"We group students by age essentially and we develop a curriculum for age groups,and yet we know very well that within any age group ... the most advanced 10 per cent of students are about five to six years ahead of the least advanced 10 per cent of students,"Professor Masters,who is chief executive of the Australian Council for Educational Research,said.
"So we run with this fiction that students of the same age and in the same year of school are more or less equally ready for the same learning experiences and this has all sorts of consequences."
The review,which is the first comprehensive shake-up of the kindergarten to year 12 curriculum since 1989,has been hailed as"a once-in-a-generation chance to examine,declutter,and improve the NSW curriculum"by Education Minister Rob Stokes.
It is also aimed at implementing the recommendations of the Gonski report on education,including an increased focus on skills such as collaboration,creativity and innovation.
The curriculum review will not just be"a matter of tweaking what we currently have"but a major redesign of the NSW education system,Professor Masters said.
"We need to be thinking about what the curriculum should look like for the future,we need to be ambitious and visionary,"he said.
"[We're] trying to design a system for our grandchildren,maybe even our great-grandchildren,that's where I'm focused,in the 2040s."