 Well the first set of year 11 and 12 curriculum for the Australian curriculum have now been released, English, Mathematics, Science and History, four English courses, four Mathematics courses, four Science courses and two History courses and then Geography as well, so 15 courses released. After quite substantial consultation we put out a first draft for the first set and on the basis of comments back revised them, put them back out for another consultation and have now produced these final versions and they're now about to be taken to the next stage. These Akara senior secondary curricula will now fit into quite varied state arrangements. In each of the states there are authorities that run the assessment systems with external exams or other means that provide the reports to students on their performance and provide the certification arrangements and these have to fit into that, they can't disrupt that, you can't expect states to run parallel arrangements. So they'll actually provide a common and agreed basis now for states working out what to do with them and Akara is going to work bilaterally with each of the states to determine the ways in which these new curricula will be integrated into courses in the states and we're committed to reporting back to ministers at the end of 2013 on the progress towards that integration and timelines for adoption of courses in the states because at the senior secondary level there are quite strong rules about how much notice has to be given to students coming through years 9, years 10 about what they will face in 11 and 12. So the first step on an important but long process. The number of strengths one of those is that it's a contemporary nature, it's future orientated, it looks at some of the great challenges facing humanity and it provides students with the knowledge and skills required to make informed judgments about those challenges and perhaps identify and evaluate alternative responses. There's also a good balance between physical and human geography which is important and the other advantage is that it draws on some areas of a familiar study that teachers will be quite comfortable with but also extends the discipline to new areas that reflect developments within academic geography. I see the biggest strengths of the senior secondary geography curriculum is that it provides a strong balance between physical and human geography, providing a broad curriculum for the students to study and the other strength I see is that it builds on the geographical knowledge that students have developed in their past studies of geography and then can use that in their future wherever that may take them. I see the strengths of senior secondary geography as being the way it enables students to learn about the major processes that are changing the geography of the world around them. Things like globalization, changes to the surface of the earth which are having enormous implications for sustainability and the process of urbanization which is significantly changing the economic and social life of people around the world. The new senior curriculum revitalizes the discipline. It draws on some quite contemporary issues that are future orientated, students will find engaging. It provides teachers an opportunity to extend the knowledge and skills and understandings developed in the foundation through to year 10. It also provides an opportunity for teachers to embrace spatial technologies and use those to develop students' conceptual understanding, provides an opportunity for in-depth study within topics and it also develops a nice balance between the physical and human dimension of geography. As someone who's taught in two states I see one of the biggest benefits for teachers is that this curriculum builds on what we've already taught in senior curriculums in the past, such as Natural Hazards, but also provides a more contemporary nature in that we can refresh our teaching and our ideas and further develop skills and geographical thinking in the classroom. I see the benefits for teachers in this new geography curriculum as being some refreshingly new material or material that looks at things that they're familiar with but in a different way. So when we look at land cover they will find things like deforestation that they're familiar with but put into quite a different context that is one of the frontiers of geographical research at present. And that I think should be exciting. I think the real benefit is that geography is future-orientated. It provides students with the knowledge and the understanding of skills to address some of the challenges they will confront as adults. It provides new areas of study, some that are more traditional but even with those traditional areas it extends those within a contemporary context. Through depth studies, through field work, through the use of spatial technologies they have an opportunity to study some of these issues in depth and I think that will hold them in good stead for the world they will inherit. For me the biggest benefit of this curriculum is the contemporary nature of the curriculum. For example, students can study any of the four topics and particularly topics like natural hazards or the sustaining places topic using field work and spatial technologies together and really have a real world application of those in the classroom. I see the benefits for students in the new senior secondary geography as being the opportunity to study some very contemporary issues that affect them personally, affect the places that they live in and are things that they will have to think about as they become adults. I also see a benefit for students in the range of choice that is built into topics where they can have the opportunity to go fairly deeply into things and I think that particular senior secondary kids need to be able to go deeper than broad and this is something that the curriculum has been designed to do.