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Chantel Mirzai,a teacher at Auburn Public,is one of the teachers chosen to give feedback on new syllabuses.Credit:Nick Moir

Ms Mitchell said 200 expert teachers had been recruited to help with the curriculum reforms by advising on whether the new syllabuses work well in the classroom. The first new syllabuses,for kindergarten to year 2 maths and English,are due to be taught in schools from the beginning of next year.

“Streamlining and updating the curriculum is more than just removing content – the curriculum needs to be ‘teachable’ in the classroom,so as to enable teachers to meet the needs of their students,” Ms Mitchell said.

The NSW Curriculum Review,which was billed as the biggest in 30 years and involved two years of consultation and preparation,made three key recommendations when it was handed down last June:cutting content,streamlining the HSC,and ‘untimed syllabuses’.

Professor Geoff Masters,the review’s chair,said untimed syllabuses would involve redesigning content so students could progress at their own pace rather than being grouped according to their age and studying a two-year,stage-based syllabus.

Professor Masters’ concern – one echoed by many teachers – was that huge differences in ability within each year group led to some students moving forward without grasping key concepts,which left holes in their learning and some were unable to ever catch up.

But there was little detail about how this might work in practice. The government accepted the proposal “in principle” when the report was handed down,but said it would seek further advice from the NSW Education Standards Authority.

Ms Mitchell told theHerald that the stage and year-based syllabuses would remain,but reducing the amount of content would give teachers more time to ensure students of different abilities were across the concepts they needed before moving forward.

“While we will be retaining a year and stage-based syllabus,by streamlining and decluttering we will give teachers far more bandwidth and flexibility to teach students at various stages,” said Ms Mitchell.

Secondary Principals Council president Craig Petersen said he was not surprised by the decision to abandon untimed syllabuses. “They’re good in theory – the idea students progress as they achieve the outcomes,” he said. “There’s no point getting you to do calculus in year 11 when you can’t even do multiplication yet.

“The difficulty is,given the current structures and resources,it’s difficult to see how we would do that in practice.”

But Greg Whitby,the head of the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta,said the exciting element of the curriculum review had been “a clarion call to do more than tinker around the edges,and for educators to think completely differently about schools and learning.

“Continuing to segregate learning by chunking students into year groups and stages based on age doesn’t create flexibility – it just puts more barriers around learning.” He also said the state’s best teachers should spend more time teaching rather than less.

Chantel Mirzai,an instructional leader – or teacher mentor – at Auburn Public School is one of the teachers chosen to give feedback on the syllabus. “We[teachers] often say things like,‘the decisions are made without our consultation’,so the fact we are being consulted is a step in the right direction,” she said.

“They’re actually asking us,so let’s take hold of this opportunity. If something is not working,here’s our change.”

The head of NESA,Paul Martin,will give an address on curriculum review atThe Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit on Wednesday.

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