VADEA NSW has written the following response to the recent public consultation documents, released in April 2021, for the Review of the Australian Curriculum. VADEA are calling upon you all to engage in the feedback survey on the latest consultation curriculum for the Australian Curriculum: The Arts. The survey closes Thursday 8th July.
When the first Australian Curriculum: The Arts was in development in 2010, VADEA galvanised Visual Arts teachers across NSW and we made a united stand against the Arts curriculum. So strong was our response and rejection of this curriculum, NESA chose not to incorporate it into NSW Visual Arts syllabi. The time has come again, where we ask you to become involved, in order to ensure we maintain the high quality and robustness of our current syllabus. It is important that we advocate for a stronger Australian Curriculum for Visual Arts than is currently represented in the AC: The Arts consultation curriculum.
VADEA challenges the claim that the existing Australian Curriculum: The Arts (AC:TA) is world class and asserts that the changes made in the consultation curriculum do little to improve its quality and provision for rich Visual Arts content and learning opportunities. Some of these revisions are minor, yet most deal with structural and content changes that do not live up to the Review’s aims for content to be “refined, realigned, and decluttered”.
VADEA has released two response documents to help guide our members and colleagues in providing feedback to ACARA. The first is a comprehensive review of the curriculum, focusing on the curriculum structure, core concepts, content descriptions and achievement standards. The second is a shorter summary response, which is organised according to the questions that feature in the short feedback survey. We encourage you to familiarise yourselves with these documents.
The consultation period for the AC:TA ends on Thursday 8 July and it is critical NSW represents a strong voice in the feedback process as this curriculum will be incorporated into new NSW Visual Arts syllabuses from 2024.
VADEA encourages you to complete the short consultation survey. It should take 5-10 minutes. You may choose to use VADEA responses to help guide your feedback. We must present a strong NSW response. Your opinion matters.
Complete the survey here: 
https://www.
>> VADEA Response to ACARA AC The Arts Visual Arts June 2021
>> VADEA Summary Response to ACARA Arts Review June 2021
