Curriculum
One curriculum, built to grow with your child
From first coding lessons to advanced engineering, AI and cyber security — every subject is taught in levels that deepen year after year. Students join any week of term and start on their own pathway, nobody is behind.
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How it works
Same subject. Deeper every year.
Think about how your child learns Maths: Kindy to Year 12, it's still Maths. Every year builds on the last, new concepts, more depth, more capability, never a jump to something unrelated. AARAS subjects work the same way: a student who starts Robotics at eight is still doing Robotics at fourteen, just with far more skill behind it.
There's no single starting age. Every student begins at the level that matches their current skills, not their year at school, and moves forward from there.
Curriculum
How a child grows through AARAS
One shared foundation for every student, with room to branch into the areas that match their interests — including AI, which is already part of how AARAS teaches, not something waiting in the future.
Core Pathway
Every student's foundation, built term by term. Tap a subject to see how it unfolds.
Same stage names for every subject — how far each one runs varies (CAD Design skips Advanced). Exact count shown on each card below.
Introduction
First steps in sequencing and logic. Kindy and Year 1 students begin with hands-on robot coding before moving to on-screen block coding, building the instincts every later subject relies on.
Intermediate 1 & 2
Block-based coding deepens — loops, conditionals and events — building toward longer, more structured projects.
Advanced 1 & 2
Students take on longer, more independent builds, applying coding logic to more ambitious ideas.
Projects
Students design their own games and stories, drawing on themes like storytelling, friendship and sport.
Introduction
Students begin building and programming their own robots, combining hardware and logic for the first time.
Intermediate 1 & 2
Builds get more capable and the programming more structured, spanning Year 3 through 6 alongside other subjects.
Advanced
The most capable builds, plus an early, hands-on introduction to how machines can learn from data — the foundation the Machine Learning specialist pathway later builds on.
Introduction
Students learn the fundamentals of circuits and simple programmable devices.
Intermediate
Sensors and small hands-on projects are added, like a student-built step counter.
Advanced
A genuine engineering step up — breadboards, switches, resistors and LEDs, programming both digital and analog circuits.
Projects
Electronics combines with design skills from other subjects to build things like balloon-powered cars or wrestling robots.
Introduction
Students learn 3D modelling and design fundamentals, including how to bring a design to life through 3D printing.
Intermediate 1 & 2
A shift to industry-standard design software, building real technical design skill.
Projects
Open-ended design work, often combining CAD with another subject like Electronics.
Introduction
Students move from block-based coding into real, text-based programming.
Intermediate
Structured, game-based practice builds genuine programming skill — the same kind of thinking used in real software.
Advanced
Students take on more complex programming challenges with growing independence.
Projects
Open-ended builds, with a natural path into subjects like Game Design.
Once the Core foundation is in place, two things happen: some subjects grow directly out of it, and a wider set of specialist pathways opens up.
Extension Subjects
Built from the same skills as Core, taken one level further — not a new curriculum, but a new application of one already learned.
Built from Coding and Python — students take the skills from both and apply them to designing their own games from the ground up.
Applying coding logic to something visual and shareable — students learn to design and build real web pages, from layout through to how they actually work.
Specialist Pathways
Where a student's own curiosity takes over. Three sit inside fields Australia is actively investing in for the next decade (tagged National Priority). Eight carry an AI tag — the three dedicated AI subjects, plus Embedded Electronics, Cybersecurity, Low-code/No-code Automation and Database Fundamentals, each with a genuine, direct link to how AI actually gets used. Use the filters below to narrow the list.
Design thinking aimed skyward — students use CAD design and engineering principles to build and test space-inspired vehicles.
Learning to think like a defender — spotting vulnerabilities, understanding digital threats, and learning how systems and data actually get protected.
Underwater vehicle design and engineering — students design, build and test their own submersible, balancing buoyancy, structure and control.
Learning to use AI tools thoughtfully — understanding what they're good at, where they get things wrong, and how to think for yourself instead of letting the tool do the thinking.
How machines learn from data — students build and train real models, building directly on the introduction from Robotics Advanced.
Teaching a computer to see — students work with real image and video data to build systems that can recognise and respond to the world around them.
Real, hands-on hardware — picking up from Arduino in Electronics Advanced, high school students design and build their own circuits and custom circuit boards, creating working gadgets from the ground up.
The next phase of AI — moving off the screen and into real machines. Once a student has the hardware fundamentals from Embedded Electronics, they layer in the AI that lets those devices sense and respond to the world around them.
Students use CAD design and 3D printing to build an aerodynamic car, then test and refine it — experimenting with weight and shape to see what's actually faster.
Crafting a message that resonates and finding your voice — more than presentation skills, this is about knowing what you want to say and why it matters. (Working title.)
Building real automations and workflows without traditional programming — connecting apps and data the way modern teams actually do.
The basics of how data is organised and structured, hands-on with the same kind of tools real teams use to manage information.
This is the moment two pathways' worth of foundation pays off. Automation teaches the logic, Database Fundamentals teaches the structure, and App Development is where a student builds something that actually works — because they understand why it works. (Draft framing — still being finalised.)
Why "National Priority"
Cyber security is named a critical national priority in the 2023–2030 Australian Cyber Security Strategy (Department of Home Affairs), which sets a goal for Australia to become the world's most cyber secure country by 2030. Space technologies and defence manufacturing capability — including naval shipbuilding — are two of the National Reconstruction Fund's priority investment areas, a $15 billion Australian Government fund established under the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Act 2023.
Competition Pathway
Where Core and Specialist skills turn into competition. See where our students compete for our season-by-season FLL and FTC results.
FLL — FIRST LEGO League
Foundational skills
A first taste of competition — applying Robotics and Coding skills to a real, judged challenge.
FTC — FIRST Tech Challenge
Advanced, multi-discipline skills
A full robotics competition season, where the Machine Learning and Computer Vision skills from Specialist Pathways get put into practice alongside hardware, software and CAD sub-teams — plus roles like scouting and outreach. It also carries real benefits beyond the season itself: Macquarie University offers course credit for FTC participation, and other universities view it favourably too.
21st-Century Skills
Not a separate lesson bolted on at the end of term — these are built into how every AARAS subject is taught, from a Kindy student's first robot to a Year 12 competition season.
From a student's very first term, working in a group is part of the lesson, not a break from it. Every STEM Project, every robotics build, every FLL and FTC season depends on students dividing up tasks, working through disagreements, and building something together that none of them could build alone.
Something won't work — that's not a bad day, that's the lesson. Debugging code that won't run, fixing a circuit that won't light up, working out why a robot keeps missing its mark: every subject puts students in front of a real problem with no answer key, and coaches them through solving it themselves.
Students are taught to question what they're told, not just follow instructions — weighing up a design choice in CAD, testing a strategy in competition, or, in the AI subjects, learning to check an AI tool's answer rather than trust it outright.
From high school, students take on structured mentoring roles for the first time — an FTC team captain guiding a sub-team, an older student supporting a younger FLL team, or simply the everyday habit of helping a newer teammate get unstuck. AARAS staff and industry professionals mentor alongside them too, so students are learning leadership from people a few years ahead of them and from people already working in the field. It's where years of teamwork and problem-solving turn into genuine leadership.