All maintained schools are required to provide a broad and balanced

curriculum for all children which:

■ promotes their spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical

development;

■ prepares them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of

adult life.

Schools have to teach the national curriculum and religious education.

The challenge for each school is to customize this basic entitlement to learning

and, in the context of Government policies and initiatives, create its own

distinctive and unique curriculum.Schools wishing to carry out a complete review of their curriculum and timetabling

could work through the guide section-by-section, using the questions as starting points

for discussion. Alternatively, if a school simply wanted to consider particular issues,

for example its curriculum priorities or lesson lengths, the staff could consult the

relevant section to see an outline of the issue and examples of the different solutions

various schools have adopted.

Hi James,

I have attached a document outlining recommended times for different subjects in Queensland Government Schools. Although we now implement a National Curriculum you can see that there is still about 20% discretionary time allocation for more local initiatives. Hope this helps, Kevin.