Its an approach, not a curriculum or a syllabus.  

Musical Futures can be easily be tailored to work in conjunction with any existing or future Australian music curricula and is being used successfully in schools throughout Australia. 

​The initial pilot programs were undertaken with the support of the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and Education Queensland.  In all 16 schools, including the first primary school program staged anywhere in the world, were piloted in these two states in 2010.  

The Victorian pilot program was supported by research from the University of Melbourne. Two important aspects for the University of Melbourne study were to examine Musical Futures against the Victorian Essential Learnings (VELS) and the e5 Instructional Model.

The recently completed Melbourne University/CASS Foundation report noted that the Musical Futures approach to professional development embodies many of the aspects of best practice according to the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership.

On Musical Futures and AusVELS:
"Creating, making, exploring, responding are the main features of AusVELS and Musical Futures"

"The main dimensions in music are creating and making and exploring and responding. Musical Futures, due to its informal learning approach, creates lots of opportunities for students"

"It complements it by allowing students to work at their pace and being able to access to a structured guide. It rewards everyone by allowing them to show their improvement in an academic as well as musical way"

On Musical Futures and the e5 Instructional Model:
"The e5 instructional model works well for a Musical Futures lesson. For students to be interested in Music Education, they need to be engaged. To enable this, the teacher fosters positive relations with and between students and develops shared expectations for learning and interacting"

"Engages students passion, lets them explore their style of learning, teaches them how to explain processes to others, they are able to evaluate themselves, performances and each other"

"The main link between MF and the e5 Instructional model is in the engaging and exploring area"

"Teachers and students assist each other, elaboration is possible as students build their practical skills, evaluation of performance and recording as well as individualised progress"

Best practice professional development:
"The Musical Futures professional learning model embodies many aspects of the best practice model proposed by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership".

To learn more about these pilots you can read or download the Musical Futures: An Australian Perspective report from here and the CASS Foundation - Melbourne University report here.