Outdoor education and the Australian Curriculum: a descriptive policy analysis

Outdoor education continues to be a key part of many students’ school experience in Australia. Yet, the role of outdoor education in Australian curricula frameworks is fragmented. Despite the well-established and growing offerings of senior secondary outdoor education courses in Australia, there are no formally established knowledge, understandings, and skills specific to outdoor education in the Australian Curriculum F–10 (v9.0) and its state-based versions; despite the increasing relevance of what outdoor education can offer young people during their formative years of schooling. This omission of outdoor education from the F–10 curriculum places the current and future ability of teachers to engage students in this meaningful learning area at risk, particularly outside the non-government school sector. In this paper, we employ a descriptive policy analysis to examine the possible inclusion of outdoor education in future versions of the Health and Physical Education Learning area of the Australian Curriculum F-10. Through this approach, we argue that outdoor education encompasses unique knowledge, understandings and skills not currently articulated within the Australian Curriculum F–10. Accordingly, we propose that their inclusion would complement the overarching aims of the Health and Physical Education learning area.