This article explores some of the distinctive challenges in Chinese language education in schools and discusses how the development of the "Australian Curriculum: Chinese" has responded to these challenges. It details how the curriculum framework outlined in the "Shape of the Australian Curriculum: Languages" (ACARA, 2011) (hereafter the Shape paper), was applied firstly in addressing the characteristics of the Chinese language itself, secondly in meeting the needs of learners of diverse language background and experience, and finally in developing a curriculum for Chinese in the primary years that responds to the needs of learners in these early years of language learning.