As a former drama teacher at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, you can imagine how my heart swelled with pride when one of the speakers at Sunday's March in March in Melbourne offered up a shoutout to the “Newtown kids”. We all knew that meant the year 9 students, who grilled Tony Abbott on the lawns of Parliament House last Friday. Ironically I was standing next to an ex- Newtown “kid”. We were commenting on how proud we were of our old school. We suspected that few in the crowd of an estimated 30,000 Victorians knew much about Newtown High School of the Performing Arts.

I suspect a couple of other people took particular notice of both the interview and its incredible impact. Some 350,000 hits on YouTube, analysis by sections of the international media, it's been hard to ignore, even if some sections of our media not only ignored it but March in March as well.

At the behest of the federal Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire are working away on their response to the national curriculum. They are looking at how the national curriculum can be rejigged to enable us to raise our standards. Part of this discussion involves returning to the study of “core” subjects, presumably at the expense of subjects such as drama, dance, music and art. In short a return to “readin', writin' & 'rithmetic”.

This is seen as the way to return us to the top of the international educational ladder.