The curriculum: an ongoing story of refinement
Well hello there, and welcome to update #009!
Any work on the curriculum is provisional. While we aim to make it ‘good enough’ we also need to adjust in the light of experience, feedback, evaluation and emerging evidence.
If we agree with the great Sir Tim Brighouse that the heart of school improvement is teachers and leaders talking about teaching and learning, then it follows that the main topic of conversation should be how pupils are taught to learn the curriculum.
This iterative aspect of curriculum work might be captured as a ‘never-ending story’. Huh is the Egyptian god of ‘ever-lasting things’, creativity and regeneration.
Huh captures the spirit of ongoing curriculum work.
What follows from this is that we need to lean into the fact that curriculum development is ongoing; we need to pace ourselves and we need the time and space to do this properly.
And as it happens, this is reflected in the inspection handbook. In the quality of education judgement, it refers to teachers having ‘expert knowledge of the subjects that they teach and are supported, where necessary, to address gaps in their knowledge’.
I would argue that everyone in the sector, myself included, needs to develop their subject knowledge and this can only be done one unit, one day, one conversation at a time.
And that begs the question of what we need to cut in order to do this work.
Long story short: marking, data and meetings, all for some serious reevaluation!
Until next time
Mary
And when you’re ready, you might find these helpful for curriculum development in your school
Huh Curriculum Leaders Course UPDATE: Booking now open for the next cohort 9 January - 2 February 2023
Primary Subject Networks, live and recorded. This week it’s geography with Hydeh Fayaz in conversation with Rachel Higginson. Tuesday 1 November 16.00 - 17.30
Loving the security this provides for school leaders. Confident leaders know where to ask their staff to direct their energies- and where better than the curriculum and its delivery.
The eternal battle - this is something I have tried to do, particularly in the last 5 years when I left my boarding school job (with significant residential duties) and moved abroad to teaching only. I am now Head of Humanities in a new school and while conscious not to make sweeping changes, I do want to spend more time on developing KS3 curriculum initially, as this is where we have greatest freedom. Sadly, workload is often such that having the time for curriculum development is a pipe dream. I am in a better position, timetable-wise, to do that this year, and have already made some changes.