Thank you for signing up and this is a flavour of what you can expect:
A light touch, running commentary on interesting material to support your work on the curriculum
Ideas for you to share with colleagues on making the curriculum deep and purposeful for all your pupils
Links to podcasts, blogs and recordings that help refine the craft of creating a great curriculum
Work on the curriculum is a never-ending piece of professional development.
Curriculum 101 is not for you if you’re looking for quick wins, silver bullets or short cuts.
It’s an ongoing conversation between professionals, and it’s underpinned by the idea of craft. Crafting a curriculum is iterative and there will never be a sense of having ‘arrived’.
It follows from this, that we need to be easy on ourselves. We should not be beating ourselves up for not being as far ahead as we’d like to be.
With that in mind, we don’t need to fall into the trap of thinking that we need to create a curriculum from scratch. Most of what we have has worked pretty well so far. This is about refining and layering what we already have in place.
As my dad used to say, why keep a dog and bark yourself? If there’s a curriculum package already out there, and you’re confident it’s good (ie making your pupils think), keep using it and refine it over time.
There’s no copyright on good ideas, so if you come across something you think will work in your context, use it!
And there’s plenty of stuff that’s free. Take the ‘Teaching history with 100 objects’ for example. These resources have been developed by teachers working alongside academics in the field. This means that they are accurate and appropriate for the classroom.
It’s important to use authentic sources, carefully curated and not dumbed down, which treat our pupils as though they are intelligent human beings. I’ve collated half a dozen websites for each of the national curriculum subjects and you can find them on this link.
In next week’s update, we’ll take a look at curriculum intent.
Until next time
Mary
And when you’re ready, you might find these helpful for curriculum development in your school
Huh Curriculum Leaders Course – September-October cohort