All high school students in New South Wales will study Aboriginal people’s experiences of colonisation for the first time, including the Frontier Wars and the concept of terra nullius, under the state’s reformed syllabuses.
On Thursday, the education minister, Prue Car, released the remaining new curricula for years 7 to 10 history, geography and visual arts, as part of the shift towards explicit teaching.
History now includes the impact of missions and religious organisations on Aboriginal people and their resistance and struggle for rights and freedoms.
Previously, colonisation was only covered as an optional in-depth study into Indigenous peoples. Under the revised program, all students will learn about colonisation from the 15th century onwards and the responses of international Indigenous communities to occupation.
Also mandatory will be the study of the Myall Creek massacre – the killing of at least 28 unarmed Aboriginal people in the colony of NSW in 1838 – one of the few mass murders of Aboriginal people to have been proven in court.
The head teacher of English and history at Corowa high school, Martin Douglas, said he particularly liked that the new curriculum contested the “Australian narrative” that existed within it.
“It tells a story of colonisation and dispossession in a truthful way, moving through Australian history into a progressive survival narrative,” he said. “What’s really clear is the shift to one of survival – the importance of reclaiming languages, cultures and identities.
“We talk a lot about what an Australian identity looks like. This [curriculum] provides opportunities for students to engage and learn themselves, because contestability as a concept is central to history – all of history is critical thinking.”
The second world war has also become a standalone mandatory topic, with more in-depth content on the Holocaust, the Nuremberg trials and the creation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Students will also be mandated to study civics and citizenship, which was previously optional, including the Australian constitution, the separation of powers, referendums and the importance of voting.
As part of this overhaul, specific content on the rights and freedoms of Australian women will be included in the syllabus for the first time. Previously, content regarding women’s voting rights was scattered and not made explicit.
Douglas has long embraced teaching Australia’s democratic history, welcoming that a generation of teachers would maintain civics as a “proxy element of what they do”.
“The end result is students that can actively participate in democracy, that will see voting is important,” he said. “The curriculum is legitimising Australian history as important – I’m excited to teach it.”
The NSW curriculum goes further on the impact of colonisation and concurrent resistance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples than Queensland or Victoria, which only provide optional modules on the effects of the “extension of European powers” during the Industrial Revolution.
In the ACT, a course is dedicated to Indigenous culture and languages, including the “conflicts and triumphs of various communities and peoples over time”.
Car said the new syllabuses would support teachers to give students essential content through the explicit teaching model.
“These syllabuses equip students to become well-rounded and informed young people, and I look forward to seeing them rolled out in every school,” she said.
The NSW Education Standards Authority chief executive, Paul Martin, said the syllabuses would enable teachers to enter classrooms with a “consistent and clear understanding of their students’ learning entitlement” while also building on the skills of years 5 and 6.
In geography, students will study the effects of the climate crisis and use new tools to greater align with science and mathematics.
Students will also increasingly get outside the classroom to build on their studies – undertaking about 10 hours of fieldwork in each stage of learning at beaches, creeks and local parks.
The visual arts syllabus has been revised for the first time in 20 years, with a focus on art making and critical and historical studies, as well as mandatory content on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.
Students will use their own curatorial skills to select and present artworks and will also be taught ethical and inclusive practices in their art-making, including consent for taking photographs or filming.
As part of the rollout announced by the state government last year, teachers will have an extra year to familiarise themselves with the content before it is mandated by 2027.
