The New Basics Curriculum Organisers

The New Basics are futures-oriented categories for organising curriculum. Essentially they are a way of managing the enormous increase in information resulting from globalisation and the rapid rate of change in the economic, social and cultural dimensions of our existence.

The New Basics are clusters of essential practices that students need in order to flourish in 'new times'. Apart from globalisation, factors contributing to new times include the shift towards local service-based economies, new and constantly changing technologies, complex transformations in cultural and social relationships, fluid demographics, and a sense of uncertainty about the future. At the same time, and specifically related to the education field, are the increasingly complicated demands on teaching and assessment that have accompanied the diversification of classrooms.

There are four New Basics organisers and they have an explicit orientation towards researching, understanding, and coming to grips with the new economic, cultural and social conditions. These four clusters of practice are deemed to be essential for lifelong learning by the individual, for social cohesion, and for economic wellbeing, as described in Queensland State Education 2010 (QSE 2010), which was published by Education Queensland in 1999.

As curriculum organisers, the New Basics will help schools, teachers and curriculum planners to move beyond a defence of status quo knowledges to a critical engagement with the ongoing change that characterises new times. The New Basics are predicated on the existence of mindful schools, where intellectual engagement and connectedness to the real world are constant foci.

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