The nomenclature may have changed to avoid confusion but the Australian Curriculum sets out an ambitious national direction for history education.

From the practitioner's point of view, the most striking element of the draft curriculum is the volume of content that is aimed to be covered from Kindergarten to Year 10. By the end of primary school, mainly in years 3 - 6, students will have essentially covered the entire history of Australia including the history of first peoples, colonisation, federation and the cultural and social importance of national celebrations.

Having lofty expectations of students is not to be frowned upon. Students will have little trouble comprehending the stories associated with these histories but whether they will have the skills, or the time to develop the skills in order to understand these issues and events fully is questionable. And this is where the problem remains - too much content and covered at a superficial level will be the death of the subject.

Whilst the 'world history' approach (placing Australian history within a world history context where applicable) is sophisticated and commendable, the same problem exists at secondary level where it is planned that students undertake a series of so-called 'in depth' studies in the midst of a vast range of content.

For example, at Year 10 level, students will be expected to learn, and teachers to effectively teach, a history of nearly every major event of the twentieth century including the World Wars, The Great Depression, social and cultural movements all within 80 hours - a time allocation that has yet to be officially endorsed by the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs. It seems unlikely that this content can be covered in a way that the integrity of the 'world class' curriculum will be maintained or even realised at both primary school and secondary school levels as outlined in the rationale and aims of the curriculum document.

The volume of content to be covered was raised in earlier consultations with the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), but this concern does not seem to have been addressed fully in this draft. The promise that the draft would be accompanied by some annotated work samples has not been delivered. There are substantial concerns of the History Teachers' Association of Australia that the courses are not going to be feasible in light of a 2011 delivery - if there is little dedicated support for professional associations, education authorities and teachers to implement the Australian Curriculum one can assume that a fragmented approach to curriculum will remain.

Integral to the delivery of this Australian Curriculum though, of course, is the skills, interest and expertise of teachers themselves. The History Teachers' Association of Australia has argued continually that teacher training needs to qualify teachers who have the academic background and/or recreational interest in the discipline in order to deliver such rich courses. There is no use having a curriculum that endeavours to instil complex knowledge and skills without the expertise of professionals to teach it.

This is a draft document and therefore, in theory, has the capacity to be improved upon. No doubt, or at least hopefully, the support that classroom practitioners will need to deliver this program will also be more fully developed by the time the final draft is released.

The public are invited to provide feedback on all of the curriculum documents. The consultation website officially closes on 23 May 2010.

Annabel Astbury is the Executive Director of the History Teachers' Association of Victoria, which provides professional learning support to teachers. She supports the idea of a "world-class" curriculum that, hopefully, her children will enjoy.