HASS teaching is aimed at developing lifelong learning skills that will enable learners today to be active citizens of their communities, their nation and the world. It is hoped that the knowledge and skills learnt in educational settings will be utilised and built on over the course of learners’ lives. Inquiry learning provides an excellent vehicle to achieve these goals because it allows learners to go further than assimilating knowledge. The inquiry process in HASS places great emphasis on learners viewing different perspectives and values and using critical thinking skills to evaluate and make decisions. The result of this approach is that learners themselves develop opinions, form values and acquire skills that will underpin their behaviour both now and in the future.

A sense of curiosity and active citizenship can be nurtured in children from a young age. Through a range of immersive and place-based experiences, children can start to make sense of the world around them and demonstrate their social agency. The Australian Curriculum: History focuses on developing an awareness of key features of family and local history and community heritage from Foundation to Year 2. Its key purpose is to make early historical inquiry meaningful, memorable, creative and exploratory. Civics and Citizenship education can help to provide opportunities for children to express their ideas and understand their communities. A dynamic, multiperspectival and affective understanding of the past, and its relationship with the present, is essential in a democracy.

The subject areas that form the HASS learning area are founded on and around ‘values’, and values underpin everything we do in educational settings. This is not surprising, given that values are at the core of our thinking and actions. As human beings, we have core values to which we subscribe – things that we think are of importance and of worth. These values are diverse and influenced by a complex relationship between the individual and their social environment. As an example, consider the values listed by Burgh, Field and Freakley: friendship, security, health, education, beauty, art and wealth. You may disagree and think that holding one or more of the values listed would not in fact lead to a good life; or that an important value is missing from this list; that is, we may disagree that each of these values is of importance. The point, however, is that ‘[e]veryone has values, but there is not universal agreement about what is valuable’. In this chapter, the use of a community of inquiry will be explored as a means of supporting meaningful values inquiry in HASS. The community of inquiry is an approach that empowers learners to think critically about issues pertaining to values, ethics and social justice in a safe environment that promotes diversity and student voice.

It is difficult to think of anything more widespread and enduring than the lure of a good story. It is the warp and weft that weaves old, young, rich and poor of different cultures together and enables the opening of new worlds, concepts and understandings of past, present and future. We can empathise, imagine and live vicariously through stories that are an inseparable part of who we are as human beings. History documents these stories based on evidence interpreted through different lenses over time; Geography lends its knowledge to significance of place, space, time and perspective, providing context and reason; and Civics and Citizenship stories help us to understand our roles and responsibilities, as we seek models of the heroes and heroines found in a good story. For this chapter, a broad view of literacy has been adopted, one that defines it as a social practice which involves teaching learners how to participate in, understand and gain control of the literacy practices embedded within society. This chapter will examine the integrated nature of literacy in HASS through the inclusion of picture books to open and explore issues relating to HASS.

Play is an innate need. It’s a biological behaviour all humans engage in and is essential for children’s wellbeing and development across all domains: social, cognitive, emotional and physical. While play has long been seen as the key vehicle through which young children explore the world, researchers have now recognised the benefits of play to learning 21st century skills such as innovative thinking, problem-solving and collaboration. Intrinsic motivation is an inherent quality of play and a vital aspect of learning; without it, children can lack enthusiasm and willingness to engage, lack effort and persistence in tasks, give up easily and fail to develop independence in their learning. So how can we motivate and inspire learners so they become passionate advocates of their own development through self-driven exploration, questioning, problem-solving and discovery? Play is the key. This chapter discusses the benefits of play and explores how a ‘playful’ pedagogical approach enhances creativity, problem-solving and critical thinking, and can be used to effectively engage, motivate and stimulate learners from early childhood to adolescence in the HASS learning area.

It was decided that the content of the curriculum is the knowledge, skills and concepts. Moreover, it can be strongly argued that the concepts are fundamental to the successful application of the knowledge and skills. This chapter explores the concepts within the HASS learning area and why they are so important for quality learning; that is, what is the role of the concepts in developing learners’ critical and creative thinking in the subject disciplines of History, Geography, Civics and Citizenship and Economics and Business? These Humanities subjects are known as the sub-strands of the knowledge and understanding strand in the Australian Curriculum: HASS (v.9.0). Regardless of the nomenclature of the disciples in question, if we intend to develop higher-order critical and creative thinking in the HASS learning environment, it is fundamental that learners understand HASS concepts.

This chapter introduces you to Civics and Citizenship, one of the four subjects that comprise the Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) learning area. It presents Civics and Citizenship as an active, participatory subject area that requires educators to promote an open and supportive educational environment through which learners can be engaged in discussing issues that affect them and their communities, and enables them to engage in democratic decision-making processes. The chapter covers the main elements of the Australian Curriculum: Civics and Citizenship, as it appears both within the combined HASS curriculum for the primary years and as a stand-alone subject for Year 7. It also introduces methods and approaches through which Civics and Citizenship can be taught effectively. Throughout the chapter, key points are supported by research evidence, and supporting tasks and reflections will help you to develop your understanding of Civics and Citizenship.

Through HASS, children critically consider the moral challenges of our time and make informed and ethical decisions. The rationale to the HASS F–6 (v.9.0) curriculum asserts that HASS empowers students ‘to value their belonging and contribution to their community and beyond’. By engaging with key topics, children can impact their surroundings and effect change. Children explore historical and geographical concepts of significance, continuity and change, and place and space before they even reach school. Upon entering school, further intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary concepts are developed and refined. Thus, early in young people’s lives, teachers aim to introduce children to the study of humanities, which helps us to understand who we are, our identity and human interaction. This chapter explores the nature of HASS learning and pedagogy in the early childhood and primary years; considers the policy basis for teaching social science knowledge and skills; and outlines how play-based and inquiry-based pedagogical approaches can be used to teach HASS; and the value of learning propositional knowledge in the humanities and the significance of maintaining the integrity of discipline-based ways of ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’ to deliver a deeper understanding of HASS topics and concepts.

Early childhood teachers in Australia are qualified to teach children from birth to five years of age or birth through to eight years of age depending on their teacher education program and state qualifications. A significant challenge is the need to be knowledgeable about, and comfortable working with, different curriculum framework documents. Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia (EYLF v2.0) informs practice in early education and care settings for children from birth to age 6, while the Australian Curriculum models the curriculum in the Foundation to Year 10 (hereafter: F–10) formal schooling years. This chapter will provide a contextual foundation for teaching and learning in HASS, beginning with a broad discussion of the Australian Curriculum: HASS in the early years of primary schooling, considered through the lens of the EYLF v2.0. Similarities and differences between the two curriculum documents will then be addressed, as well as how these documents potentially affect children’s learning and how educators teach. Finally, it will be argued that pedagogical practice, specifically inquiry-based learning rather than content-based learning, contributes to effective connections between the foundations for learning developed in the early years settings and transition to the first years of formal schooling.

In aspiring for world-class education, the Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration provided guidance for the continued development of the Australian Curriculum. The declaration committed the Australian Government, in collaboration with the education community, support for all young Australians development in becoming confident and creative individuals, successful lifelong learners and active and informed members of the community. To do so, schools are encouraged to address not only academic achievement but also their holistic development and wellbeing. Subsequently, some of the approaches to achieving these goals are identified as not solely fitting into the traditional content learning areas. Rather, it was argued that such approaches needed to be immersed across learning areas to ensure the intellectual, physical, social, emotional, moral, spiritual and aesthetic development and wellbeing of young Australians were respected and treated as part of the teaching and learning requirements and as a student entitlement. Hence, the general capabilities and cross-curriculum priorities are additional dimensions embedded across learning areas and purported to be of equal importance.

This chapter will initially help your familiarisation with the architecture of HASS in the Australian Curriculum and provide guidance for its implementation in the educational setting. Providing real-life experiences using interdisciplinary skills and knowledge is important; therefore, we will discuss different approaches to planning before highlighting the significance of employing an integrated approach. Discussions of planning and assessment will feature prominently, complemented with illustrations of curriculum resources. While the focus in this chapter is on the Australian Curriculum, the significance of planning HASS learning experiences that build on the EYLF are integrated throughout, drawing on the description of the EYLF that was presented in Chapter 1. It is important to recognise the central role of early years educators in promoting a passion for HASS and acquiring the skills and concepts.