William Clarke College in Kellyville axes language courses for an indigenous course

Parents are fuming after a private school in Sydney’s northwest scrapped multiple languages from its curriculum and introduced an indigenous language course instead.

• 50 schools with most improved NAPLAN results
• NAPLAN: Best and worst schools in NSW revealed

A private school in Sydney’s northwest has scrapped multiple languages from its curriculum and replaced them with an indigenous language course.

Parents of students attending William Clarke College in Kellyville are reportedly furious that the restructure has been done with no consultation and say that it will impact student learning.

But Headmaster Dr Scott Marsh told News Corp said the new curriculum will better prepare students for the future.

“We have added more subjects than cut in recent years. Elective languages have been removed from timetabled classes. Our intention is to replace it with an aboriginal languages program,” he said.

“We are passionate about connecting our people to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples hence our selection of developing an aboriginal languages program.”

But a parent, who asked not to be identified, told News Corp many families were protesting about the change.

The parent said the school did not consult when introducing the streamlined curriculum, which had not been properly thought through, and were angry they were now having to pay for additional language classes, other than Indigenous.

William Clarke College in Kellyville. Picture: https://www.wcc.nsw.edu.au

MORE NEWS

Why our schools are falling behind

New South Fails: Worst school drop in Australia

Public schools outperformed by ex-Eastern Bloc countries

Who is to blame for Australia’s terrible PISA results?

The school recently posted on its website that it will remove language classes in Mandarin, Spanish, French, Japanese, German and Italian and instead introduce Coding and Robotics (in Science and Technology) and languages, other than Indigenous, will be offered as additional paid courses.

A letter to parents read: “Importantly, we believe our reimagined curriculum will provide opportunities for students to be well prepared for life beyond school”

The school told parents they have removed languages due to lack of interest but in order to fulfil NSW curriculum requirements of 100 hours of language learning “we will be offering an indigenous language.”

Dr Marsh told News Corp the restructure will benefit students as it will focus on “depth over breadth.

“For example, our new curriculum will allow students in Years 7 to 10 to study only five subjects at any one point in time. We will also have a 3-period day which will enable students and staff to spend more time going deeper into a select number of disciplines so that we can focus more on developing deeper understanding. Importantly, our curriculum will incorporate hands-on, real world project work.”

The school’s restructure comes as the education ministers across the country meet this week to discuss the national curriculum, which is widely believes to be overcrowded and restricting students’ in depth learning.

Dr Clarke said he also planned to reduce homework for the junior school, saying there was not enough emphasis on play.

“I do have concerns that children in the primary years do not have enough time for unstructured play. Sometimes school homework can impact upon the amount of free time children have.

“We certainly hope that our students will be highly engaged and autonomous young people. We want them to see that their learning at school has had an observable and tangible impact on the community in which they live.

“All the while, we uphold that individual progress in foundational areas of literacy and numeracy remains an area of priority for all learners and this is an area we have invested in significantly, particularly across Prep to Year 7 in recent years.”

A presentation by the principal says that leading universities predict the ATAR will be extinct within the next five to seven years and that students need to learn new skills.

Originally published as William Clarke College in Kellyville axes language courses for an indigenous course