Rationale

The Arts have the capacity to engage, inspire and enrich all students, exciting the imagination and encouraging them to reach their creative and expressive potential. The term 'creativity' plays a critical role in all arts subjects. For the Western Australian Curriculum, the following explanation of the creative process is useful:

[There are] … four characteristics of creative processes. First, they always involve thinking or behaving imaginatively. Second, overall this imaginative activity is purposeful: that is, it is directed to achieving an objective. Third, these processes must generate something original. Fourth, the outcome must be of value in relation to the objective. We therefore define creativity as: Imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value. Robinson, K. (1999) National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education: "All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education". p. 30

The Arts learning area comprises five subjects: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts. Together they provide opportunities for students to learn how to create, design, represent, communicate and share their imagined and conceptual ideas, emotions, observations and experiences, as they discover and interpret the world.

The Arts entertain, inform, challenge, and encourage responses, and enrich our knowledge of self, communities, world cultures and histories. The Arts contribute to the development of confident and creative individuals, nurturing and challenging active and informed citizens. Learning in the Arts is based on cognitive, affective and sensory/kinaesthetic response to arts practices as students revisit increasingly complex content, skills and processes with developing confidence and sophistication through the years of schooling.

Dance

Dance is expressive movement with purpose and form. Through Dance, students represent, question and celebrate human experience, using movement as the medium for personal, social, emotional, physical and cultural communication.

Active participation as dancers, choreographers and audiences promotes wellbeing and social inclusion. Learning in and through Dance enhances students' knowledge and understanding of diverse cultures and contexts and develops their personal, social and cultural identity.

Drama

Drama is the expression and exploration of personal, emotional, social and cultural worlds, through role and situation, that engages, entertains and challenges. Students create meaning as drama makers, performers and audiences as they engage with and analyse their own and others' stories and points of view.

In making and staging drama, they learn how to be focused, innovative and resourceful, collaborate and take on responsibilities for drama presentations. Students develop a sense of curiosity and empathy by exploring the diversity of drama in the contemporary world and in other times, traditions, places and cultures.

Media Arts

Media Arts enables students to analyse past technologies, and use existing and emerging technologies as they explore imagery, text and sound to create meaning. Students participate in, experiment with, and interpret cultures, media genres and styles, and different communication practices.

Students learn to be critically aware of ways that media are culturally used and negotiated, and are dynamic and central to the way they make sense of the world and themselves. They learn to interpret, analyse and develop media practices through their experiences in making media arts. They are inspired to imagine, collaborate and take on responsibilities in planning, designing and producing media artworks.

Music

Music has the capacity to engage, entertain, challenge, inspire and empower students. Studying music stimulates imaginative and innovative responses, critical thinking and aesthetic understanding, and encourages students to reach their creative and expressive potential.

Music exists distinctively in every culture and is a basic expression of human experience. Students' active participation in music, individually and collaboratively, draws on their own traditions and life experiences. These experiences help them to appreciate and meaningfully engage with music practices and traditions of other times, places, cultures and contexts.

Visual Arts

Visual Arts incorporates all three fields of art, craft and design. Students create visual representations that communicate, challenge and express their own and others' ideas, both as artists and audience members. They develop perceptual and conceptual understanding, critical reasoning and practical skills through exploring and expanding their understanding of their world, and other worlds.

Visual Arts engages students in a journey of discovery, experimentation and problem-solving relevant to visual perception and visual language. Students undertake this journey by utilising visual techniques, technologies, practices and processes. Visual Arts supports students' ability to recognise and develop cultural appreciation of visual arts in the past and contemporary contexts through exploring and responding to artists and their artworks.

Aims

Dance

Dance knowledge and skills ensure that, individually and collaboratively, students:

• develop confidence to become innovative and creative dancers to communicate meaning through body awareness, technical dance skills and performance skills
• apply the elements of dance and choreographic skills through group processes to create dance that communicates meaning to an audience
• develop aesthetic, artistic and cultural appreciation of dance in past and contemporary contexts as choreographers, performers and audience members
• develop respect for, and knowledge of, the diverse purposes, traditions, histories and cultures of dance by making and responding as active participants and informed audiences.

Drama

Drama knowledge and skills ensure that, individually and collaboratively, students develop:

• confidence, empathy and self-awareness to explore, depict and celebrate human experience, take risks and extend their own creativity through drama
• knowledge of how to analyse, apply and control the elements, skills, techniques, processes, conventions, forms and styles of drama in traditional and contemporary drama to engage and create meaning for audiences
• knowledge of the role of group processes and design and technology in the creative process of devising and interpreting drama to make meaning for audiences
• knowledge of traditional and contemporary drama through responding as critical and active participants and audience members.

Media Arts

Media Arts knowledge and skills ensure that, individually and collaboratively, students develop:

• confidence to participate in, experiment with, and interpret the media-rich culture and communications practices that surround them
• aesthetic knowledge developed through exploration of imagery, text and sound to express ideas, concepts and stories using effective teamwork strategies to produce media artwork
• creative and critical thinking skills to explore different perspectives in media as producers and consumers
• awareness of their active participation in local and global media cultures, including using safe media practices when publishing online materials.

Music

Music knowledge and skills ensure that, individually and collaboratively, students:

• develop the confidence to be creative, innovative, thoughtful, skilful and informed musicians
• develop skills and techniques to actively listen, analyse, improvise, compose and perform music
• interpret and apply the elements of music, engaging with a diverse array of musical experiences as performers and audience members
• develop aesthetic appreciation and respect for their own and others' music practices and traditions across different times, places, cultures and contexts.

Visual Arts

Visual Arts knowledge and skills ensure that, individually and collaboratively, students:

• demonstrate confidence, curiosity, imagination and enjoyment when engaged in visual arts making
• apply visual arts techniques, materials, processes and technologies to create artworks through the design and inquiry process
• apply visual language and critical creative thinking skills when creating and responding to artwork
• develop aesthetic, artistic and cultural appreciation of visual arts in past and contemporary contexts, both as artists and art critics.

Organisation

Content Structure

The Arts learning area comprises five subjects: Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music and Visual Arts.

The Arts curriculum is written on the basis that all students will study at least two Arts subjects from Pre-primary to the end of Year 8. It is a requirement that students study a performance subject and a visual subject.

In Years 9 and 10 the study of the Arts is optional.

In the Arts, it is desirable that schools provide students with the opportunity to engage with all five Arts subjects across Pre-primary to Year 10.

Each of the five Arts subject is organised into two interrelated strands: Making and Responding.

Making

Making in each Arts subject engages students' cognition, imagination, senses and emotions in conceptual and practical ways and involves thinking kinaesthetically, critically and creatively. Students develop knowledge and skills to plan, produce, present, design and perform in each arts subject independently and collaboratively. Students work from an idea, an intention, particular resources, an imaginative impulse, or an external stimulus.

Part of making involves students considering their work in the Arts from a range of points of view, including that of the audience. Students reflect on the development and completion of making in the Arts.

Responding

Responding in each Arts subject involves students reflecting, analysing, interpreting and evaluating in the Arts. Students learn to appreciate and investigate the Arts through contextual study. Learning through making is interrelated with, and dependent upon, responding. Students learn by reflecting on their making and responding to the making of others. The points of view students hold, shift according to different experiences in the Arts.

Students consider the Arts' relationships with audiences. They reflect on their own experiences as audience members and begin to understand how the Arts represent ideas through expression, symbolic communication and cultural traditions and rituals. Students think about how audiences receive, debate and interpret the meanings of the Arts.

Relationships between the strands

Making and Responding are intrinsically connected. Together they provide students with knowledge and skills as practitioners, performers and audience members and develop students' skills in critical and creative thinking. As students make in the Arts, they actively respond to their developing work and the works of others; as students respond to the Arts, they draw on the knowledge and skills acquired through their experiences to inform their making. 

Year level descriptions

Year level descriptions provide an overview of the key concepts addressed, along with core content being studied at that year level. They also emphasise the interrelated nature of the two strands and the expectation that planning will involve integration of content from across the strands.

For the five Arts subjects, the year level description includes forms, genres, styles, contexts, materials, practices and/or elements relevant to each Arts subject that informs approaches to teaching and learning in the Arts.

Content description

Content descriptions set out the knowledge, understanding and skills that teachers are expected to teach and students are expected to learn. They do not prescribe approaches to teaching. The core content has been written to ensure that learning is appropriately ordered and that unnecessary repetition is avoided. However, a concept or skill introduced at one year level may be revisited, strengthened and extended at later year levels as needed.

Additional content descriptions are available for teachers to incorporate in their teaching programs. Schools will determine the inclusion of additional content, taking into account learning area time allocation and school priorities.

The additional content will not be reflected in the Achievement Standard.

Achievement standards

From Pre-primary to Year 10, achievement standards indicate the quality of learning that students should typically demonstrate by a particular point in their schooling. An achievement standard describes the quality of learning (e.g. the depth of conceptual understanding and the sophistication of skills) that would indicate the student is well-placed to commence the learning required at the next level of achievement.

Glossary

A glossary is provided to support a common understanding of key terms and concepts included in the core content.

Student Diversity

The School Curriculum and Standards Authority is committed to the development of a high-quality curriculum that promotes excellence and equity in education for all Western Australian students.

All students are entitled to rigorous, relevant and engaging learning programs drawn from the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts. Teachers take account of the range of their students' current levels of learning, strengths, goals and interests and make adjustments where necessary. The three-dimensional design of the Western Australian Curriculum, comprising learning areas, general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities, provides teachers with flexibility to cater for the diverse needs of students across Western Australia and to personalise their learning.

Students with disability

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and the Disability Standards for Education 2005 require education and training service providers to support the rights of students with disability to access the curriculum on the same basis as students without disability.

Many students with disability are able to achieve educational standards commensurate with their peers, as long as the necessary adjustments are made to the way in which they are taught and to the means through which they demonstrate their learning.

In some cases, curriculum adjustments are necessary to provide equitable opportunities for students to access age-equivalent content in the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts. Teachers can draw from content at different levels along the Pre-primary – Year 10 sequence. Teachers can also use the general capabilities learning continua in Literacy, Numeracy and Personal and social capability to adjust the focus of learning according to individual student need.

Adjustments to the practical delivery of movement-based activities will be necessary to ensure some students with a physical disability can access, participate in, and achieve on the same basis as their peers. Teachers may also need to consider adjustments to assessment of students with disability to ensure student achievement and demonstration of learning is appropriately measured.

English as an additional language or dialect

Students for whom English is an additional language or dialect (EAL/D) enter Western Australian schools at different ages and at different stages of English language learning, and have various educational backgrounds in their first languages. While many EAL/D students bring already highly developed literacy (and numeracy) skills in their own language to their learning of Standard Australian English, there are a significant number of students who are not literate in their first language, and have had little or no formal schooling.

While the aims of the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts are the same for all students, EAL/D students must achieve these aims while simultaneously learning a new language and learning content and skills through that new language. These students may require additional time and support, along with teaching that explicitly addresses their language needs. Students who have had no formal schooling will need additional time and support in order to acquire skills for effective learning in formal settings.

Gifted and talented students

Teachers can use the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts flexibly to meet the individual learning needs of gifted and talented students.

Teachers can enrich students' learning by providing students with opportunities to work with learning area content in more depth or breadth (e.g. using the additional content descriptions); emphasising specific aspects of the general capabilities learning continua (e.g. the higher-order cognitive skills of the critical and creative thinking capability); and/or focusing on cross-curriculum priorities. Teachers can also accelerate student learning by drawing on content from later year levels in the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts, and/or from local, state and territory teaching and learning materials.

Ways of Teaching

The 'ways of teaching' aim to support teachers with planning for curriculum delivery across the years of school, with the teaching in each year extending learning in previous years.

The 'ways of teaching' complement the principles of teaching and learning in the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline (http://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/). The principles focus on the provision of a school and class environment that is intellectually, socially and physically supportive of learning. The principles assist whole-school planning and individual classroom practice.

Making and Responding are intrinsically connected. Together they provide students with knowledge, understanding and skills as artists, performers and audience members and develop students' skills in critical and creative thinking. As students make in the Arts, they actively respond to their developing work and the works of others; as students respond in the Arts, they draw on the knowledge and skills acquired through their experience in making artworks.

Teachers have the freedom to apply aspects of the strands, Making and Responding, to plan teaching programs. Through the combination of both, teachers can provide rich opportunities to extend students' knowledge, skills and capacity to analyse and reflect. Responding occurs throughout the creative learning process.

To engage students in the Arts, teachers typically create learning experiences which:

• use all aspects of perception: sensory, emotional, cognitive, physical and relational to make learning experiential for students
• develop skills in students through modelling, coaching, practising and reflecting
• enable students to work individually and collaboratively, using flexible grouping to accommodate their needs and strengths
• encourage students to take risks and extend their ideas
• foster participation in projects in a flexible, dynamic learning environment
• provide opportunities for students to experience the Arts in live or virtual settings
• explore significant and recognisable examples of the Arts from different times and cultures to develop in students an aesthetic and cultural appreciation of the Arts.

Many aspects of the Arts syllabus are recurring and teachers should provide ample opportunities through practice for revision and consolidation of previously introduced knowledge and skills. The diagram below presents one version of the creative learning process in the Arts.

Figure 1 is a visual representation of 'ways of teaching' in the Arts.

Safe working practices in the Arts are an essential aspect of the teaching and learning. These include providing or adapting an appropriate space to work; teaching students guiding principles to care for their voice and bodies; working safely with others and with specialist equipment; and appropriate warm-up procedures before class or a performance. Safe working practices also include the responsibility teachers and students have in the maintenance of safe social and emotional spaces for the Arts. Without this aspect of safe working practices, risk-taking becomes difficult for many students. To ensure the development of creative processes where students are willing to risk making mistakes in the Arts, teachers will need to establish and maintain a safe learning environment in the classroom.

Although Dance, Drama, Media Arts, Music, and Visual Arts are distinct subjects in the Arts, teachers may create opportunities for students to study and make artworks that feature a fusion of traditional art forms and practices to develop hybrid and/or cross-arts projects. This learning involves the exploration of traditional and contemporary arts practices, including those from different cultures that acknowledge community and cultural protocols. Such works might:

• combine performance, audio and/or visual aspects
• combine processes typical of the different Arts subjects
• involve other learning areas
• exist in physical, digital or virtual spaces
• combine traditional, contemporary and emerging media and materials
• be created individually or collaboratively.

Teachers in schools are the key to providing students with rich, sustained, rigorous learning in each of the subjects in The Arts. The Arts industry complements the provision of the Arts syllabus in schools through programs and partnerships. The industry increasingly provides specialist services for schools, as appropriate, through experiences such as visiting performances; demonstrations and exhibitions; artists in residence; professional development for teachers; and access for students and teachers to specialised facilities in galleries, concert halls, theatres and other arts venues.

Figure 2 is a visual representation of guiding questions whilst experiencing live or digital arts events.

For information on how to collect evidence to inform planning for ongoing learning experiences in the Arts, refer to 'Ways of Assessing'.

Ways of Teaching Video

Transcript

Ways of Assessing

The 'ways of assessing' complement 'ways of teaching' and aim to support teachers in developing effective assessment practices in The Arts.

The 'ways of assessing' also complement the principles of assessment contained in the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline. The assessment principles, reflective questions and assessment snapshots support teachers in reflecting on their own assessment practice in relation to each of the assessment principles. Here teachers will find:

• background information for each principle
• reflective questions
• guidance for addressing the principle within their own assessment practice.

Refer to the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline (http://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au) for further guidance on assessment principles, practices and phases of schooling.

The key to selecting the most appropriate assessment is in the answers to several reflective questions. For example:

• How do you use assessment as the starting point of your lesson planning?
• Do your assessments have a clear purpose?
• Do you design assessment tasks in a way that meets the dual purposes of formative and summative assessment?
• How do you use your observations of students (during the course of classroom activities, in assignments and in tests) to determine how learning can be improved?
• How do you identify students' misconceptions or gaps in their learning?
• How do you identify the next skill or understanding a student, or group of students, needs to learn?
• What information do you collect to evaluate your own teaching?
• How do you work with colleagues to evaluate student achievement data and how does this work inform your teaching?
• What range of evidence do you draw on when you report student performance and evaluate your teaching?

Refer to the Judging Standards tool in the Western Australian Curriculum and Assessment Outline (http://k10outline.scsa.wa.edu.au/home/judging-standards) when reporting

against the Achievement Standards; giving assessment feedback; or explaining the differences

between one student's achievement and another's.

In the Arts, assessment tasks typically address the syllabus content in interconnected ways within relevant, meaningful contexts to students. Assessment tasks should identify the specific applications of knowledge and skills students will use, individually and/or in groups, to achieve clear, creative goals. This provides students with opportunities to find innovative ways to solve creative challenges.

The following table provides examples of assessment strategies which can enable teachers to understand where students are in their learning. Assessments should also be based on the integration of a range of types and sources of evidence.

General Capabilities

The general capabilities encompass the knowledge, skills, behaviours and dispositions that will assist students to live and work in the 21st century. Teachers may find opportunities to incorporate the capabilities into the teaching and learning program for the Arts. The general capabilities are not assessed unless they are identified within the content.

Literacy

Students become literate as they develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions to interpret and use language confidently, for learning and communicating in and out of school, and for participating effectively in society. Students use literacy when listening to, reading, viewing, speaking, writing and creating oral, print, visual and digital texts. Literacy involves students using and modifying language for different purposes in a range of contexts.

In the Arts, students use literacy along with the kinetic, symbolic, verbal and visual languages of the five Arts subjects. This enables students to develop, apply and communicate their knowledge and skills as artists and as audiences. Through making and responding, students enhance and extend their literacy skills as they create, compose, design, analyse, comprehend, discuss, interpret and evaluate their own, and others', artworks.

Each Arts subject requires students to learn and use specific terminology of increasing complexity as they move through the curriculum. Students understand that the terminologies of the Arts vary according to context and they develop their ability to use language dynamically and flexibly. They use their literacy skills to access knowledge, make meaning, express thoughts, emotions and ideas, as well as interact with, and challenge, others.

Numeracy

Students become numerate as they develop the knowledge and skills to use mathematics confidently across all learning areas at school and in their lives more broadly. Numeracy involves students recognising and understanding the role of mathematics in the world and having the dispositions and capacities to use mathematical knowledge and skills purposefully.

In the Arts, students select and use relevant numeracy knowledge and skills to plan, design, make, interpret, analyse and evaluate artworks. Across the Arts subjects, students can recognise and use numbers to calculate and estimate; spatial reasoning to solve problems involving space, patterns, symmetry, 2D and 3D shapes; scale and proportion, to show and describe positions, pathways and movements; and measurement to explore length, area, volume, capacity, time, mass and angles.

Through making and responding across the Arts, students use numeracy skills to choreograph and perform dance; build, rehearse, sequence and time plays; plan, direct and edit media texts; compose, produce and record music; and design, construct and display art. Students work with a range of numerical concepts to organise, analyse and create representations of data relevant to their own, or others', artworks, such as diagrams, charts, tables, graphs and motion capture.

Information and communication technology (ICT) capability

Students develop ICT capability as they learn to use ICT effectively and appropriately to access, create and communicate information and ideas, solve problems, and work collaboratively in all learning areas at school, and in their lives beyond school. The capability involves students learning to make the most of the digital technologies available to them; adapting to new ways of doing things as technologies evolve; and limiting the risks to themselves and others in a digital environment.

In the Arts, ICT capability enables students to engage with digital and virtual technologies when making and responding to artworks. Students can, for example, use interactive multimedia platforms, communication and editing software, and virtual tools and environments, to design, create and share their artworks. They can enhance their ICT capability as they generate ideas and explore concepts and possibilities by exploiting available technologies.

Students learn to apply social and ethical protocols and practices in a digital environment, particularly in relation to the appropriate acknowledgment of intellectual property and the safeguarding of personal security when using ICT. They use digital technologies to locate, access, select and evaluate information, work collaboratively; share and exchange information; and communicate with a variety of audiences.

Critical and creative thinking

Students develop capability in critical and creative thinking as they learn to generate and evaluate knowledge, clarify concepts and ideas, seek possibilities, consider alternatives and solve problems. Critical and creative thinking is integral to activities that require students to think broadly and deeply. Students will use skills, behaviours and dispositions such as reason, logic, resourcefulness, imagination and innovation in all learning areas at school and in their lives beyond school.

In the Arts, critical and creative thinking is integral to making and responding to artworks. In creating artworks, students draw on their curiosity, imagination and thinking skills to pose questions and explore ideas, spaces, materials and technologies. They generate, design and analyse art forms, consider possibilities and processes, and make choices that assist them to take risks and express their ideas, concepts, thoughts and feelings creatively. In responding to the Arts, students learn to analyse traditional and contemporary artworks and identify possible meanings and connections with self and community. They consider and analyse artists' motivations and intentions and possible influencing factors and biases. They reflect critically and creatively, both individually and collectively, on the thinking and design processes that underpin arts making. They offer and receive effective feedback about past and present artworks and performances, and communicate and share their thinking, visualisation and innovations to a variety of audiences.

Personal and social capability

Students develop personal and social capability as they learn to understand themselves and others, and manage their relationships, lives, work and learning more effectively. The capability involves students in a range of practices, including recognising and regulating emotions; developing empathy for others and understanding relationships; establishing and building positive relationships; making responsible decisions; working effectively in teams; handling challenging situations constructively; and developing leadership skills.

In the Arts, personal and social capability assists students to work, both individually and collaboratively, to make and respond to artworks. Arts learning provides students with regular opportunities to recognise, name and express their emotions while developing art form-specific skills and techniques. As they think about ideas and concepts in their own and others' artworks, students identify and assess personal strengths, interests and challenges. As art makers, performers and audience members, students develop and apply personal skills and dispositions, such as self-discipline, goal setting and working independently, and show initiative, confidence, resilience and adaptability. They learn to empathise with the emotions, needs and situations of others, to appreciate diverse perspectives, and to understand and negotiate different types of relationships. When working with others, students develop and practise social skills that assist them to communicate effectively, work collaboratively, make considered group decisions and show leadership.

Ethical understanding

Students develop ethical understanding as they identify and investigate the nature of ethical concepts, values and character traits, and understand how reasoning can assist ethical judgment. Ethical understanding involves students in building a strong personal and socially oriented ethical outlook that helps them to manage context, conflict and uncertainty, and to develop an awareness of the influence that their values and behaviour have on others.

In the Arts, students develop and apply ethical understanding when they encounter or create artworks that require ethical consideration, such as work that is controversial, involves a moral dilemma or presents a biased point of view. They explore how ethical principles affect the behaviour and judgment of artists involved in issues and events. Students apply the skills of reasoning, empathy and imagination, and consider and make judgments about actions and motives. They speculate on how life experiences affect and influence people's decision making and whether various positions held are reasonable.

Students develop their understanding of values and ethical principles as they use an increasing range of critical thinking skills to explore ideas, concepts, beliefs and practices. When interpreting and evaluating artworks and their meaning, students consider the intellectual, moral and property rights of others.

Intercultural understanding

Students develop intercultural understanding as they learn to value their own cultures, languages and beliefs, and those of others. They come to understand how personal, group and national identities are shaped, and the variable and changing nature of culture. The capability involves students learning about, and engaging with, diverse cultures in ways that recognise commonalities and differences, create connections with others and cultivate mutual respect.

In the Arts, intercultural understanding assists students to move beyond known worlds to explore new ideas, media and practices from diverse local, national, regional and global cultural contexts. Intercultural understanding enables students to explore the influence and impact of cultural identities and traditions on the practices and thinking of artists and audiences. Students might explore forms and structures, use of materials, technologies, techniques and processes, or treatment of concepts, ideas, themes and characters. They develop and act with intercultural understanding in making artworks that explore their own cultural identities and those of others, interpreting and comparing their experiences and worlds, and seeking to represent increasingly complex relationships.

Students are encouraged to demonstrate empathy for others and open-mindedness to perspectives that differ from their own and to appreciate the diversity of cultures and contexts in which artists and audiences live. Through engaging with artworks from diverse cultural sources, students are challenged to consider accepted roles, images, objects, sounds, beliefs and practices in new ways.

Cross-Curriculum Priorities

The cross-curriculum priorities address the contemporary issues that students face in a globalised world. Teachers may find opportunities to incorporate the priorities into the teaching and learning program for The Arts. The cross-curriculum priorities are not assessed unless they are identified within the core content.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures

In the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures enrich understanding of the diversity of arts practices in Australia. Exploration of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures provides a rich opportunity to build a greater understanding of Australian history as well as fostering mutual understanding and respect between cultures. The study of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures for making and responding should be undertaken by teachers and students in ways that are culturally sensitive and responsible through the support of relevant elders and communities.

Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia

In the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts, the Asia region represents a highly diverse spectrum of cultures, traditions and peoples with a third of the world's population located immediately north of Australia. Engaging in a respectful exploration of particular traditions from countries like China, India, South Korea and Japan, for example, will enable students to understand more deeply the values and histories of our near neighbours with whom it shares important interrelationships. The study of the Arts from the Asia region provides further opportunities for partnerships with relevant practitioners to develop arts practices.

Sustainability

In the Western Australian Curriculum: The Arts, the sustainability priority provides engaging and thought-provoking contexts in which to explore the nature of art-making and responding.

The sustainability priority enables the exploration of the role of the Arts in maintaining and transforming cultural practices, social systems and the relationships of people to their environment. Through making and responding in the Arts, students consider issues of sustainability in relation to the resource use and traditions in each of the Arts subjects. The Arts provides opportunities for students to express and develop world views, and to appreciate the need for collaboration within and between communities to implement more sustainable patterns of living.