 Hello, I'm David Decavalho, the new Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority and I started in the job in March 2019. Welcome to my new video log which I've entitled Fanning the Flames of Wonder in honour of a great maths teacher I had when I was at school. His name was Kevin Garrity and whenever Kevin was setting us a particularly tricky problem he would often wander around the classroom carrying a hand-held fan and waving it over us. And one day I asked him, Sir what are you doing? And he said, I'm fanning the flames of wonder. Fanning the Flames of Wonder is a wonderful description of the role of teachers and the education system more broadly and what I hope to do with this video log is likewise fan the flames of wonder about what good education means particularly in terms of our responsibilities at Akara in Assessment Curriculum Reporting. So in this first edition of my video log I'd like to start on a personal note. Here is a photograph of my granddaughter Emma taken when she was about two months old. She's looking into the face of her mother and when I consider the look on her face three words come to mind. Love, trust and wonder. When we are born we arrive into a situation over which we have no control. We didn't choose our parents, our community, the time and place of our arrival. We just turn up but even before we are born our brains are beginning to construct the means by which we will attempt to make sense of our experience. Making sense of experience, constructing order and meaning and out of a whole chaotic stream of events. Without that we cannot make sense of the world around us and we don't know what to do how to act. The gift that enables us to start making sense of the world around us is the gift of curiosity, the gift of wonder where each of us ask what is going on here, why are the things the way they are. Now Emma is looking into the face of her mother with a look of wonder and trust. In the space of two months she's already learnt that it is her parents to whom she will look to help make sense of the world but in a few years time she'll be at school and it will be her teachers that she will trust to help her through the next phase of her journey of discovery and self-discovering and the same goes for every student who attends Australian schools. So everyone involved in our school education system in this country is involved in an enterprise that should have as its primary focus fanning the flames of wonder in our children and young people and here at Akara we have a particular set of responsibilities in curriculum, assessment and reporting and I'm going to use this video log as a way of talking about particular aspects of those responsibilities. In this first edition I'd like to focus on the first word in our title. We are the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority. Our coverage is national. We are owned by all education ministers not just the Commonwealth Minister but the state and territory ministers as well. All jurisdictions are represented on our board as are the Catholic sector and the independent sector. So the work we do is relevant to every student in the country and our mission is to work with a wide range of partners to improve the educational outcomes for all students. I'm particularly interested in the educational outcomes of our most disadvantaged communities. Poverty is not just a matter of inadequate financial resources but of not having access to the means of developing the capabilities we need to fulfill our true potential as human beings. Education is the means to do that. At Akara we're committed to ensuring the Australian education system fans the flames of wonder in all children and young people so they can become the best they can be. We're committed to working closely with all stakeholders in this endeavour. Thanks for watching and I look forward to working with you as we fan the flames of wonder.