Topics: Indigenous culture in maths, national school curriculum
Chris Smith: Eight OECD countries for mathematics but we’ve been in a long, slow decline, and rank about 29th now. 29th from a first-world country, I’m sorry, is shameful. Now, there’s been a lot of talk about how we can reverse that decline, plenty of pressure from politicians to improve maths teaching. Everyone knows how important that is, everyone except the people designing our national curriculum, who seem hell-bent on pushing their ideological wokeness on our children at any cost. The curriculum they’ve designed focuses on nearly 2500 ways for teachers to weave into lessons, the cross-curriculum priorities, things like sustainability. Nothing wrong with that. Aboriginal and Torres, Strait Islander histories and cultures, huh? In mathematics? And Australia’s engagement with Asia? In mathematics? In maths, these mean learning to count to indigenous dance as well. Now the madness of this curriculum has been exposed today by Victorian Senator, Sarah Henderson, and she’s on the line with me right now. Senator, welcome to the program.
Senator Henderson: Chris, it’s wonderful to join you.
Chris Smith: Great to have you on the show and to our network stations. Dance and basket-weaving for mathematics, now, nothing wrong with studying Aboriginal dance or even some kind of indigenous basket-weaving, but I simply don’t get how they’re related to mathematics?
Senator Henderson: Well, Chris, that’s exactly right, and as we make very clear, while learning Indigenous history and culture is very important to every child’s education, the requirement to embed the cross-curriculum priorities in every subject is just nonsensical, and it also flies in the face of world-leading curricula which is focused on the core knowledge which students need to excel at school. So for instance, in year 8 maths, when solving problems involving the circumference and area of a circle, it’s suggested to teachers that they explore traditional weaving designs by First Nations Australians and investigate the significance of use of circles. So right through the national curriculum, these cross-curriculum priorities embed these suggestions or elaborations as they’re called into the curriculum and make it a nightmare for teachers. Teachers have enough of a difficult job, this adds to their burden. This adds to their complexity, and that’s why primary school principals are crying out for a simpler, knowledge-rich curriculum based on the evidence, which, of course, removes the burden from teachers, because at the moment they say it’s impossible to teach.
Chris Smith: In some ways, and you rightly describe what it’s like, in some ways it’s like playing chess in 3D. How are they supposed to keep up and juggle all of those balls at one go when you’re simply trying to get people to understand how multiplication works?
Senator Henderson: That’s exactly right. And our national curriculum is made up of the eight learning areas, so math, science, English, etc. Then there’s also this separate layer of these seven general capabilities. Then there’s the cross-curriculum priorities. And the national curriculum is so complex, Chris, that the curriculum regulator cannot print out the document. The head of ACARA says it’s thousands of pages, and that is ridiculous. So if the curriculum regulator cannot print out the curriculum, how can parents and teachers and principals possibly expect to understand it?
Chris Smith: How did this happen? Like why do we give these people such a long leash to stuff up the national curriculum?
Senator Henderson: Well, look, I think the most important thing from the Coalition’s perspective is that we are determined to get back to basics. We are determined to focus on evidence-based teaching, which prioritises reading, writing, maths and science. We are determined to see explicit instruction in every single classroom, Chris, because we know that moves the dial. And just today, we’ve seen some amazing results with the introduction of explicit instruction in Catholic schools in Melbourne, and in just one year, they have seen an improvement of more than 20 per cent in their numeracy skills. So we know what works in the classroom. We know that explicit instruction and other evidence-based teaching methods allows young Australians to achieve their very best. And at the moment, of course, we’ve got this mishmash of various different approaches in the classroom. And frankly, the Albanese government has taken its eye right off the ball. It’s got a 10-year funding agreement with these very light on reforms that don’t do the job. There’s no requirement to drive explicit instruction into every classroom. They just haven’t developed a 10-year blueprint which will transform the education in our classroom, and they don’t even reference the curriculum, can you believe? Let alone the importance of addressing classroom behaviour, which is a huge issue in so many classrooms across this country.
Chris Smith: This whole business about putting kids in groups and allowing them as a group to work out the solutions has got to be tossed out. And the school that you’re referring to in Melbourne, plus schools in the ACT through NAPLAN, have proved that they have gone away from that, and the fact that they’ve gone away from that has meant better results coming from individual students. Am I right?
Senator Henderson: That’s absolutely right. The Canberra Goulburn Catholic school introduced explicit instruction right across their system, and they’ve seen some amazing results. We’re now seeing it in Melbourne, and there are a number of individual schools who have also employed the best evidence-based teaching methods. And children are flying and they love learning because they get it. They have that light bulb moment where they understand, where they learn, where they thrive. And of course, if students don’t learn properly, Chris, that does enormous damage to self-esteem. They lose their sense of belonging. And once children fall behind in their learning, the evidence shows that only one in five catch up. So this is incredibly important, not just to ensure every young Australian can achieve his or her best, but for the prosperity of our nation. We must be a first-world country when it comes to education assistance. We don’t have that at the moment. In fact, things are going from bad to worse under the Albanese government, and that’s why this 10-year reform agreement that Jason Clare has signed up to is completely and woefully inadequate, and that’s why we are determined as a Coalition, under the leadership of Peter Dutton, to drive the best standards in classrooms, and that, of course, is through the really important focus on driving explicit instruction in every classroom.
Chris Smith: But Senator, did I read right in the article connected to this discussion that the Coalition also agreed to this curriculum the last time they were in government?
Senator Henderson: That is correct, and there were also, of course, all states and territories. So when you sit around the table deciding on the national curriculum, you need agreement with all the states and the territories. But in three years, a lot has happened, Chris, the dial has really moved. We are now seeing how important it is…
Chris Smith: The results are coming through now, aren’t they?
Senator Henderson: The evidence is showing the work of the Australian education research organisation. They did a very significant report on a knowledge-rich curriculum just last year. So we just cannot sit on our hands. And regrettably, in the face of all of this evidence, the Albanese government and Jason Clare have sat on their hands. They are doing little bits and pieces, tinkering at the edges, but they’re not addressing the fundamental problems. And one of the big problems is our national curriculum, and we simply need to fix it. It needs to be as good as the curriculum in Singapore and the United Kingdom so that we can be one of the very best nations in the world in terms of our education system.
Chris Smith: And we’ve got to stop lining up at an election campaign saying, ‘oh, you know, we’re going to throw another 20 billion at the curriculum’, but that only ensures that we extend doing things badly further, instead of quality over quantity. That’s what we’ve got to consider, right?
Senator Henderson: Well, look, of course, funding is important but also what’s very important is how this money is spent. And frankly, this government has really let teachers down, because so often teachers start their day with no proper lesson plans. I mean, there’s a lot of work that teachers have to do to prepare at the moment. When this is done properly, teachers get proper lesson plans, proper guidance, proper support with the best, high-impact curriculum materials, and that, of course, means saving hours every week for teachers. Teachers are working incredibly hard. They are so dedicated to their mission, and we need to make sure that they have the very best support. And so, of course, investing in our schools is incredibly important. We’re backing the new funding agreements. We’ve made that very clear. But also what’s incredibly important is that this money is invested properly. We need to make sure that our teachers are properly supported with the best curriculum materials, the best methods of teaching, so that our young Australians in every classroom absolutely fly.
Chris Smith: Victorian Senator, Sarah Henderson, thank you so much for being on the program.
Senator Henderson: Wonderful to talk to you, Chris. Thank you.