Why You Might Need To Rewrite Your Curriculum (and Why You Might Not)

You've spent ages writing your primary foundation subject curriculum and by now you've probably spent time rewriting it too, or at least revising it.

Curriculum rewrite: assessment

Now it's time to have a think about how to assess the pupils, what with the content all done and dusted.

But the more you think, the more you realise it's not that easy. Especially since there are a few things you know you must avoid:

• Endless APP-style grids

• Massive teacher workload

• Paperwork for paperwork's sake

• Evidencing rather than assessment

Your problem might not lie in how you are going to assess but why you decided to select the content you teach in the first place.

In this blog post I set out a simple formula for developing a concept-based curriculum. But it's also a formula for deciding on the content you cover in your curriculum.

Content = concepts in context

You may have thought about your concepts and something of your context, but when you look at how I defined context, you might see there is something you forgot to do at the start.

Content - the information to be taught and learned

Concept - an overarching idea or theme

Context - particular subject-specific parameters

The information to be taught and learned can be derived from teaching an overarching idea or theme within particular subject-specific parameters.

Curriculum rewrite: goals, aims and purposes

The context part of the equation should have guided you to think about what your goals are for each individual subject.

By goals I mean those aims and purposes - the reasons why you think your pupils should learn this subject; the things you want them to gain from this subject (and not just individual facts); the ways you want them to think about the subject, and how they feel towards it; the way that subject is going to equip them for aspects of life even if they don't pursue an academic study of it.

The National Curriculum document does quite a good job of outlining something of the above for each subject, but you will probably want to add to that. When was the last time you looked at the aims and purposes section of the NC? And to what extent did that section provide the context for your choosing of content when your curriculum was written?

Curriculum rewrite: using aims and purposes to define curriculum content and assess pupils

If you have a curriculum which was developed right from the very beginning with those aims and purposes as part of the context then you will have less of a problem when it comes to working out how to assess pupils. You simply have to assess them against those aims and purposes. You will also have no problem pruning the curriculum content so that it best helps pupils to achieve those aims.

If you set out to develop a curriculum simply by thinking about what content to insert into it, you may have a bigger problem. If this was your approach, the only option you now have is to assess pupils on how well they can remember the content taught. And, as I'm sure you'll have realised, this is onerous and fairly pointless - for all the work it will take, you will only know which facts they have remembered.

No need to panic! Perhaps a curriculum rewrite isn't needed

However, you probably don't have to rip the whole thing up and start again. Most likely you can spend some time thinking about your true aims and purposes for each subject (they will all be different). Then, once these are in place, the curriculum content can be tweaked and pruned accordingly. Pedagogical approaches to actually delivering the material might also be on the list to be adapted inline with your new goals and purposes.

There is no need to panic either - this is something that will take some time and collaboration. Bring your staff in on this - get their opinions. Give subject leaders the responsibility to do some thinking and reading around this issue. Give me a call, and let's get together to create something that works for the you and the pupils in your school. The summer term is the perfect time for this. It might be something that you and other schools in your local area or trust could work on together - I'm more than happy for schools to split the cost of having me guide you through this process.

Your 3-step enrichment plan:

1. Drop me an email

2. Have a phone call with me to talk about your school

3. We'll work together to empower you and your staff to enhance teaching and to enrich your pupils' lives

Take a weight off your mind today - let me spin a couple of your plates!