P–10 Australian Curriculum news

What does good assessment look like? Our assessment literacy courses are designed to show you just that.

Our new Course 2a for Prep–Year 6 and Years 7–10 teachers includes over 100 annotated assessment samples and marking guides. Explore the samples and accompanying reflection questions to strengthen assessment practice in your classroom.

We’ve also just launched the final course in our new Years 7–10 assessment literacy suite. Developed with Queensland teachers, these courses help you build high-quality assessment tasks aligned to the Australian Curriculum v9.0.

Find these self-paced courses in the QCAA Portal Learning Hub app, or learn more on our assessment literacy resources webpage.

Our free webinars explore the annotated sample assessment tasks and marking guides from our assessment literacy courses. Join a session to deepen your understanding of quality assessment design in English and Mathematics and build confidence and consistency in your judgments.

Register via the links below:

• Wednesday 13 May: Prep–Year 6: Exploring Mathematics annotated assessment samples
• Thursday 14 May: Years 7–10: Exploring English annotated assessment samples.

We've created a range of new resources to support you in the classroom.

Mathematics assessment toolkit

Our Creating questions for quality Mathematics assessment — Australian Curriculum v9.0 toolkit supports Prep–Year 10 teachers to design accessible, high-quality assessment.

It includes a practical guide to creating assessment questions, a reflection sheet and slideshows with strategies and examples to help you create, review and refine your assessment tasks.

You can access the toolkit in the designing quality assessment section of our P–10 Mathematics assessment resources webpage.

General capabilities resources

This suite of resources helps you embed the general capabilities into your planning. Developed with Queensland teachers and school leaders, these resources cover:

• Critical and creative thinking
• Digital literacy
• Ethical understanding
• Intercultural understanding
• Personal and social capability.

Find them in the PD resources section of our general capabilities webpage.

Whole-school planning reflection tool

High-quality whole-school curriculum and assessment planning is essential to ensure your school can meet the needs of every student. Our new practical reflection tool supports school leaders to reflect on and audit their whole-school planning processes. It can be adapted to suit your school’s needs and includes questions to help you evaluate your current practices and identify areas for improvement.

Head to the Leading implementation of the Australian Curriculum section on our Australian Curriculum homepage to download it.

Gifted and talented students

We’ve created three new factsheets to assist you to identify and understand gifted students and support their development. Find them in the gifted students’ section of our Understanding the range of learners webpage.

Cognitive verb graphic organisers

Cognitive verbs — such as recalling, explaining and analysing — signal to students the type of thinking an assessment question requires.

Our new Common cognitive verbs graphic organisers for Prep–Year 6 and Years 7–10 include prompts and activities to use with your students, to help them develop these thinking skills.

We've updated the P–10 planning app based on your feedback, so you can now create units that span semesters. We've also added new filtering functionality that makes creating marking guides from year level or band plans much quicker and easier.

Want to get more out of the P–10 planning app? There’s still time to sign up for one of our Term 2 webinars to explore the app's functionality, or to learn how to use the app to support students with diverse learning needs and plan for multi-age classes.

If you've got a question or feedback about the P–10 planning app, we'd love to hear from you. Teacher input informs every decision we make about the app's future functionality. Email us at AustralianCurriculum@qcaa.qld.edu.au.

To inform the QCAA’s mandatory reporting to the Queensland Government and wider community, we are seeking your feedback on our Prep–Year 10 curriculum products via a short survey.

It’s open until Tuesday 12 May 2026 and your insights will help us identify areas for improvement. See memo 023/26 (PDF, 155.4 KB) for more information or email our Governance and Policy Unit.

Our team will be out and about at conferences and events over the coming months.

If your organisation would like a member of our K–10 Curriculum and Assessment Branch to present at an upcoming conference or event, you can submit a request for professional development services. We give priority to events that are open to teachers across all schooling sectors.

If you’re at any of the events below, come and say hi to us.

Thursday 14 May, Thursday 21 May, Thursday 28 May and Thursday 4 June – Independent Schools Queensland (ISQ) Leaders Forums
David Madden, Nikki Patton and Virginia Ayliffe will present on improving moderation practices in P–10 and exploring P–10 English and Mathematics annotated samples

Friday 15 May – Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER), Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education v9 online workshop
Nikki Patton will present on designing quality assessment in Health and Physical Education.

Saturday 23 May – Business Educators Association of Queensland (BEAQ) State Conference
Greg Sikich will present on designing quality assessment using Australian Curriculum v9.0 Economics and Business.

Friday 29 May and Saturday 11 July – Queensland Association of Mathematics Teachers (QAMT) conferences
Libby Foley and Sally Birks will deliver presentations on statistical investigations in P–6 and Years 7–10.

Saturday 27 June – Early Childhood Teachers' Association (ECTA) Early Childhood Conference
Libby Foley and Janis McDermott will present on developing number sense in Prep–Year 2.

Wednesday 8 July – History Teachers’ Association of Australia (HTAA) National Conference 2026
Greg Sikich will present on designing quality assessment in History, with a focus on the transition from primary to secondary.

Friday 17 July – Queensland Art Teachers Association Conference 2026 (QATACON26)
Lucy Flook will present on exploring P–10 Visual Arts annotated samples.