Curriculum

A classroom filled with students sitting at desks, listening to a teacher who is standing at the front near a whiteboard.

Improving the quality of curriculum at each level of a system is perhaps the most important reform that system and school leaders and teachers can make.

Insights and actions

Insights
3 Methods for a clear and explicit curriculum
3 Methods for a clear and explicit curriculum

A great curriculum clearly details what knowledge to teach and the sequence in which it should be taught. But achieving this is easier said than done. This video provides three practical methods for writing and improving the clarity of your curriculum.

Which revolution to teach in History?
Which revolution to teach in History?

Which knowledge to include in a knowledge-rich curriculum? We take an example from History with a question we have been asked numerous times: which revolution to teach in History?

The success of Irish education
The success of Irish education

Why does Ireland finish on the top tier of countries in work rankings? Their foundations for success are the same as nearly every high-performing system in the world.

The impact of poor curriculum
The impact of poor curriculum

A narrow, shallow curriculum has damaging effects on both learning and equity. Are we comfortable with Australian students not learning significant amounts of the science content that is provided without question to students in other countries?

Australia’s curriculum gap
Australia’s curriculum gap

The Australian Curriculum includes about half as much science content as the average of these seven other curriculums. Instead of offering breadth and depth of learning, the Australian science curriculum is narrow and shallow.

To lift standards, we must reclaim the curriculum 
To lift standards, we must reclaim the curriculum 

Article published in The Australian newspaper, 15 October 2022 

Upcoming event

Learning First Curriculum Conference:
Enriching learning through quality curriculum

19-20 August 2026
Sydney, Australia

More info

Systems

We support systems to improve their curriculum, providing the research and analysis needed, and the steps system leaders need to take to write a world-class curriculum.

We regularly collect curriculum implementation data from schools to inform improvement of the system curriculum and implementation policies and supports.

Schools

We support schools to review and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their curriculum, improve curriculum planning and implementation, and build curriculum leadership capability.

Curriculum improvement can be a difficult change process, so we work closely with schools on the steps to take to bring everyone on a curriculum improvement.

Curriculum Benchmarking: Understanding the rigour and quality of a Curriculum

Executive Director Mailie Ross on Curriculum reform

Detailed curriculum benchmarking is essential to develop a world-class curriculum. It is the detail of the content that matters as it is the detail that is taught and assessed in classrooms. It is this detail that sets the floor and ceiling of student learning.

Comparing curriculums is not new, but many reports lead to spurious findings as they are too high-level. High-level analysis has seen many curriculums categorised as similar when more rigorous benchmarking has shown that the content is quite different. This leads to missteps in curriculum design and writing.

We support systems to design and write high-quality curriculums by rigorously benchmarking content across subjects and year levels. Our approach enables systems to compare the depth and breadth of content to other systems, define clear proficiency expectations, and map coherent student progression. We identify content gaps, overlaps, and excessive jumps between year levels, strengthen the clarity of content descriptions so teachers know exactly what to teach and assess, and ensure the overall level of challenge drives deep, rigorous learning.

Benchmarking provides a clear evidence base to design and write a world-class curriculum. For example, it has shown how some curriculums can have more content but less progress for students as the depth and breadth of topics covered was misplaced, and the progression of learning was lacking.

Bigger reads

Research
Staying the Course on What Matters Most
Staying the Course on What Matters Most

This report examines Ireland's education system, exploring the factors that have driven its consistently strong performance on international assessments over more than two decades.

Benchmarking science curriculum
Benchmarking science curriculum

This report sets out the results of detailed analysis and benchmarking of the Australian science curriculum with curriculums in comparable and high-performing systems around the world.

The problem with “finding the main idea”
The problem with “finding the main idea”

This report examines why literacy strategies that focus on teaching discrete reading skills - such as "finding the main idea" - often fail to improve student achievement. Drawing on examples from the United States, this report argues that reading comprehension depends on content knowledge, and calls for assessment approaches that reflect this.

What we teach matters: Quality curriculum & student outcomes
What we teach matters: Quality curriculum & student outcomes

This report sets out the contemporary evidence on its impact on student learning, with a focus on research from the United States.

Overcoming curriculum challenges: Lessons from Louisiana
Overcoming curriculum challenges: Lessons from Louisiana

The research ‘Overcoming challenges facing contemporary curriculum: detailed case studies’, was commissioned by the NSW Education Standards Authority.

Overcoming curriculum challenges: Lessons from British Columbia
Overcoming curriculum challenges: Lessons from British Columbia

The research ‘Overcoming challenges facing contemporary curriculum: detailed case studies’, was commissioned by the NSW Education Standards Authority.