New Basics
Click here to access the Education Queensland's "New Basics" Website
Within the Bundaberg District, Thabeban State School Ph 41 521171, is our sole 'Trial School" concerning the New Basics project. Throughout Queensland there is a network of approximately 40 "Trial" schools spanning Primary and Secondary Schools.
A summary of the project appears below.
(Compiled by Steve Smith EA Bundaberg District Office, with reference to 'New Basics- Curriculum Organizers.' 30-9-00 draft. Education Queensland.)
Education Queensland is conducting a three year trial of an integrated curriculum model known as the "New Basics" within 37 schools throughout our State. The model has application for students from Year 1 through to Year 10 and whilst it focuses on Curriculum Integration it also addresses Pedagogical Reform, Assessment and Reporting.
The "New Basics" are futures-oriented categories for organising curriculum. There are four New Basics categories and they have an explicit orientation towards researching, understanding, and coming to grips with new economic, cultural and social conditions. They are as follows:
1: Life Pathways and Social Futures
"Who am I and where am I going?"
* Living in and preparing for diverse family relationships
* Collaborating with peers and others
* Maintaining health and care of self
* Learning about and preparing for new worlds of work
* Developing initiative and enterprise
2: Multiliteracies and Communication media
"How do I make sense of and communicate with the World?"
* Blending traditional and new communications media
* Making creative judgements and engaging in performance
* Communicating using languages and intercultural understandings
* Mastering literacy and numeracy
3: Active Citizenship
"What are my rights and responsibilities in communities, cultures and economies?"
* Interacting within local and global communities
* Operating within shifting cultural identities
* Understanding local and global economic forces
* Understanding the historical foundation of social movements and civic institutions
4: Environments and Technologies
"How do I describe, analyse and shape the World around me?"
* Developing a scientific understanding of the World (and the Universe)
* Working with design and engineering technologies
* Building and sustaining environments
Thus the "New Basics" categories captures various aspects of the person in the World:
* the individual- physical and mentally, at work and at play;
* the communicator- active and passive, persuading and being persuaded, entertaining and being entertained, expressing ideas in words, numbers and pictures, creating and performing;
* the group member- in social groups, government-related groups and so on;
* part of the physical world- of atoms and cells, electrons and chromosomes, animal, vegetable and mineral, observing, discovering and inventing.
In a World dealing with information overload, rapidly changing local and global economies, communities' uncertainty about their futures, and new life pathways for students leaving schools, a "New Basics" framework may help to address the following questions....
"How do we effectively organise learning activities in ways that do not clutter the curriculum?"
"How do we provide space for deep intellectual engagement?"
"How do we connect to the key issues affecting students' lives?"
Essentially the Curriculum is anchored around student completion of a series of "RICH TASKS" - they are whole tasks which have visible value in the everyday life worlds of work, education, citizenship and other activities.
These "Rich Tasks" are systemically completed, assessed and moderated at three yearly intervals, that is in Years 3, 6 and 9. Students in intervening years are developing the prerequisite skills necessary for satisfactory completion of the "Rich Task". The 'suite' of "Rich Tasks" are included as an attachment with this correspondence.
Schools trialing the "New Basics" framework are expected to devote approximately 50% of their class time to completing the "Rich Tasks" and/or developing prerequisite skills and the New Basics, and have the freedom to structure their own program for the remaining 50% of class time.
Click here to download the 2001 list of "Rich Tasks"