NSW primary curriculum shakeup from 2027: The changes explained

Kindergarten children will learn about consent, the human body, and world history for the first time under sweeping changes in the NSW primary school curriculum – but for most students the benefits won’t come for another two years.

From 2027 teachers across the state will need to teach from a new playbook, with new subject-specific syllabuses covering history, geography, health, science, technology, and the arts, flipping the script on how – and what – kids are taught.

The four new syllabuses replace what are, in some cases, two-decade-old documents, and represent the most significant shake-up since the 1980s.

Education Minister Prue Car said the new curriculum is a better fit for modern education, having removed “a lot of the gobbledygook”.

“This is a knowledge-rich curriculum … based on the evidence that we know helps young brains,” she said.

“It is clear, it is concise, it is not overcrowded,” she said.

The Minns government expressed that students will be taught concepts and skills "in the right order," for example, children will learn how to use graphs in mathematics before applying them in geography.

Ms Car also defended her government’s decision to delay the rollout. Whilst new English and maths syllabuses are already being taught, the subjects released on Wednesday will not be made mandatory for another two-and-a-half years.

“One year to get used to the new curriculum … was always unworkable and preposterous,” she said.

“We need our teachers to be able to be familiar with the syllabus … so we proudly gave them more time to get used to it.”

The new curriculum has bipartisan support, with the former government having put nearly $200m towards the reform process in 2021, but shadow education minister Sarah Mitchell said the delay is “concerning”.

“It’s great to see the Minns Labor government unveil the new primary school syllabus today – the final product of the Coalition’s hard work,” she said.

“[However,] I am concerned the … government has delayed the introduction of these curriculum reforms until 2027, which means we won’t see the benefits of these updates for several years.

“Our students can’t afford to wait that long.”

What's in the new curriculum?

HSIE

Human Society and its Environment (HSIE) has faced the most reform. History and Geography subjects will merge into one 'HSIE' subject, which will also include a greater focus on civics and citizenship content that teaches students about democracy and the history of voting.

Where Kindergarten and Year 1 students are currently only taught about their own family history and the lifestyles of previous generations, study of the ancient past will now be included – at a minimum, children must “read and recount stories, myths or legends from ancient peoples, places and cultures in China, Egypt, Greece and Rome”, and study archaeology of ancient sites.

Australian history topics will also now include Aboriginal cultures, the arrival of the First Fleet, and what let to the country's federation.

Digital literacy and consent

Consent will be taught explicitly from Kindergarten onwards – by the time they start Year 1, all students should be able to “assertively gain, give or deny consent and respect responses”, identify inappropriate contact from adults online and adopt the ‘No, Go, Tell’ strategy to protect themselves against abuse.

It comes as the federal government pledged more than $25m for NSW schools to spend on consent education programs, resources and professional development for teachers, to be divided up between the public, Catholic and independent sectors.

Consent and permission will be explained through relevant approaches such as sharing toys or joining games.

"From an early age, we all know it's important that in the most age-appropriate way we teach young children about consent and permission," Minister Car said.

"[For example] can someone hug you for a long period of time if you don't give them permission?"

Students will also be taught about healthy use of technology and how to balance screen time with outdoor activity.

Students living with physical disabilities will also be given more explicit support in developing movement skills.

Science

In science, labelling parts of the human body will now be taught from Kindergarten, after being left out of the previous syllabus completely.

Students will further their understanding of the skeletal, respiratory and circulatory body systems in science and technology subjects.

As they get older, children will no longer be asked just to ‘observe’ light and sound but be expected to learn how they travel, while lessons about gravity will be taken out of the optional examples and put back in the must-haves.

The new curriculum also includes an effort to offer students more hands-on experiences outdoors with animals, habitats and different ecosystems.

More content about climate change, energy, solar systems, electricity and food chains has also been added.

Creative Arts

New Arts guidelines say dance, drama, music and visual arts subjects must now be given the same amount of time for students to explore.

Who wrote the new curriculum?

The curriculum is published by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), which keeps the identity of individual authors secret, citing privacy reasons.

Consultation involved hundreds of “expert” teachers – including a special group from regional communities – as well as feedback from other groups.

NESA reviewed all NSW curriculums between 2018 and 2020 in an effort to make curricula clearer to understand and teach, and declutter content to prioritise learning of core facts, concepts and principles, it says.

Head of curriculums at NESA Catherine Thomson had final oversight, and said the new syllabuses use as much plain English as possible while giving detailed examples where teachers might need them.

“What we know is that students really need background knowledge to develop critical thinking, reasoning and inference skills,” she said.

“Instead of looking at the student’s family (for example), which doesn’t develop a lot of vocabulary and background knowledge … in Kindergarten we look at transport – not only does it demonstrate change over time, or history, but it’s got wonderful vocabulary.”

Why did it need to change?

The curriculum changes reflect a move away from “processes”, “capabilities” and an inquiry-based learning style that is reflective of the nation's – especially NSW's – shift towards explicit teaching.

NESA chief Paul Martin said the reworked syllabuses represented a “paradigm shift” and were “groundbreaking for Australia”, reducing the academic education jargon into a format far easier for parents to digest.

“My view is that a literate parent should be able to understand what their child is learning in primary school,” he said.

“The new syllabuses will give students the opportunity to build deep knowledge that will increase in complexity over time and in preparation for high school. The link between Year 6 and Year 7 has never been clearer.”

The reforms also mark a move towards equality of education in the regions and remote areas, bridging the resource gap to ensure all students start high school with a common body of knowledge.

Bowning Public School principal Belinda Brown is responsible for 29 students enrolled in the school 14 kilometres from Yass, and said the new syllabuses prove the voices of regional teachers have been listened to.

“For us, it is about equity as well … I think we forget that there’s so many wonderful opportunities for people here,” she said.

At Keiraville Public School in Wollongong, primary teacher of 25 years Vanessa May said the fact all four new syllabuses had been designed at the same time made the content for each subject “really clear” and easier to navigate.

“What is easier for us helps our students, because we are clear on what we need to be teaching them,” she said.

Dr Kevin Donnelly, who undertook a review of the national curriculum on behalf of the Australian government in 2014, noted the “jury’s still out” on the new NSW iteration, and that it will require appropriate training of teachers to be successful.

“The devil is always in the detail when it comes to curriculums – often there’s a lot of rhetoric, and the curriculum sounds good, but there’s still the problem of teachers being able to implement it effectively in the classroom,” he said.

Expert in curriculums associate professor Jane Hunter doubts the announcement made by the NSW government, explaining that there is not one rigid way to teach children, especially in science and technology studies, which have seen a large explicit teaching push.

"There has always been a knowledge-rich curriculum in NSW primary schools – the overwhelming refrain from teachers about various syllabi is that they are crowded, for example, too many outcomes and too much repetition of content from one learning stage to another," she said.

"My research in NSW public schools across four years demonstrates that primary school teachers are willing to provide all manner of interactive, real-world science and technology experiences as they work alongside STEM experts often drawn from their own school communities. 

"There is not one approach and the binaries that teachers must use one pedagogical strategy or the other is just not helpful.

“Context is everything in teaching, and teachers adapt and align the curriculum content and how they teach to the students in front of them.

"For example, gifted students find it frustrating when they cannot go ahead and find answers to questions they want to ask about a topic.

"The teacher is always there to lead or to be the ‘guide on the side’ – constantly checking for misunderstandings to ensure that sources being used to answer their questions are authoritative."

She said the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, which placed Australian students fourth best in the world for creative thinking skills, show that students have the "capacity to generate diverse and original ideas" through problem solving tasks.

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