Values Education and Curriculum Materials: Why did Music Miss Out?

In December 2002 the Federal Minister for Education announced the Values Education Study. A significant amount of funding flowed from the initiative over the next five and a half years. Over the funding period values education was added to school curricula frameworks at the State and Territory level if it was not already included. Funds were made available to every school. This funding was used to run a school-community forum, provide a flagpole and an Australian flag for every school, hold annual national and state-based values education fora. In addition, the Curriculum Corporation developed a curriculum resource package, Good Practice School Projects and partnerships between educators and the community took place, and the National Framework for Values Education for Australian Schools (2005) was released. This paper builds on Watson (2007) and focuses on the curriculum materials produced for the values education project. The authors consider the content and relevance to music education of the teaching and learning units for primary and secondary students that are focussed on the Arts key learning area. The units of work form part of Values for Australian Schooling – Building Values Across the Whole School: A Resource Package. Of significance is the single unit ‘Music for free?’ that has been designed for the late adolescent studying English. Another group of units were developed that included ‘What is the value of popular music?’ directed at the early adolescent student.