 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 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 are car or 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 a car 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. For me the strength of the senior secondary curriculum in history is that it builds on the approach that was developed in F to 10 where we paid particular attention to the components of historical understanding and in years 11 to 12 it's possible in a much more sustained way to build up a sequence of student units that are genuinely engaging and which I think enable students to understand the world in which they live. Well I think the strengths of the history curriculum are that it gives students the opportunity to understand and appreciate other cultures, they learn to sift arguments to weigh evidence to make up their own mind about historical issues but most importantly they have to do it in an atmosphere of really considering what the evidence can provide for us today. There is a curricular intention for senior history for students to engage in the practice of history that is inquiry analysis and argument. Well one of the great benefits I think is that we're going to have more students taking history at senior secondary level and for teachers I think they will appreciate the way in which the curriculum clearly identifies both the content and the understanding and skills at years 11 and 12 and at the same time offers options that enables them to employ their particular expertise. There's a curriculum that has relevance to students, teachers will be able to program with a fair degree of flexibility and choice to ensure that that agreed knowledge reaches their students in ways and with topics that mean something for their students. I think that's a really important and exciting thing. The combination of agreed knowledge and flexibility of delivery is a very important thing for teachers. I think this new curriculum gives our history teachers right across Australia a really good opportunity either to learn something new, to be flexible, to take the best out of what they've been doing. There's so much that's worthwhile there so it gives them both the opportunity to expand themselves or to carry on with what they've been doing and just keep doing what they do well. I think this is a really good opportunity for teachers both to enjoy their classes and to develop themselves professionally. I think one of the key things for students is they're going to have the opportunity to understand the complexities of the world they live in and we've got a curriculum now that will enable them to trace those complexities and anything that brings understanding of relationships between people, societies, communities and an historical perspective on why that's occurred is valuable and that is preparing kids for participation in the 21st century. I think the other important thing is they're going to develop a range of skills that are essential for 21st century living. Particularly history will give them the opportunity to develop perspectives and understandings based on evidence rather than opinion. In a world where opinions can inflame so quickly the fact that we'll have a range of students capable of making informed decisions based on evidence is going to be invaluable. Well in my experience students come to the study of ancient history in the senior school full of enthusiasm. I mean I think it goes back to what the fund they had in year seven when they studied the pyramids or mummified a rat. This curriculum builds on that interest in enthusiasm and offers real intellectual challenges. The students need to work with the physical and written remains of the past in order to build their own interpretations and this curriculum gives them the knowledge and the skills to equip them to do that, to construct their own interpretations, to critique the interpretations of others and it also provides them with the understanding to make informed judgments about representations of the ancient past and about heritage issues to relating to cultural material from the ancient world.