F-10 History

Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0

The VCAA has released the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0. Information about all subjects is now accessible on the VCAA’s new website.

Over the course of 2024 and 2025, the VCAA encourages you to familiarise yourself with the revised curriculum in preparation for its full implementation in 2026.

For History teachers, the VCAA has released resources including:

• a six-minute video to introduce the structure and features of the new History curriculum
• an introduction to and detailed documentation of the changes
• an opportunity to register for the VCAA’s Q&A webinars for Humanities F-6 (6 August) and History 7-10 (20 August).

For further inquiries regarding the revised curriculum, please contact the Victorian Curriculum F–10 Revision Project team at vcaa.f10.revisionproject@education.vic.gov.au, or visit the Victorian Curriculum F–10 website for more information.

Victorian Curriculum History F–10

The Victorian Curriculum: History can be found here.

Features of the current curriculum include:

• Schools can choose when to implement the curriculum across two-year Levels. Any element of the Level 7–8 curriculum can be introduced at any time during those two years.
• The curriculum for each Level is comprised of Historical Concepts and Skills and Historical Knowledge.
• Historical Concepts and Skills are listed before Historical Knowledge to highlight their importance.
• Historical Concepts and Skills focus on sequencing chronology, using historical sources as evidence, identifying continuity and change, analysing causes and effect and determining historical significance. The development of these skills should be the focus of explicit teaching, learning activities and assessment. These skills cannot be taught or demonstrated unless students have a good understanding of historical knowledge.
• There is continuity in the Historical Concepts and Skills from P–12.
• It is important to view the elaborations which provide “Non-mandated, advisory examples that provide guidance on how the curriculum may be transformed into a classroom activity or learning opportunity.” Several areas of historical knowledge from the previous curriculum can now be found in the elaborations. For example:

.......- The Holocaust and the rise of Hitler can be found in Level 9–10 elaborations for
.........Australians At War: WWII VCHHK147 and VCHHK145.

.......- The Black Death can be found in Level 7–8 elaborations for Medieval Europe
.........VCHHK120

• There are four Capabilities that students are expected to demonstrate achievement in: Critical and Creative Thinking, Ethical capability, Intercultural capability, and Personal and Social capability. These should be addressed by every school over the period F–10. The History curriculum provides many excellent opportunities to incorporate the explicit teaching of these Capabilities. However, it is not expected that each Capability will be taught in each subject at each Level.
• The Victorian Curriculum does not have the 'Cross-curriculum Priorities' which appear in the Australian Curriculum (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures, Asia and Australia's Engagement with Asia, and Sustainability). Instead, these topics are addressed where appropriate throughout the Victorian Curriculum.

Guiding principles for the Victorian Curriculum F–10 can be found here. Decisions about the implementation of the Victorian Curriculum: History should be made within the context of whole-school curriculum planning.