-expression, school-based arts participation can increase learners’ confidence and motivation, thereby improving school attendance rates, academic outcomes and the wellbeing and life skills of children and young people.

(Ministerial Council for Education, Employment. Training and Youth Affairs and Cultural Ministers Council, 2007, 4)

National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) recommend that the following immediate action be taken:

1. The Federal Government to schedule the inclusion of the arts as a learning area in the development of the Early Years Learning Framework and the National Curriculum in Phase 2.

2. When included in the National curriculum each art form (i.e. dance, drama, media, music and visual arts) maintain its integrity and be taught sequentially.

3. The Ministerial Council for Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs matches the $40,000 committed by Cultural Ministers Council (2 October 2008) to develop a framework for a national curriculum for the arts (NAAE, 2008, 2).

Goal 2: All young Australians become successful learners, confident and creative individuals, and active and informed citizens.

Successful learners… are creative, innovative and resourceful, and are able to solve problems in ways that draw upon a range of learning areas and disciplines.

(MCEETYA, 2009, 8)

Confident and creative individuals are enterprising, show initiative and use their creative abilities.

Active and informed citizens appreciate Australia’s social, cultural, linguistic and religious diversity, and have an understanding of Australia’s system of governments, history and culture.

(MCEETYA, 2009, 9)

Promoting world-class curriculum and assessment

The curriculum will enable students to develop knowledge in the disciplines of English, mathematics, science, languages, humanities and the arts, to understand the spiritual, moral and aesthetic [my emphasis] dimensions of life; and open up new ways of thinking.

(MCEETYA, 2009, 13)

The learning areas are not of equal importance at all year levels. English and mathematics are of fundamental importance in all years of schooling and are the primary focus of learning in the early years. …Each learning area has a specific discipline base and each has application across the curriculum.

(MCEETYA, 2009, 14)

There’s a whole raft of children missing out on something that can change their lives. We would be failing our children if we didn’t have a national curriculum that looked after literacy, numeracy and languages, but it’s also a failing if we don’t look after the arts as well.

(Seares in Perkin, 2009)

The Melbourne Declaration provides the national curriculum with a framework, with an additional list for learning areas going forward to MCEETYA for approval at the mid-year meeting. MCEETYA will then meet in October and Minister Julia Gillard expects an indication of a timeline for delivery of the additional learning areas. The Melbourne Declaration can be seen to be an enabling document, but not a clarifiying one.

Creativity, interpretation, innovation and cultural understanding are all sought after skills for new and emerging industries of the 21st century. Arts education provides students with the tools to develop these skills. … Including arts on the national curriculum also ensures that training for teachers is prioritized. This means greater opportunities for teachers to expand and update their arts skills and knowledge and also ensures students receive high quality instruction. … The Government is committed to providing students with a world-class, rigorous national curriculum from kindergarten to year 12.

(Garrett in Pratt, 2009)

Health and Physical Education

What is it we are investing in?

Jeff Emmel

Health and Physical Education

What is it we are really investing in?

What is the body of evidence?

Toward a national entitlement?

ACHPER’s position

• ACHPER believes that an educated nation, comprising active and healthy young people is the best investment we can make for their future.

• Schools have a critical role to play.

We believe in you

ACHPER acknowledges the efforts of educators and volunteers who work with children and

youth through government, non government and corporate organisations.

As a lead organisation ACHPER embraces frameworks and initiatives that help to achieve learning outcomes for children in health promoting settings.

We Are All at Risk

• We make choices about how much risk we are prepared to take.

• We don’t always understand the gravity of some of those risks or what we can do about them

• Some lifestyle factors are out of our control.

Should we be afraid?

• The illness system• Risk profile• The mistake of thinking we are immune or

invulnerable

Smoking

• The greatest killer• Tobacco has thousands of chemicals, many

poisonous• 20 fags a day reduces the supply of oxygen to

your heart by 10%• About one half to two thirds of deaths

caused by smoking

Physical activity and well-being

• The physical health benefits of regular physical activity are well established.

• Regular participation is associated with a longer and

better quality of life, reduced risk of a variety of diseases, and many psychological and emotional benefits.

• There is also a large body of literature showing that

inactivity is one of the most significant causes of death, disability, and reduced quality of life across the developed world.

What we eat• The amount we eat has increased significantly over the

last 20 years• The amount of high energy foods makes up the greater

part of that increase.• MYTH: We eat much more fat today than 20 years ago

The New Diabetes• Fastest growing chronic disease in Aus.• Cause is unhealthy diet and lack of activity• No cure• 1500 new cases each week• By 2010, 1.8 million will have it• Increases risk of heart attack and stroke and leads to kidley

failure, amputations and blindness.• Weight loss of 5-7% and activity of 30 mins 5 times/week

lowers risk of developing diabetes by 60%

Drug and Alcohol abuse

• Host of related diseases• Binge drinking• Car accident injury and death

The Risk Factors in Combination• Smoking• Inactivity• High energy diet• Overweight• Drug and alcohol• Stress

• Together make for a truly fatal combination

• Two or more risk factors often occur together and can interact to produce higher or lower risks

• Reducing each a little has a huge cumulative effect

Australian Physical Activity Australian Physical Activity and Healthy Eating and Healthy Eating Guidelines/RecommendationGuidelines/Recommendations for children and youth.s for children and youth. Dept. Health and AgeingDept. Health and Ageing

Does your HPE program support Does your HPE program support these?these?

Current audit HPE in schools

• Patchwork quilt• Time allocations vary• Senior secondary – highly ranked choice• Specialist help in primary schools varies• Mixed response to crowded curriculum message• One of the first areas affected by decisions to build

up other subjects• Increasing trend to hand it over to commercial

providers

The Learning Area

• The area of the curriculum that provides education for children to learn how to lead healthy lifestyles now and in the future.

• It reflects the importance of health and physical education and physical activity for physical, social, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.

Cont.• the area of the curriculum that is directly concerned

with the development of skills, knowledge, understandings, values and attitudes that will counter so called lifestyle diseases that are widely acknowledged as representing an unprecedented threat to the health and economic future of Australia; and

• the area of the curriculum that engages students in learning related to contemporary, adolescent health issues.

Health and Physical Education• is an educational endeavour and experience• is fundamentally about learning• draws on a number of sub-disciplines• reflects and promotes an holistic conceptualisation of health• embraces the notions of learning ‘in, through and about’

movement in diverse ways and contexts• is a lifelong process and endeavour

Linkages with learning beyond the formal curriculum and beyond schools are a central consideration in curriculum planning, teaching and learning in HPE

Learning

• General capabilities /life skills• Across all ages• Must have a school foundation to have an

impact in the community

This is about our children’s lives, in particular their life choices.

Sailing - is that what you are selling?

– Fun with friends– Travel to new and

exotic places– Romance– New places, new

people– Fascination with the

elements – wind and water

– Weather

– Appreciation of environment and the risk it brings

– Socialisation– Skills set – Communication– Thinking– Decision making– Leadership – Challenge and

problem solving– Working

independently – Working in teams– Opportunity to

compete and excel

Challenges for the Profession

•Maintaining the physical in H&PE•Maintaining the education in H&PE•Advocating for the whole Learning area•Selling H&PE for all the right reasons•Every opportunity to link school and community activities•Rethink our staffing policies

Critical environment

• For many children, school is the main environment for being physically active, through either PES programs or after school activities.

(Bailey,2006)

Physical Education, sportand physical activity

• The physical health benefits of regular physical activity are well established.

• Regular participation in such activities is associated with a longer and better quality of life, reduced risk of a variety of diseases, and many psychological and emotional benefits.

• There is also a large body of literature showing that inactivity

is one of the most significant causes of death, disability, and reduced quality of life across the developed world.

(Bailey, 2006)

Mental health

• there is now fairly consistent evidence that regular activity can have a positive effect upon the psychological well-being of children and young people

• the evidence is particularly strong with regards to children’s self-esteem

• research has also associated regular activity with reduced stress, anxiety, and depression.

Social development

• numerous studies have demonstrated that appropriately structured and presented activities can make a contribution to the development of pro-social behaviour, and can even combat antisocial and criminal behaviours in youth

• the most encouraging findings come from school based studies, especially those focusing on PES curriculum programs

Cont.• Intervention studies have produced generally positive results,

including improvements in moral reasoning, fair play and ‘sportspersonship’, and personal responsibility.

• It also seems that the most promising contexts for developing social skills and values are those mediated by suitably trained teachers and coaches who focus on situations that arise naturally through activities, by asking questions of students and by modeling appropriate responses though their own behaviour.

Attitudes towards schoolingand Academic achievement

Since 2000, QCA has been working with primary, secondary, special schools and partnerships across England to:

• develop ways of improving the quality of PESS• explore the difference that high quality PESS

can make to young people and their schools

The PESS investigation has been an important strand of the national PE, School Sport and Club Links strategy (PESSCL), delivered by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

• In doing this, it has also demonstrated the impact that high quality PESS can have on the aspirations, wellbeing, attitudes, behaviour and achievements of young people.

• Schools are happier, healthier and more successful: pupils have greater self-esteem and achieve higher standards.

Physical Education, sport andacademic achievement

• All of the schools involved in the PESS investigation from the outset have seen improvements in their national curriculum test and results.

• Many school principals feel that PESS has had a significant impact on learning achievement across the curriculum.

• Teachers have reported improvements in students’ confidence, concentration and achievement.

• Time spent in physical education does not adversely affect academic achievement

• Fear of negatively affecting academic achievement does not seem to be a legitimate reason for reducing or eliminating programs in physical education

Carlson et al.(2008)

From kindergarten through fifth grade, girls with the highest exposure to physical education scored higher on the IRT reading scale and the IRT mathematics scale than did those in the low physical education category.

• The impact of high quality teaching on children’s physical activity experiences should be emphasized to influence policy makers and teacher education providers to increase the number of physical education specialists teaching in elementary grades.

(Fairclough & Stratton, 2006)

MCEETYA 2003

• At a MCEETYA meeting held in Perth July 10 11 2003 South Australia proposed the establishment of a National Physical Activity in Education Strategy. The proposal was unanimously supported by the meeting with the following outcomes:

Noted community concern about the increasing rates of physical inactivity among children and

young people in Australia and associated learning and health issues……….

The future is here

• Screen time increasing

• Web 2 technology and social networking can dominate a student’s day

• WIIS Get fit and active electronic games

Too important to lose

• ACHPER believes it is timely to elevate the Health and Physical Education Key Learning Area in its priorities by including it in national curriculum development.

• A further focus should be on renewal and training for early childhood and primary teachers and a re think of staffing policy.

In Summary

• The evidence is strong• Keep the P, E and the H in HPE• It’s not just about childhood obesity• It fits within the broader parameters of

learning espoused in the Melbourne Declaration

• For the sake of our next generations we can’t let it slip

• Mens sana in corpore sano