Economics is the study of decisions made when allocating scarce resources to satisfy needs and unlimited wants and business is the enterprise engaged in the production of goods and services, usually for profit. Australia needs innovative individuals with a knowledge and understanding of economics and business who question, process and analyse information, make informed decisions and then reflect upon outcomes. With the end of the mining boom, decreases in manufacturing due to offshoring of labour and the depletion of Tier-1 mines, innovation and entrepreneurship are necessary for a prosperous Australian economy in the future. This chapter will: outline where Economics and Business appears in the Australian Curriculum; provide information on delivery and assessment of Economics and Business knowledge and understanding with illustrations of integration with other learning areas; integrate Economics and Business with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and perspectives and Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia; and then explain how Economics and Business inquiry and skills are delivered through the creation and implementation of a business plan.

History is challenging for learners as it concerns something that no longer exists – the past. Yet, as Christopher Portal reminds us, ‘in another sense, of course, the past is not dead at all; it exists through the ways in which we understand the past, and in the personal, cultural and intellectual inheritance we each have’. Our connections with the past can vary from engaging with family members’ recollections, photographs and memorabilia to viewing historical dramas on television and mobile devices. Reading historical fiction, visiting museums or observing a public commemoration such as an Anzac Day march or a National Sorry Day event can also prompt interest in finding out more about the past. This chapter draws from research to consider how teaching and learning in History in the sub-strand of the Australian Curriculum: HASS F–6 v9.0 can enable young people to investigate the traces of the past in authentic and meaningful ways. Making sense of the past, and learning how to think critically about it, empowers young people to relate history to their lives in the 21st century and better prepares them to be informed, confident and active citizens.

The Asia region (including the Indo-Pacific region) is critically important for Australia’s long-term future as people-to-people links through education and cultural exchange, migration, business, trade, defence and tourism continue to expand and Australia’s relationship with the countries of the region evolves. Referred to as the ‘Asia priority’, the Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia cross-curriculum priority provides opportunities for learners to investigate, understand and recognise the diversity within and between the peoples and countries of the Asia region as well as the diversity within communities in Australia. Referred to as ‘Asia literacy’, and more recently as ‘Asia capability’, this combination of knowledge, understanding and skills prepares learners for the challenges of living, studying and working in the region and in global contexts. This chapter offers strategies for teaching and learning about and from the diverse peoples and cultures of the region in ways that go beyond the instrumentalism of national economic and security interests in Asia. Learners can be encouraged to recognise commonalities and differences as well as appreciate and empathise with the lived experiences of diverse peoples and local communities in Asia and in Australia.

This chapter provides educators with a new way of looking at how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have been represented within the Australian Curriculum. We commence with an open discussion about the structure and potential shortcomings of the cross-curriculum priorities as evident in content descriptions across the Australian Curriculum. Use of a systematic method will help educators aim to engage learners in moral, historical and epistemic questions of Indigenous connectedness to Country/Place and their custodianship of it and the nature of Indigenous agency, resistance and national reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. We will also look at cross-curriculum content structure; provide a pedagogic model for culturally responsive teaching; advise on establishing authentic school and community engagement; and suggest a framework for the development of rich, contextually situated and holistic programs for teaching the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cross-curriculum content across the primary years of schooling.

Learning in HASS subjects is usually characterised by inquiry-based learning; collecting, organising, analysing and synthesising information, and research. By their nature, these forms of learning involve and depend on reliable, useful and relevant data and information sources. Effective educators know how to select and help their learners access age-appropriate and suitable resources to support their inquiries, investigations and research. Rather than being provided with ready-made information, inquiry and research-based learning involves learners actively seeking, locating, interpreting, analysing, synthesising, representing and communicating information, evidence and data to inform a HASS inquiry, answer a research question or examine a topic from a range of perspectives. Resourceful educators and learners can capitalise on a wealth of resources available in their local communities to enrich their learning. Most communities feature museums and other collections, significant cultural, heritage and natural sites, as well as groups and individuals with extensive knowledge, stories and experiences that represent valuable learning resources for learners of all ages.

National educational goals describe the responsibility of governments, schools and curriculum to ensure learners develop into effective citizens who can participate in society and employment in a globalised economy. This was initially outlined in the vision of the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (Melbourne Declaration) and later in the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration. In promoting values such as social justice, peace, sustainability and democracy, the HASS educational discipline provides the perfect vehicle to achieve this vision. While the rationale and aims are different for each sub-strand within the HASS Australian Curriculum learning area (History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship, and Economics and Business), the overarching theme involves stimulating curiosity, imagination and wonder about the world we live in, ‘and how people can participate as active and informed citizens with high-level skills needed now and in the future’. In reflecting on your own education, were you encouraged to have such curiosity and interest in the world around you?

This chapter introduces you to Civics and Citizenship, one of the four subjects that comprise the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) learning area. It presents Civics and Citizenship as an active, participatory subject area that requires educators to promote an open and supportive educational environment through which learners can be engaged in discussing issues that affect them and their communities, and enables them to engage in democratic decision-making processes. The chapter covers the main elements of the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship, as it appears both within the combined HASS curriculum for the primary years and as a stand-alone subject for Year 7. It also introduces methods and approaches through which Civics and Citizenship can be taught effectively. Throughout the chapter, key points are supported by research evidence, and supporting tasks and reflections will help you to develop your understanding of Civics and Citizenship.

Early childhood teachers in Australia are qualified to teach children from birth to five years of age or birth through to eight years of age depending on their teacher education program and state qualifications. A significant challenge is the need to be knowledgeable about, and comfortable working with, different curriculum framework documents. Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF v2.0) informs practice in early education and care settings for children from birth to age 6, while the Australian Curriculum models the curriculum in the Foundation to Year 10 (hereafter: F–10) formal schooling years. This chapter will provide a contextual foundation for teaching and learning in HASS, beginning with a broad discussion of the Australian Curriculum: HASS in the early years of primary schooling, considered through the lens of the EYLF v2.0. Similarities and differences between the two curriculum documents will then be addressed, as well as how these documents potentially affect children’s learning and how educators teach. Finally, it will be argued that pedagogical practice, specifically inquiry-based learning rather than content-based learning, contributes to effective connections between the foundations for learning developed in the early years settings and transition to the first years of formal schooling.

In aspiring for world-class education, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration provided guidance for the continued development of the Australian Curriculum. The declaration committed the Australian Government, in collaboration with the education community, support for all young Australians development in becoming confident and creative individuals, successful lifelong learners and active and informed members of the community. To do so, schools are encouraged to address not only academic achievement but also their holistic development and wellbeing. Subsequently, some of the approaches to achieving these goals are identified as not solely fitting into the traditional content learning areas. Rather, it was argued that such approaches needed to be immersed across learning areas to ensure the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and wellbeing of young Australians were respected and treated as part of the teaching and learning requirements and as a student entitlement. Hence, the general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities are additional dimensions embedded across learning areas and purported to be of equal importance.

This chapter will initially help your familiarisation with the architecture of HASS in the Australian Curriculum and provide guidance for its implementation in the educational setting. Providing real-life experiences using interdisciplinary skills and knowledge is important; therefore, we will discuss different approaches to planning before highlighting the significance of employing an integrated approach. Discussions of planning and assessment will feature prominently, complemented with illustrations of curriculum resources. While the focus in this chapter is on the Australian Curriculum, the significance of planning HASS learning experiences that build on the EYLF are integrated throughout, drawing on the description of the EYLF that was presented in Chapter 1. It is important to recognise the central role of early years educators in promoting a passion for HASS and acquiring the skills and concepts.

Like reading, writing is an essential part of academic studies and professional work. Through writing, we form and communicate clear thoughts so that we can collaborate with each other and refine critical understandings. In the Australian Curriculum, writing is about students using expressive language and composing different types of texts for a range of purposes as an integral part of learning in all curriculum areas. Different text types include ‘spoken, written, visual and multimodal texts’, while students can also create ‘formal and informal’ written, visual and multimodal texts for presentation.

This chapter focuses on the knowledge pre-service and in-service teachers need to develop and evaluate oral communication (oracy) within a student’s first language, and it also explores its application in English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D) contexts. A range of practical teaching strategies, interactive activities and integrated approaches are suggested to promote speaking, interacting and listening capabilities in students. Multimodal integrated strategies are presented that focus on oral communication, but also help develop students’ reading, writing and viewing skills, fostering well-rounded learners capable of critical thinking, effective communication and cultural awareness.

As children learn to speak, read and write, they not only utilise and draw on the sounds of language, or phonemic and phonological awareness, they also implicitly and explicitly recognise and apply knowledge of how sounds are combined systematically in a language to form meaningful units called morphemes. A morpheme is a meaningful unit of a language that cannot be further divided, such as single word units (e.g. at, the, table) or parts of words that modify meaning (e.g. un-, mis) or grammatical forms (-ed, -ing, -s).

In Chapter 4, we discussed the two approaches to grammar that have been taught in Australian schools: traditional grammar, and Halliday’s functional grammar. We highlighted some limitations of traditional grammar and outlined the key concepts of functional grammar, which significantly influences English curricula in Australia and globally. While Chapter 4 emphasised explicit grammatical knowledge required by teachers, this chapter focuses on genres, text types, and the teaching of grammar and text types through explicit pedagogical methods.

This chapter outlines essential knowledge for pre-service and in-service teachers regarding the all-encompassing component of language and literacy development: critical literacy. In the current information-saturated world of ‘fake news’ and algorithms that decide the social media content we view, it is important to empower students with the ability to critically engage and knowingly accept or resist what they are reading or viewing. Critical literacy requires text users to approach their consumption of texts with a questioning mindset. It helps them develop an understanding of how texts work – the ability to analyse and identify the visual, linguistic and multimodal features of texts that create meaning implicitly and explicitly. Drawing upon foundational theories and critical literacy models, this chapter demonstrates how to integrate the five macro-skills of reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing of both textual and multimodal sources to develop students’ critical comprehension and production of various text types.

Grammar has historically been an important component of language and literacy education. It has been understood and defined in various ways, depending on the different linguistic perspectives throughout history. This chapter discusses two main historical perspectives on grammar: traditional grammar and functional grammar. Both implicitly and explicitly underpin the Australian Curriculum: English. The metalanguage and concepts used in the Curriculum and the National Literacy Learning Progression are a combination of traditional and functional grammar terms. Many traditional grammar terms (e.g. nouns, verbs, subject-verb-object) are used alongside functional grammar terms (e.g. participants, processes, circumstances, noun groups, verb groups) to describe sentence-level components, but functional grammar terms are mostly used to describe text-level components. Therefore, it is crucial for pre-service and in-service teachers to be equipped with explicit knowledge of these two grammar traditions to be able to teach in contemporary English classrooms.

Phonemic awareness is a subcategory of phonological awareness. Phonemic awareness is the more specific ability to recognise and manipulate the speech sounds (phonemes) of spoken language as a developmental pathway to learning to read and write. It is the topic of this second chapter because it is developed alongside a method of teaching called phonics. Phonics is an explicit teaching method that involves learners understanding the relationship between the sounds of spoken language and the letters or letter patterns used to represent those sounds in written language. It involves learning the connections between individual phonemes and the written code of letters (graphemes).

Our goal in writing this book was to address a notable gap in the availability of essential resources dedicated to this critical content area. Despite its foundational importance, no existing text offers a focused, in-depth exploration of language and literacy knowledge tailored for pre-service and in-service teachers working in Foundation to Year 10. The 2008 Bradley Review highlighted a deficiency in teachers’ language and literacy awareness and proficiency, a concern that was addressed by the introduction of the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education Students (LANTITE) in 2016. Consequently, initial teacher education programs have initiated courses and support services in English language and literacy to bolster teachers’ personal knowledge and skills, enabling them to pass the LANTITE’s literacy component.

Language use involves the activation of phonological, morphological, grammatical and lexical systems for meaning-making with other people in specific contexts. Therefore, we not only need to acquire and develop these linguistic systems for language use, but we also need to develop an awareness and understanding of these linguistic systems as meaning-making resources for appropriate use in a given context. For this reason, it is necessary to focus on the social use of language as a key aspect of language development.

This chapter highlights the knowledge required to work with diverse students who communicate using the different varieties of English that exist in Australia. In line with the ‘Language variation and change’ sub-strand of the Australian Curriculum: English, we discuss linguistic and cultural diversity through the concept of plurilingualism, and the transcultural and sociolinguistic competence and knowledge required by teachers working with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) learners. We highlight the challenges and rewards associated with instructing students from varying linguistic and cultural backgrounds. We also stress the crucial role teachers play in nurturing learners of English as an additional language or dialect (EAL/D) students.