In the grand scheme of things I think there are three things we need to pay attention to as far as the curriculum is concerned.
First: to ask whether we have a rich, challenging curriculum for all pupils, or most of them or just some of them? When we match the curriculum with our school values, are they truly aligned or do some pupils get a diminished diet?
Second: What systems and structures are there in place to support curriculum leaders and teachers create and deliver a great curriculum? This work doesn’t happen through goodwill, it needs to be embedded in school systems. Jerome Bruner, in The Process of Education, said
A curriculum is more for teachers than it is for students. If it cannot change, move, perturb, inform teachers, it will have no effect on those whom they teach. It must be first and foremost a curriculum for teachers.
This opens up questions for example, about how we use meetings. Are they used to primarily to develop subject knowledge and great resources, or are they mostly admin?
One head in a primary school was concerned that his colleagues did not have a deep understanding of children’s literature, beyond a diet of Dahl and Walliams. So how did he tackle this? Well he used one staff meeting, where everyone came in to the room expecting the usual agenda but instead found a pile of children’s books on the table. He said
‘Just pick up any book that takes your fancy and spend the next half an hour skimming or reading it. Then we’ll spend the rest of the meeting talking about what you think.’
And what did he find? He found that his colleagues were buzzing and virtually all of them wanted to take their books home! Now that wasn’t the intention, but it happened because teachers’ curiousity had been provoked.
Third: Are the school’s values lived, or just laminated? - to quote Contender Charlie. And what are some indicators that give us a clue that we might need to refine aspects of the curriculum?
One indicator is that pupils are not able to talk about what they’ve been learning. This could be because the completion of tasks are more important than whether they have learnt anything. And one way to address this is to ask ourselves, ‘Will this resource or activity make my pupils really think?’
Another indicator is that the visual resources could be improved. One way to test this is to ask whether these are likely to provoke curiosity. Since curiosity is a great driver for learning, this is a useful lens through which to consider whether the curriculum is sufficiently demanding.
For example, if pupils are learning about places of worship in religious education there are two options:
They could either be offered a poor quality worksheet or they could get the the chance to look at and discuss a real mosque, such as the Suleymaniye mosque in Istanbul. Which resource is more likely to provoke curiosity and to wonder about the significance and beauty of mosques in Islam?
The great thing about these examples is that they don’t require more work, it’s just about reframing the materials we offer our classes.
For more on developing a really great curriculum, we’re starting a self-paced curriculum course with half termly check-ins, starting on 18 September. Learn more here!
Until next time
Mary