Is the curriculum diverse enough to cater for all students?

The curriculum is like a big rule book and manual that all teachers across the country need to use and adhere to.

Teaching was more of a creative endeavour before a national curriculum. Before the national curriculum teachers would understand their students first then design a unit of work around those particular people. This no longer exists, there is a set of teaching tools which are laid out and teaching is more or less prescribed. It has essentially been flipped around, curriculum then student instead of student then curriculum.

The great challenge for teachers is to match this prescribed curriculum to the students in front of them.

I have seen some teachers print documents straight off the curriculum website and not alter or change these documents to suit the needs of the learners in front of them. Hand them out and teach straight from this. I have also seen other teachers work tirelessly to mould and shape the curriculum into something a little more suited to the needs of their learners.

The pressure of the curriculum comes from timelines and deadlines.

There is a lot packed into the curriculum. No longer can the pace of learning be dictated by the student or teacher. There are assessment dates and deadlines and paper work galore. The rich teaching and learning experience, that beautiful communication between a teacher and a student have been seriously squeezed, almost out of existence. In its place a series of short information downloads followed sharply by a set of testing instruments. Oh, what joy!

What if a student has global language delay or a lower-than-average IQ or a learning difficulty and they need the pace of learning to be slower?

What if a skill has not been consolidated? What then?

How can teachers authentically make the changes and slow the learning pace to suit the learner?

Changes are needed…

Most students would achieve immediately if they were given the time to process and consolidate skills and knowledge. There has been much research into self-paced learning, the benefits of self-guided learning. Schools like Steiner work to embody this philosophy. In its own way the government is acknowledging that now more than ever before the learners that sit in all of those classrooms across the country have diverse learning needs and styles.

For the first time the education system has acknowledged diverse learners. They have introduced the P – 12 CARF (curriculum assessment reporting framework). It specifies the requirements for all school ensure that every child has the right to access education of a high quality and it must be inclusive education.

One of the focus areas is differentiated teaching and learning. Within this area it specifies that schools are required to meet the learning needs of all students. The framework details that schools are required to use school-wide processes to identify groups and individuals who require tailored supports, including students with diverse needs.

This is a good first step…

However, fundamental changes and specialised teachers – educational therapist - are needed to give this document a reality for students. Specialised programs with targeted teaching strategies, for example the Create skills for life synthetic phonics approach with imbedded sensory integration is needed.

Time in a student’s day is required to teach the skills students need be to literate, numerate and have functional language skills. Less is more. Consolidation and practice are king!

Create skills for life offers educational therapy in Brisbane. Create skills for life offers a specialised program so that everyone can have access to the ability to read, spell, write and use functional language skills. We have the know how now and can stop any more students falling through the cracks as we wait for the system to wake up.