A Wollongong tutor with more than 20 years' experience in teaching says time-poor teachers and students with learning difficulties stand to benefit from proposed changes to the maths curriculum.
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Gabrielle Ninness, who teaches many children with dyslexia, dyscalculia and other learning disabilities said the current curriculum was really tough on kids.
The educational therapist at Bright Smiles Multisensory Learning Centre in Figtree, said many children were struggling and needed extra help, with more needing to be done to remove abstract learning.
"In the current times kids need to be working more on the concrete before they move on to the abstract. It seems they are aiming to do that with the curriculum because they are sequencing it more," Ms Ninness said.
"Because numbers are abstract for kids they need to be put into real life application, and they are aiming to do that also.
"It is more relevant to what they are going to face in life."
The tutor also appreciated the fact changes were aiming to make the curriculum more prescriptive for teachers.
"This is vital for time-poor teachers," she said.
"The sequence is really important for the teachers too because they are overwhelmed with all the other subjects they have to teach."
The consultation period for the proposed changes to the new school curriculum ended on July 8.
The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), the body in charge of reviewing what Australian students are taught, will provide the final revisions to the Australian Curriculum to education ministers for their consideration and endorsement before the end of 2021.
Ms Ninness works with ORIGO Education, an Australian-based company which creates and produces maths textbooks for primary school children all around the world.
The company's executive chairman and founder James Burnett, also backed changes to the maths curriculum for primary school children.
"Since the curriculum was first published in 2010, Australia has performed poorly on international tests in mathematics, in particularly PISA. This revision provides a rare opportunity to get Australia back on par with our economic peers around the world," said Mr Burnett, who has authored and co-authored more than 300 mathematics resources for teachers and students.
"Our Mathematics Advisory Board members have more than 100 years' combined experience in mathematics education, working across the globe, and believe this proposed curriculum is on the right path to support our young Foundation to Year 6 children."
Mr Burnett however added that there was room for improvement within the proposed revised curriculum.
"For example, the first three year levels should explicitly address the three types of subtraction problems, as these are prerequisites for content that ACARA has mapped out in later year levels. The same could be said for number tracks. Experience with this length model will assist in the number line work that comes later," he said.
"We believe these issues are easy to fix and hope that ACARA takes our review as a positive contribution to this extremely important process."
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