Roger <arelem(a)bigpond.com> wrote: And the rationale for this is what exactly? (assuming that it's true - I haven't looked at any references). I emerged from primary school having been taught typing and basic word processing on the computers of the era. This was all primary school-level material and considered such. I remind you that Aboriginal history is an important element of Australian history, so half of what you said above is in fact "history of Australia". History when I was at school covered mostly Europe, proceeding from Greek and Roman civilizations through to the industrial revolution and, finally, the twentieth century up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was everywhere in the news in 1989-90 just as we were studying the cold war in secondary school history classes. So far as I can recall, Asia wasn't mentioned at all throughout, except in connection with Japan in World War II. I think that's a very serious omission, given Australia's geographical proximity to south east Asia, immigration patterns, social and economic relations, etc. Of course, it might have been rectified had I studied history in years 11 and 12, but I didn't. So primary school children won't be quizzed about common nouns, proper nouns, abstract nouns, collective nouns, etc.? It wasn't exciting; nor was it particularly useful. I learned more about grammar by studying a second language than I did in English class. That's probably because it wasn't taught either very well or very systematically. Spelling was covered, though, and it is important - again, as a primary school topic.