Mark Enser on interpreting theory

Clare Sealy on the primary problem

Neil Almond on the assessment tail wagging the curriculum dog

Megan Mansworth on the three questions to ask yourself about content

Grace Healy on assessing general vs specific theory

Nicky Clements on EYFS being its own beast

Simon Knight on developing the curriculum for SEND

Leanne Forde-Nassey on pupil referral units

Chris Dyson on why community is more important than theory

Interpreting theory: missteps, misconceptions and missed opportunities

The consultant was here to tell us how to design our curriculum. “Interleaving”, he explained, was what we needed to think about. His suggestion was that, rather than teaching one topic at a time, we should teach several topics at the same time. So, on Monday, we might study tectonics; then on Wednesday, urbanisation; and on Friday, river features.

This, he stated, was what the theory of interleaving prescribed as the route to pupils making better progress, and was an example of good practice around curriculum planning that Ofsted would welcome.

He was almost certainly wrong. (For those interested, the research on interleaving is actually about teaching two contrasting ideas at the same time, to allow pupils to recognise the difference between them and prevent them from getting them accidentally confused. It is an interesting idea, but should not be a major feature of curriculum design - and certainly shouldn’t be done through the switching of topics in the way he suggested.)

Another idea finding its way from theory to practice is that of “curriculum coherence”. This notion is seductive: if a pupil is studying the Russian revolution in history, it would seem to make sense to pick up on it when studying Animal Farm in English; if pupils are learning the word “carnivore” in biology, they could learn that it has the same root as that of “incarnation” in RE.

But again, there are problems. While these links may occur quite naturally, there will be issues if we try to force this coherence.

First, the links tend to be tokenistic at best: we’re doing the Egyptian pyramids in history, so do we get them to study triangles and geometry in maths? The River Nile in geography? Hieroglyphics in the creative arts?

The second problem is that each subject structures its curriculum in a certain way for a reason. Just because they are studying the Egyptians in history, it doesn’t mean it is the best time to study rivers in geography. It will depend on what was studied before and what comes after it.

Likewise, forcing the studying of incarnation into an RE lesson just because you know the term “carnivore” is being used in science is a pretty poor way to plan out a sequence of learning.

In short, the idea of a unified and coherent curriculum sounds good on paper, and may look good mapped out on a giant chart in a senior leadership team meeting, but I can see it backfiring spectacularly.

These are just two examples of many. So often, when we try to take theory and parachute it into practice, the canopy fails to open and we end up hurtling towards a very different kind of impact to that we were expecting.

Failed understanding, difficulties of translation, bias and poor implementation can all get in the way. So, why do we fall into these traps?

The first reason is a lack of funding for training. Good curriculum planning needs to be subject- specific, and yet training within schools, by its nature, tends to be generic. For example, when planning a geography curriculum, we need to pay careful attention to the link between thematic and regional approaches, and give very careful consideration to the use of case studies and examples that illuminate a geographical issue. So, ideally, each subject would have input from subject specialists in the form of training.

What we get instead is generic training on generic curriculum theory - we are told how to build a curriculum, not how to build a geography/history/science/other curriculum.

I understand why: subject-specific training is hugely expensive - it is easier and cheaper to stay general and deliver to everyone at once. Yet this leaves the door open to huge misinterpretations.

Second, there is a lack of time to properly interpret theory. So much of the theory around curriculum feels very removed from the experience of teachers and heads of departments on the ground. Quite simply, there is not the time in schools currently to have the types of conversations and time to digest information that we would need to make the theory applicable and useful.

This is not me advocating that we ignore theory; rather, we need to better equip teachers to interact with it. If we are serious about asking classroom teachers and heads of department to engage more in theories of curriculum design, we need to truly invest in it. We need to give them expert training from within their subject communities and the time to act on it. If we don’t, we will see half-understood theories being embedded into curriculum intent statements up and down the country.

Mark Enser is head of geography and research lead at Heathfield Community College. His new book Teach Like Nobody’s Watching is available for pre-order

The primary problem

In the pursuit of research-informed curriculum design, primary schools face a specific and not insignificant challenge: unlike secondary schools, we do not have subject specialists.

This did not matter when the emphasis in our schools was on how we taught, because the belief was that there were certain key strategies that could be employed whether one was teaching about volcanoes, the Romans or colour mixing. The important thing was to be an expert in teaching strategies, not in subject content.

With the renewed focus on curriculum, those assumptions have now been turned on their head. This throws up three particular issues:

1. How do you decide what to teach? If no one in your school knows much about a subject, choosing what to include and what to leave out is incredibly difficult.
2. How can you ensure it is taught well? If teachers do not know very much about a subject, then even if you hand them a plan, they will not be able to think flexibly about what they are teaching, let alone help children to do so.
3. How can we provide subject leadership for every subject, especially in smaller schools? With 13 compulsory subjects, schools that are one-form entry or smaller will not have enough teachers to cover every subject.

These are not easily solvable problems.

Finding out what your staff do and do not know is essential if schools are to plan a way forward. When we conducted an audit of teacher qualifications at our school, we discovered that only two of us had studied geography beyond the age of 13 and none beyond 16. Design and technology subject knowledge was even more sparse.

Where there is a knowledge deficit, one route is bringing in a scheme from a subject association. The Design and Technology Association’s Projects on a Page is written with the non-specialist in mind and provides very detailed, step-by-step guidance.

Another option is employing subject specialists for part of the week - probably during planning, preparation and assessment time. This means curricular decisions about what to teach can be handed over to people who actually know about the subject. Employing some subject specialists also cuts down the number of subjects we are expecting generalist primary teachers to know about in depth.

So, for example, we have a specialist French teacher a day per week, a sports coach and a service-level agreement with the local music hub for some of our music provision.

Meanwhile, a teacher who is particularly confident in music teaches across key stage 2, with the other teachers covering her class.

That still leaves 10 other subjects for our teachers to get to know well. To do that, we devote staff meeting time and Inset days to improving staff subject knowledge. To help with this, we again turn to subject associations, which have an abundance of useful material on their websites. The KS3 and 4 materials on BBC Bitesize are also helpful. In addition, the subject associations run annual subject conferences, usually on Saturdays, for which staff are given time off in lieu if they attend. Another source of support might be your local secondary school.

The point here is that to teach well, it is not enough to just know the content you want the children to know - you need to know more than that so that you can respond to questions, make links yourself and ignite your own interest in the subject.

Finally, there is the problem of subject leadership. Formerly, the prestigious subjects to lead in a primary school were English and maths. Geography and history were often led by inexperienced teachers who were rarely given time out of class to observe lessons, look at books or talk to pupils. This needs to change.

Smaller schools might do well to share subject leadership with other schools, with three schools each contributing one leader apiece to art, D&T and music, for example, with a planned programme of monitoring of provision. This provides a chance to look afresh at career progression, with teachers being given opportunities to lead on a new subject every few years so that, over the course of a career, a teacher becomes an authority on many different subjects.

All this should help. The challenges are real but manageable once we accept that improving the curriculum is not a quick-fix action that can be ticked off in a term but a major reorientation of our priorities.

Clare Sealy is headteacher of St Matthias School in East London

Is the assessment tail wagging the curriculum dog?

In debates about curriculum, one thing is often left unspoken but is so central to what happens in schools: assessment.

Whether it is the Programme for International Student Assessment, the government, the local authority or multi-academy trust, or just the senior leader or class teacher looking for evidence of learning, assessment so often dictates what we do as teachers.

A fair question to ask, then, is: does curriculum dictate assessment, or vice versa?

Let’s consider some examples across the educational spectrum where assessment has dominated curriculum.

First up, the introduction of compulsory phonics teaching at key stage 1 in England. The government wanted to assess early reading and to have some influence on how it was taught, so it introduced an assessment: the Year 1 phonics screening test. Suddenly, the curriculum consists of a whole lot of structured synthetic phonics.

Or what about Sats? How much of what is taught in primary school is determined by how far it will “count” towards helping pupils achieve top marks in their Sats? If every primary teacher answered honestly, you would see just how influential those tests are on curriculum.

At secondary school, meanwhile, the issues around the risks of exam specifications becoming the focus of the curriculum as a whole are much discussed: many schools work backwards from the specs - curriculum becomes the specs.

Of course, assessment is important. As it currently stands, schools can thrive or dive based on a set of results that only test a tiny fraction of the whole content domain. With such high stakes, it is no wonder that schools do what they do. And we do need to know how pupils are progressing - assessment is a necessary part of teaching.

So, where should assessment sit in the discussion around curriculum? Should we create a curriculum and worry about how we will assess it later on, or should we build one around a pre-defined assessment model or criteria?

I would like to see more research on this. As it stands, I believe curriculum - the “what” that you will teach - must be at the forefront of teaching. People in positions who get to make these choices need to be critical of the knowledge explicitly mentioned in exam specifications and consider what else students in their care should know - and teach it. Only then should we consider how it will be assessed.

And it most definitely should be assessed. We need to ensure that what we teach is embedded in long-term memory so that it can be built on later in a pupil’s education. So, what should that assessment look like?

I have detailed some ideas below, which have been influenced and adapted from Daisy Christodoulou’s book Making Good Progress and her discussion with Oliver Lovell on the Education Research Reading Room podcast.

Get students to do three “brain dumps” (writing out all they know about the topic in the form of a spider diagram) at the beginning, middle and end of a topic. Progress is “knowing more and remembering more”.

Implement regular, low-stakes quizzing throughout a topic.

Set a high-stakes end-of-topic quiz, where the mean class score is reported and individual students’ scores are communicated to parents.

Find the mean score of the top three, middle three and bottom three.

Set a piece of written work that demonstrates application of knowledge. Some weighting should be given to the quality of the written response, of course, but let’s not lose sight of the specific knowledge. We are not just assessing writing here.

Decide among colleagues on the three best, the three worst and the three middle examples of work on a topic. Rank these and keep copies of them.

Set an end-of-year “big quiz” that samples all topics taught. Again, take the mean class score and report that as well as the individual score to parents.

Repeat all the above for all areas taught across the year.

When you come to repeat this topic next academic year, you will be able to see the following:

• Whether the mean score of the class and the mean scores at each of the three levels have increased. If they have, it indicates that learning has improved.
• Whether the top, middle and bottom written responses from this year are better/worse/the same as last year. If the newer response is better, it should replace the older one as part of the portfolio.
• Whether the “big quiz” mean score from the previous year and from the three different levels shows that improvement in learning has happened.

Neil Almond is a primary teacher in London 

Three questions to ask yourself about content

Curriculum design has to start with big questions and here, I think, the theory does really help: it provides many of those questions and helps us to weigh the answers.

The questioning process is vital in terms of the curriculum content choices we make. Specifying the enormous body of knowledge and understanding that a curriculum will aim to teach is an immeasurably complex task. With our final choices, we state: “This is what we believe that students should know, and be able to do, by the end of a course.”

It is a statement that needs to be supported by clear reasoning in order to ensure that we take such a responsibility seriously. To help frame that reasoning, the three below questions are crucial.

1. Have you checked your bias?

The choices made about what children learn, and why, are often driven by ideological assumptions about a particular subject. These are impossible to avoid. The important thing is that we reflect on these and are able to take into account other practitioners’ viewpoints, and - where necessary - justify our own ideologies.

To take English as an example, the content covered might be determined based on myriad different conceptions of the subject. Is speaking and listening of equal value to reading and writing? Should English language and literature be taught together? Is English a creative subject? Is literature from “other” cultures included?

Whether we ask them explicitly or not, teachers’ answers to these questions - and many more - will influence their decisions regarding curriculum planning.

In other subjects, such ideological questions might include, for example, which periods or events are most important for students to grasp (history), how prominent contemporary concerns such as environmentalism should be in the curriculum (science) or which countries or concepts should be used as case studies and deemed worthy of study (geography).

Interrelated are broader questions of our moral and ethical responsibilities towards students; for instance, the extent to which social and emotional development is fostered through a subject, or the notion of how far teachers can affect social justice through curriculum planning.

While it may be impossible for teachers to establish a consensus, it is important to contemplate and discuss these issues. This enables us to clearly situate our own views in relation to a particular subject and its purpose, thus shaping the curriculum in a consciously reflective way. (The articles by Edmund Adjapong, Christine Counsell and Mark Priestley in part one of the Tes curriculum series explore these issues particularly well, if you are interested in reading further.)

2. How far is the subject curriculum determined by policy and examinations?

Neil Almond sums up the issue around assessment and curriculum perfectly. In part one of the Tes curriculum series, Ninni Wahlström also discussed these issues at length, so I will not go over them again here other than to re-emphasise the need to consider the relationship with assessment.

3. Whose voices determine curriculum content?

Rather than viewing curriculum planning as a straightforward, top-down approach in which teachers are told what to teach by school leaders, it is important to reflect critically on whose voices and viewpoints are taken into consideration in the process of planning.

On a departmental level, we might ask how we can dedicate time to enabling collaborative planning, thus ensuring students benefit from the combined experience and perspectives of different teachers.

On an individual level, we might also ask how open or restricted we want our curriculum to be, and reflect on how much ownership in adapting content is afforded to teachers.

School leaders should consider whether their curriculum has been carefully designed with the consideration of a range of factors, including research evidence, teachers’ professional experience, policy considerations and sufficient depth of content.

We also might examine whether there is still room for professional judgement and dialogue with class teachers prior to implementation.

If qualified professionals are not given the opportunity to influence the development of departmental and school-wide curricula, it is possible that there will be a detrimental impact on their motivation and enjoyment of their work.

Further to this, we risk losing out on valuable voices, experiences and contributions if the curriculum is seen only as something centrally mandated by government and school leaders rather than as a critical, shared and reflective process.

When designing a curriculum, we assign value to certain kinds of knowledge and implicitly dismiss other forms of knowledge as less important. Such crucial decisions, therefore, need to be carefully justified and interrogated before they are implemented.

Megan Mansworth is achievement leader of English for Nova Education Trust, Nottinghamshire

Should we access general or specific curriculum theory?

As the head of a department or subject, how much of your curriculum development should be influenced by general curriculum theory, and how much by the rules, idiosyncrasies, community and heartbeat of your subject?

Subject-specific curriculum theory would quickly become very insular if it did not interact with general curriculum theory. But at the same time, the cross-fertilisation of ideas between subject communities can enhance curriculum thinking. Where should the balance sit?

I propose that general curriculum theory by itself should not drive an approach to subject curriculum design, but rather that teachers ought to be empowered to engage with general curriculum theory and to reflect on how this might benefit their curriculum thinking.

For example, if we take Michael Young’s notion of “powerful knowledge” - a sociological concept and curriculum principle that stresses the importance of students having an equal entitlement to systematic and specialised knowledge as a matter of social justice - we realise that even those who take subject specialisms seriously look for general principles, such as Young’s, that can be meaningfully drawn upon across subjects. After all, at a school level, in order to work together collaboratively and communicate effectively across subjects, we need to be able to talk about curricular principles and use curricular language that illuminates rather than conceals the substance of our curriculum.

Alongside this, you need engagement in subject-specific curriculum theory. This began for me when I began as a trainee geography teacher.

I was introduced to the collective wisdom of the communities of practice that I belonged to through reading and discussing the work of geography teachers and geography teacher educators. It is especially crucial to acknowledge the importance of such contributions to subject curriculum design for initial teacher education and for practising teachers because, in recognising such significance, we ensure such scholarship is invested in.

There are still many questions left to be answered about how subject-specific curriculum theory can be sustained when there is such fragility in research infrastructure in subfields like geography education within higher education.

The balancing of the general and the subject-specific needs to happen in - and be facilitated by - schools. We need to have fruitful conversations about teaching across subject areas and senior leadership teams need to be able to lead subjects beyond their own. Christine Counsell, a lecturer in education at the University of Cambridge, has highlighted the importance of “senior curriculum leadership”, where curricular communication is made possible because it is rooted in a shared knowledge base, influenced by both subject-specific curriculum theory and general curriculum theory.

We also need to recognise that subjects have different knowledge structures. What might be appropriate for a hierarchical subject (for example, physics) in terms of curriculum design might not be usefully translated to a subject that draws upon knowledge that is from a horizontal structure (such as English literature).

It can be helpful to think about the knowledge structures found within school subjects because, when discussing areas of curriculum overlap and interplay, we can better grasp how subjects can work together to support students’ understanding.

In this way, we can see that general curriculum theory, wielded carefully, is about illuminating each subject’s distinctive curricular character rather than imposing a restrictive cage on the practices of teachers across different subject areas or standardising an approach to subject curriculum design.

Ultimately, general curriculum models ought not be imposed on subject-specialist teachers but can be powerfully used to inform discussions across curriculum boundaries and within subject communities.

Grace Healy is subject specialist in geography at the Inspiration Trust and a PhD student at UCL Institute of Education

EYFS is its own beast so needs its own curriculum approach

Read about curriculum design as an early years foundation stage teacher and you quickly get the sense that everyone has forgotten quite what the earliest stages of school are all about. Very little relates to the reality of the setting and, thus, in creating our own curriculum, very little of the guidance is of much help.

First, the idea of “subjects” seems central to so much of the discussion, yet in EYFS, subjects are difficult to define. We don’t have subjects - we have “areas of learning”. Within those, we don’t have geography - we have “understanding the world”. The language of subjects is alien in EYFS, as are many other curriculum references.

The idea of “what pupils need to know” is also problematic. The 17 early learning goals (ELGs) are statutory. They benchmark the “typical” level of development. Many of the ELGs are based on procedural knowledge (we used to call it “skills”) rather than the factual or domain knowledge that is so often the focus of curriculum discussions.

Young children may display the procedural knowledge in many ways. For example, the exploring media and materials ELG states that “children sing songs, make music and dance … They safely use and explore a variety of materials, tools and techniques, experimenting with colour, design, texture, form and function.”

As a lot of this is procedural, trying to judge what they “know” of a “subject” is problematic for anyone planning for or judging curriculum against that criterion. When you consider this with regard to two-year-olds in school, it is even more difficult. How do you ascertain what a child knows when they may speak only a little?

Where we begin to find a way through is trying to define the curriculum for our own phase. Clearly, play is central to that.

David Whitebread, emeritus professor of education at the University of Cambridge, wrote that “the value of play is increasingly recognised, by researchers and within the policy arena, for adults as well as children, as the evidence mounts of its relationship with intellectual achievement and emotional wellbeing” (bit.ly/WhitebreadPlay).

Meanwhile, Professor David Geary, when discussing “folk knowledge and academic learning”, acknowledges with regard to young children that “play, social interactions and exploration of the environment and objects appear to be the mechanisms through which … emerging competencies are practised, refined and adapted to local conditions” (bit.ly/FolkKnowledge).

Rather than simply creating a rich curriculum, EYFS teachers and practitioners must plan for a rich provision, including the environment, resources, experiences and skilled adults who support learning through play and don’t leave it to chance.

In addition, Frank Coffield, emeritus professor of education at UCL Institute of Education, offered an alternative definition of curriculum in a recent Tes article (bit.ly/Fixproblems): “Learning refers to significant enhancements in knowledge, capabilities, values, attitudes or understanding (including, but going beyond, the acquisition of factual knowledge) by individuals, groups, organisations or society.”

With regard to curriculum, EYFS really is its own beast, and to try and position it within the constraints of a more formal primary or secondary model would be like trying to herd kittens. My advice? Seek out your own path.

Nicky Clements is head of EYFS at Victoria Academies Trust. She tweets @nickyclements71

Look beyond the school gates when developing the curriculum for SEND

Special schools have a long history of curriculum innovation, driven by the responsibility to interpret national structures in the interests of the children they teach. The absence of the specific context of the sector from the conversations that shaped national policy - and from much of the theorising around curriculum generally - created a vacuum that needed to be filled. This freedom has, in many cases, been used well and the responsibilities that accompany these freedoms have been fulfilled.

As such, we have a sector alive with debate and development, weighing up the merits of different curriculum structures and evaluating their impact upon the children we serve.

However, there are still significant challenges for the sector to overcome and significant improvements that the sector, and society more broadly, needs to make. This ongoing improvement is necessary so that the quality of education received within school can translate into a higher quality of life beyond school.

In A Fair, Supportive Society, Wendy Rickard and Angela Donkin of the Institute of Health Equity detail how premature death, chronic loneliness and catastrophic underemployment are just some of the key themes explored when looking closely at the learning disabled community.

So, what do schools need to do to ensure they are doing their bit to change the life opportunities of those they teach?

One of the key areas to consider carefully is the extent to which curricula can create structurally low expectations. There are many ways in which this can happen, from defining the curriculum offer a child will access based on a limited understanding of their developmental requirements to building curricula around multiple commercial approaches that end up lacking educational coherence. Sometimes, we can have a patchwork of interventions with no clarity of developmental journey.

It is essential that curricula create a sense of cohesion around the what, the how and the why in a manner that allows for personalisation but does not limit the expectations placed upon the child. We have to use the freedom of being able to deliver a developmentally determined education to aspire to, avoiding the temptation to fit children into preconceived structures born of convenience, presumption and cliché.

Another key area of consideration is the way in which the success secured within school, within a curriculum structure, is articulated to those beyond the school. The freedom to select accreditation, or indeed choose not to use formal accreditation methods, is one that needs to be considered carefully. In a world familiar with GCSEs, A levels and degrees, the achievement, and indeed the potential, that young people leaving special schools have needs careful articulation. A successful curriculum can be compromised if society cannot see what our students are capable of and denies them opportunities as a result.

Ensuring that what is achieved within school changes lives beyond school is the real test of a school’s success. It doesn’t matter how well crafted your curriculum is - if those who succeed within the confines of the school can’t transfer that success into life, then the value of the education they have received is limited.

So, while there is a lot to celebrate about special schools and the curricula they have created, there is still a lot more to be done. Schools, and society more broadly, need to reflect carefully on whether, when it come to those with learning disabilities, an outstanding education leads to an extraordinary life.

Simon Knight is co-headteacher at Frank Wise School, Banbury

The need for more research for pupil referral units

How do you design a curriculum for a transient population? I have visited so many pupil referral unit (PRU) and alternative provision (AP) settings, and have found a huge spectrum of curriculum offers. What I have learned is that the following process is essential:

1. Ask the key questions

What is the purpose of our school? What experience do we want our children to have as a pupil at our school? What do we want our pupils to leave with?

2. Work backwards from the destination

Ask everyone those questions: starting with staff and pupils, and spreading wider to include parents/carers, school partners and further education and training providers, you can get to a point where the final destination is clearer. This enables you to start to work backwards: “So, what do our children need to be able to do in order to get there?” This is where an AP curriculum can get interesting. And exciting.

3. Address the challenges

What do you do for the children who can’t stop swearing? How do you match a curriculum to a child who has selective mutism? Or the child who has been excluded from two mainstream schools already and can’t go more than a week without causing damage to property or themselves? What about the children who come to you unable to form positive relationships?

4. Think through staffing

To what level can your current team members teach and how confident are your teaching staff about staying abreast of national initiatives and developments in the mainstream?

5. Consider necessary adaptations

Will these pupils be returning to mainstream education or will they remain in alternative provision (or do you have a mixture of both, which will bring other intricacies to your curriculum design)? If you have dual-registered pupils, what are the expectations from the schools that refer children to you? Why have the children been referred to you and what will you do to remove their barriers to learning through the curriculum?

6. What does success look like?

What evidence will you collect in order to review your curriculum offer and do you fully understand what “success” should look like?

The one lesson I have learned at every stage of designing a curriculum is that it matters. It raises attendance, it boosts staff morale and it improves outcomes. When the curriculum offer is right, it makes a difference. This is something we can’t afford to get wrong.

Leanne Forde-Nassey is headteacher of The Key Education Centre in Hampshire
 

It’s not about the theory, it’s about the community

I fully respect the theory around curriculum design and the research undertaken to underpin those theories. But as a headteacher, I serve the community. And for me, my staff and my children, community is the most crucial consideration when looking at curriculum.

That’s why it is teachers, not academics, who drive our curriculum thinking. They know our community, our families and our kids.

We decided as a group, for example, whether we would teach subjects or themes. We were all in agreement that some subjects, such as PE, needed to stand alone. Other subjects, such as science, could be used as part of a theme on occasion, but there would be times where science would also need to be taught as a stand-alone subject.

In short, we decided the best thing for our pupils was that where links could be made, we would make them, but they have to be worthwhile.

So, in Year 3, Stig of the Dump in English links perfectly with rocks in science and the Stone Age in history, but we will not be doing caveman dancing in PE.

This is how we made all our decisions: together. All stakeholders had a say and teacher voice was essential - they would deliver it, they know the children best, they are the most crucial cog in the process.

This ensures that, as part of the curriculum-building process, we reflect the knowledge and skills our community needs. The experiences my children require are different to other settings.

My children need cultural opportunities, so we involve the Northern Ballet and the Leeds Playhouse in our plans.

My children need to broaden their horizons, so having residential woodland and coastal studies is paramount - for some, this will be their only time away from the estate in the year.

My children need social experiences so, at Christmas, we enable them to see and stroke real reindeers, to observe “polar bears” patrolling the hall before seeing Santa - this has to be part of our winter curriculum.

While all this works for my school, it might be a waste in another school.

By all means read the research, but be 10 per cent braver and ensure the curriculum is yours and for your children.

Chris Dyson is headteacher at Parklands Primary School in Leeds

The Tes curriculum series

Part one: the theory - 17 May issue

Part two: theory meets practice - 24 May issue

Part three: what schools are actually doing - 31 May issue

This article originally appeared in the 24 May 2019 issue