A professional development program will be provided to support implementation of the new Victorian Curriculum.

The new curriculum includes a strong focus on the foundational skills of literacy and numeracy and on personal and social skills, thinking skills and new areas of learning such as computational thinking.

The program will provide training for school leadership teams on the use of curriculum planning resources available through the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA) curriculum planning portal.

Under the program, government school teachers will be given additional planning time to support the implementation of changes to the curriculum.

In addition, expert teachers will provide 10 specialist programs that will cover professional learning strategies across the following areas:

  • STEM — science, technology, engineering and maths
  • digital coding
  • learning about religions
  • critical thinking
  • literacy in the early years
  • music
  • financial literacy
  • health education and personal and social capability, including respectful relationships
  • civic participation
  • ethical understanding in a global world

Schools will elect to access one or more of the specialist programs according to their self-assessed needs and focus.

Support for Catholic and independent sector schools will be arranged with the respective sectoral authorities.

The new Victorian Curriculum is a necessary step to give students the skills they need for work and life: literacy, numeracy, scientific knowledge and skills, resilience, respectful relationships, the use of digital technologies and the capacity for critical and creative thinking and expression.

Supporting our schools and teachers in implementing curriculum change is essential to improving the learning outcomes of Victorian students.

The initiative will support schools and teachers by giving them resources to implement curriculum changes in the classroom – improving the overall standard of teaching in Victorian schools.