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.

Wherever we are in society, we are surrounded by the Arts. This text has been designed by artists, and the words you read are just visual artworks representing the oral storytelling foundation of all societies. Its layout was designed by artists, using multiple media forms. You are reading it in an environment where the soundscape will hopefully allow you to concentrate. Your body is probably positioned to minimise discomfort and maximise efficiency, while communicating your current state of thought to all those around you (whether consciously or not). Surrounding you may be posters, objects, noises, people interacting with facial expressions, probably some communicating via Facebook, Instagram or other social media using increasingly advanced technologies. The Arts power our lives, yet too often we power down children as they enter formal education (preschool and upwards), stifle their natural forms of communication and interaction, and slowly destroy their ability to be creative and to think diversely.

A legacy is something inherited by a successor, and in Boulez’s case what he handed down to posterity (his writings, activities and compositions) evolved in complex ways from his own early mentors and influences, particularly Messiaen, along with what the young Boulez determined to be the essential innovations in works that had the greatest unfulfilled potential in the 1940s and early 1950s. Boulez’s own works were naturally part of his legacy but in his later years changes in musical fashion meant that his accomplishments as conductor, writer, teacher of performers and institutional figurehead provided an even more potent example to potential emulators than his actual compositions. His unambiguously modernist sensibility and concern to place serious music at the heart of the prevailing culture brought a remarkable coherence to bear on the rich diversity of his life and work.

From the moment they are born, infants are active and competent learners. Before birth, they perceive and respond to stimuli from the outside world and the people in it. Newborns recognise and respond socially to other people and pay attention to interesting objects and events. Infants are born ‘ready to learn, and during their first three years, they learn, develop and grow at a faster rate than at any other time in their lives. Rapid physical development enables mobility, exploration and physical manipulation; emerging social and emotional skills foster relationships, wellbeing, and belonging; increasing communication and language competence support social interactions, literacy development and learning; and cognitive advancements cultivate critical ways of thinking and understanding. The skills and understandings that infants and toddlers achieve during their first three years form the cornerstone from which all future learning, development and wellbeing is built.

For many adults, the idea that infants and toddlers are ‘knowers, thinkers and theorisers’ is a strange one. Such concepts are often associated with older children whose abilities to build and express understandings are more evident and align more readily with traditional ideas about learning and teaching. Furthermore, cognitive states and processes such as ‘knowing’, ‘thinking’ and ‘understanding’ are not visible in the same way that physical, social and emotional behaviours. This means that they have to be inferred and interpreted, especially when pre-verbal infants and toddlers cannot tell you what is going on in their heads. Together these challenges may result in a deficit view that, instead of seeing infants and toddlers as active and capable learners, positions very young as waiting to learn. Also, an emphasis on meeting physical and emotional needs may come at the cost of overlooking infants and toddlers cognitive capabilities and potentials.

Assessment is a key aspect of teaching and fundamental to student and teacher learning. As a teacher, you will use syllabuses, Australian Curriculum content and the local cultural knowledge that is valued in your community to develop tasks and provide classroom experiences that foster quality learning. You will need to understand that there are a range of assessment types, with different purposes and tools available that you can use to assess student learning and progress. As you grow in your career, you will continue to develop the skills and knowledge required to activate a collaborative classroom culture that promotes student ownership of learning and enables students to foster each other’s learning through classroom assessment. You will work in partnerships with students, colleagues and parents/caregivers to curate authentic evidence of learning. In this chapter, we examine forms of assessment, the most effective types of feedback and how teachers use assessment data in teaching, planning and reporting practices.

When we think about ‘becoming’ or ‘being’ a teacher, we often reflect on experiences that positively impacted our learning, or those that reduced our enthusiasm or motivation. The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership emphasises teachers’ significant role and responsibility in preparing children and young people to lead successful and productive lives. Building on Chapter 1, this chapter introduces core skills for the profession of teaching, highlighting communication, organisation, reflective practice and leadership for aspiring teachers. Acknowledging that teaching is a human endeavour, you will explore personal attributes, including confidence, resilience and self-care, and the process of managing, building and sustaining a career, while upholding professional standards.

Once you have finished university and are ready to teach in a classroom, have you finished learning? While you probably have immediate things to learn about – your new school or casual teaching, the syllabuses that you will be working with, the students you will be teaching, your colleagues and the realities of day-to-day behaviour management – there are other ways in which your learning does not stop once you have graduated. The expectation that teachers will not stop learning is realistic, as there will always be changes (social, economic, political and technological) that have to be accommodated. Developing technologies have led to changes not only in what teachers have to learn, but also in how they learn. Formal pathways for professional learning have been supplemented by informal methods. You now begin your journey from graduate to proficient, according to the roadmap through the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) provided by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. You have embarked on an exciting career that offers numerous options for development.

A fundamental task for you, as a teacher, is to get to know and understand the students you teach in the broad context of the school, community and society in which they live. By doing this, you will increase your awareness of the diverse backgrounds, experiences and needs of your students and their families. Knowledge and understanding will shape your teaching philosophy, influence your views and attitudes, and guide you in effectively teaching and supporting your students. This chapter aims to support you in answering the question: Who are my students? We will examine several theories to help you explore ways of viewing, understanding and thinking about teaching for diversity. Australian data and statistics, and teacher and student narratives, will provide you with a snapshot of today’s student cohort. This includes students from diverse family, religious, cultural, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds, and those with a range of abilities, disabilities and orientations. You will gain insight into some of the impacts of mental health and complex trauma on children and young people and consider your role in fostering positive school experiences for all students.

This chapter introduces the concepts of classroom management, routines and procedures, and approaches to inclusive practice through case studies, extracts from theoretical writings and policy documents. The discussion considers differing approaches to classroom management, including practical behaviour management strategies. The role of leadership in developing whole-school practices is highlighted and legal responsibilities, as well as behaviour management options, are included. You will learn about inclusive practice and addressing the needs of diverse learners, which considers the shift from segregation of diverse learners to contemporary practices that have better outcomes for all children. The concept of inclusive practice is contextualised in relation to international developments, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration, the Australian Curriculum and the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST). This chapter introduces Universal Design for Learning as a framework to support differentiated learning and reasonable adjustments for the diversity of all students in our classrooms, including diversity of sexual orientation and gender identity, ability, culture and language, social and economic situations, and religious beliefs.

Learning is the fundamental process that teachers are seeking to influence in the classroom. But what is learning? And how can we, as teachers, help our students to learn effectively? Learning has been a topic of investigation for centuries. Educators have sought to understand learning through philosophy, observation, experiments and even neuroscience. Learning is a complex human behaviour. As a teacher, you need to understand how your students learn. That means becoming aware of some of the theories people have put forward about how learning works, developing an appreciation for how you can know whether or not learning has occurred in your classroom, and understanding what you can do to maximise the learning possibilities for all of your students. What you will learn in this chapter might surprise you – for example, some of the intuitive ideas we have about learning seem not to be how learning really occurs. This is an important insight for you as a teacher. The students in your classes will often have intuitive ideas about their learning that may not be accurate, particularly when it comes to the use of technology in education. These ideas may come from their home, informal education settings they interact with, from popular media representations, or from elsewhere. It is important to be aware of how learning really works.

This chapter introduces curriculum in schools and the relationship between ideology and ideas as factors shaping education curriculum development. This approach stresses that curriculum is both dynamic and contested, and focuses on the development and implementation of the Australian Curriculum to illustrate how curriculum is shaped at the Commonwealth, state/territory and jurisdictional school levels. The chapter also discusses the key learning areas, cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities. The intention is to examine how curriculum can be an empowering vehicle to frame content areas, and inform teaching, learning programs and assessment instruments. Concepts such as the overt and hidden curriculum are examined to better understand the nature of school curriculum. Further, there is a recognition that curriculum must be interpreted and contextualised so that it meets the needs of learners at different levels and in different ways. Finally, the notion of teachers as curriculum builders and enactors is a central concept in this chapter.