Jon Hutchinson on knowledge-rich implementation

Rae Snape on putting relationships front and centre

Ruth Luzmore on the transdisciplinary model

Stef Edwards on where knowledge meets experience

Richard Kieran on using Mantle of the Expert

Richard Kueh on vocabulary over skills

Martin Said on expeditionary learning 

Sarah Barker on school-specific design

Andy Brown on building flexibility of outcomes

Amelia Walker on creating a foundation to build off

Shelley McLaren on personalisation 

Ruth Ashbee on substantive and disciplinary knowledge

Michaela Khatib on sequential knowledge

Oli de Botton on designing for hand, heart and head

Julie Sadler on active learning 

Craig Clarke on teacher-led reform

Putting knowledge first

A common approach to topic lessons in primary is what I would call “activity-led” learning.

Here’s how it works: a particular topic is chosen (this could be the Egyptians or something more open, such as “toys”) and then teachers spend some time thinking about which activities they can fill lessons with. Maybe they could make a pyramid out of matchboxes? Or perhaps they could design their own toy using different materials?

We used to teach topic in this way at Reach Academy, and generally felt like we were providing pupils with an engaging, enjoyable curriculum. The only problem was: they didn’t seem to be learning anything.

None of our pupils could tell us a single Roman emperor’s name, or show us where the empire extended to (though they had had fun making shields). Nobody was able to identify five countries in Europe. And pupils didn’t know the name of Islam’s holy book, and how Muslims believe it came to be written.

It was at this point that we switched to a knowledge-based curriculum. Instead of starting by planning out activities, we sketched out what we expected each child to know by the end of the unit.

Studying the Romans? The birth of the state, how the republic was established, the Punic Wars, invasions of Britain and the collapse of the Empire. This guided how we taught lessons, with the decision to utilise strategies from cognitive science to promote long-term retention of key facts.

Fun activities, such as storytelling, are still used, but they are driven by, and focused upon, the key knowledge that we want all pupils to learn.

Since taking this approach, the oracy skills of our pupils have gone through the roof. Any child in a given class can talk authoritatively and enthusiastically about their topic. And they are beginning to make links between their units, too.

“Sir, Julius Caesar is reminding me a bit of King Zhou from the Shang Dynasty here.”

The essays that each child writes at the end of a unit mean that they have an opportunity to apply their knowledge, and the pupils are rightly very proud of what they produce (often pages and pages of brilliance).

Jon Hutchinson is assistant headteacher at Reach Academy Feltham, West London

Relationships at the heart of everything

Our curriculum has been designed to ensure that our children are “happy today, fulfilled in the future and able to make their world an even better place”.

We draw our model as three interconnected circles of “skills”, “knowledge” and “character”, with “relationships” at the heart of the Venn diagram.

We developed this model over time, connecting with the education ecosystem, learning with and from others, in this country and across the globe. This included introducing a range of research-informed pedagogies, programmes and innovations and working with a number of individuals and partner organisations.

So, what does our model look like?

Examples of our approach include Dialogic Literary Gatherings (also known as DLGs). The children read a classic abridged text such as Don Quixote, The Iliad or Great Expectations, and, having read an agreed number of pages at home, come to sit together in a circle to discuss the themes in the book. This activity not only improves academic outcomes but also develops pro-social skills.

Another example is MindUp, created by Goldie Hawn. Through the programme, the children learn about basic neuroscience and positive psychology, as well as mindfulness techniques.

Then we have the Big Count; the children are grouped into 16 House Families and work in mixed-aged groups to solve a set of mathematical problems. The older children model mathematical problem-solving at the same time as demonstrating leadership and showing younger children how to work collaboratively in interactive groups.

Our pupils do very well academically (and perform well in standardised tests). We describe ourselves as “pragmaticians” and it is important to us, and to the children and parents whom we work with, that our pupils have sustainable study skills to “ace the tests” and that they leave us with high standards in the “core subjects” (reading, writing, maths ... and ukulele).

But we also have high expectations for pro-social skills and other global competencies: communication, collaboration, critical and creative thinking, citizenship and character.

Rae Snape is headteacher and a national leader of education at The Spinney Primary School, Cambridgeshire. The Spinney is an Ashoka Changemaker School, promoting empathy, creativity, teamwork, leadership and change-making. She is also an ambassador for Hundred, which is based in Finland

Transdisciplinary learning

When we first opened, we chose to follow the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme and, while we are no longer an IB partner, we have continued to use a number of its principles in our curriculum design and delivery for foundation subjects.

We acknowledge the importance of traditional subjects, but did not find that adequate connections were made across disciplines, which can lead to the idea that events and ideas that are worth studying happen in isolation. That is simply not reflective of reality.

In addition, the sheer volume of objectives in the national curriculum also led to a cramming approach, with teachers struggling to fit it all in.

Therefore, we use six transdisciplinary themes to deliver the foundation curriculum through units of inquiry, which are supported by the knowledge and skills of traditional subjects. Supporting this are transdisciplinary concepts, presented in the form of key questions that shape the unit, giving it direction and purpose.

Though we expect there to be core knowledge that pupils will have, there is also the freedom and space to be flexible about the context of learning within a unit. Teachers are responsive to interests; specialisms; local, national and global events; and opportunities in their planning.

For example, one transdisciplinary theme is “how we organise ourselves”. In Year 3, this is delivered through a unit on hierarchy and social structures within societies. Some years, teachers may use the Egyptians as the context for this, but in other years it could be Medieval England. Choices of context are made in conjunction with senior leaders.

This approach is exciting and gives a real agency to pupils and staff, but I would offer some caveats to school leaders thinking about it. A number of our teachers have taught internationally and are experienced and trained in dynamic curricula - this is not for every teacher and we are careful in our recruitment.

It requires engagement in regular assessment of pupil knowledge, and discussion about the contexts and content that will be taught. For those used to delivering the national curriculum, it is different, but it delivers pupils who are knowledgeable, articulate and reflective.

Ruth Luzmore is head at St Mary Magdalene Academy, a primary school in North London

Mixing knowledge with real-world experience

The project to design a Learn Academies Trust (Learn-AT) curriculum framework was launched in August 2017. Headteachers and curriculum leaders began by spending a year reading and debating curriculum literature, with texts from academics including Gert Biesta, ED Hirsch and Michael Young, and educationalists such as Ron Berger.

All this fed into the Learn-AT Curriculum and Pedagogy Framework, which was published in July 2018 - a statement of vision and agreed principles to inform schools’ bespoke curriculum designs. It combines an emphasis on oracy with detailed planning of substantive, disciplinary and procedural “powerful” knowledge, subject by subject.

We practise pedagogies that secure mastery, coherent connections and remembering, alongside rich experiences, pupil engagement and authentic purposes with relevance to the world in which we live.

Teachers promote deeper learning by providing contextualised opportunities for pupils to develop skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, creativity, character and citizenship.

We think these skills are timeless, essential human skills of ingenuity that have supported human development and success throughout millennia. We don’t think, as some seem to, that they’re specific to the 21st century.

Synthesising knowledge-rich and engaging, world-relevant curricula in a primary context in Learn-AT means planning the curriculum in meticulous detail. This includes integrating opportunities and experiences to engage children in purposeful, meaningful learning, to develop non-cognitive capacities such as resilience and self-regulation, and to nurture the ability to collaborate or an understanding of citizenship.

For example, our schools have well-established school councils, and teachers try to build pupil voice into assessment, feedback and lesson study. Several of our schools have thriving choirs and ensembles, where children learn the power of practice and the achievement of public performance.

Teachers also identify authentic audiences for writing: for example, Year 4 pupils in one school published their work about the history of the town and sold copies of their books in the local branch of Waterstones.

One of our village primaries, meanwhile, is a committed eco-school and children monitor its energy use, recycle, grow their own produce, keep chickens and sell eggs.

In other schools, pupils have written about global issues, such as children’s entitlement to education, and sent their letters to world leaders.

Building in opportunities like these is part of a teacher’s pedagogical toolkit. We don’t teach creativity or critical thinking in isolation. Teachers seek creative ways to teach children what they need to learn about and how to do things, according to a coherent plan, so that they enjoy their learning, think critically about it, remember it and understand how it might apply to life.

Now, two years into a three-year programme, we are beginning to see evidence of impact in the quality of children’s writing across the curriculum and in their ability to talk confidently about their learning.

My single piece of advice would be not to take short cuts. Of course, it’s also sensible not to reinvent wheels; to share resources and collaborate. There is no substitute, though, for deep thinking about why, what and how.

Stef Edwards is the leader of Learn Academies Trust, a Diocese of Leicester mixed Church of England and community charitable educational trust of 10 primaries based in south Leicestershire

How role play gives children excitement and ownership

In 2010, it was a time of change - schools had been consulted, had planned and were preparing for a new curriculum. So there was a demand within our school for change. We opted to fully embrace Mantle of the Expert as part of that process.

Mantle of the Expert is an approach to support the teaching of the curriculum, rather than a curriculum itself. It uses drama and inquiry to create meaningful and purposeful activities for learning. The method works by having the students take on the role of an expert team that is commissioned by a client - within a fictional context - to perform specific tasks that involve problem-solving and dealing with a predesigned situation.

The carefully planned tasks inside and outside of the fictional context provide children with opportunities to study the curriculum - often in great depth. However, there is far more to a school curriculum than a pedagogical approach. Mantle of the Expert is used judiciously to avoid constructing a contrived curriculum.

Teachers saw that working this way could be worthwhile. They saw that children were interested, they wanted to write, they liked the idea of problems and tension. It meant that children could have a point of view; they had ownership of their learning. The fictional contexts were our stories.

Teachers were encouraged to visit schools that used the approach and then have a go back at Woodrow. Our approach to planning is collegiate and we do our utmost to share with each other what has worked (and hasn’t). There is also a responsive and talented team of trainers whom we rely on and call upon to support our development.

Chris Husbands and Jo Pearce’s research on nine great pedagogies (2012), from the UCL Institute of Education, has helped us to shape and review our reasons as to why Mantle of the Expert should be at the heart of our curriculum.

Children dig deep when working with their Mantles, and they are its strongest advocates. We have been through two successful Ofsted inspections with Mantle; progress is clear in books and when talking with children - they know lots and can recall lots as a result of the stories that they’ve told together. Parents are supportive. Most important of all, our teachers and children say they wouldn’t have it any other way.

In 10 years, we have welcomed more than 500 visitors to see how we teach and what we teach, and in this time we have never repeated a Mantle.

Richard Kieran is headteacher at Woodrow First School, Worcestershire

Vocabulary and knowledge as the pillars of a curriculum

The Inspiration Trust primary foundation curriculum can be thought of as an intelligent attempt to offer a subject-based, knowledge-rich curriculum to support disadvantaged pupils at key stage 2.

It prioritises the teaching of specific vocabulary over the teaching of generic skills or topics. The model was rooted in the experiences of teachers and leaders working with disadvantaged pupils: how might the curriculum empower these pupils and enable them to achieve outcomes in line with their non-disadvantaged peers?

Wishing to work collaboratively, we built a partnership of 12 primary schools across the East of England, across four different academy trusts, who would trial this curriculum with us.

Drawing on educational research and discussions with school leaders, it was felt that pupils needed rich and diverse knowledge if they were to make sense of common but challenging words such as “paradise”, “cell”, “republic”, “symbol”, “glacier”, “official” or “throne” as confident, fluent readers.

The idea was, through subjects, to develop literacy, not narrowly “teach” literacy, as is common at KS2. This wasn’t going to be about teaching to the test, but instead about pupils possessing the intellectual framework for confident reading and writing.

So our subject specialists identified key vocabulary: tier 3 words (vocabulary with specific meanings in subject-specific contexts) and tier 2 words (general academic vocabulary that could appear in many subjects). Then the sophisticated task began.

We sequenced the curriculum in such a way to enable pupils to make optimal impact. We wanted to make clear the gains that could be made all the way across the curriculum: horizontally within a subject (“Oh look, the study of continents in the Autumn term helps us to make sense of the location of plastic gyres we’re exploring in the Spring term!”; “Oh, here’s how the narratives of the ancient world from last year link to the medieval period this year!”); vertically between subjects (“Oh, here’s how the study of the Roman Empire in Year 4 history links to the origins of Christianity in Year 4 RE!”); and diagonally across subjects and across years (“Oh, here’s a link between non-religious world views in Year 4 RE and the decline of religion in Europe in Year 5 history.”).

Mindful of teacher workload, our priority was to offer strong levels of resourcing and training. Our subject specialists produced pupil materials, teacher support booklets, classroom materials and resources to enable staff to work with the whole range of pupils. CPD was key. Training days supported subject knowledge enhancement. We became embedded in primary settings to support teachers enacting the curriculum.

Drawing on the expertise of partner teachers, a feedback loop between teachers enacting the curriculum and subject specialists designing subsequent units made the process collaborative.

With two post-doctoral research associates attached to the project, the success of the model is of paramount interest. Teachers tell us that it has made an impact on pupil oracy and the quality of written work. Pupils have got something stimulating, substantial and deep to talk and to write about.

Beyond this, teachers say that the wraparound CPD training has been a profound source of professional development.

As part of the Department for Education’s Strategic School Improvement Fund, we are researching the long-term impact of this broad curriculum in boosting reading standards for disadvantaged pupils. Although we are still in the process of gathering data, the initial outcomes look promising.

Curriculum design is clearly currently at the forefront of discussion in the world of education.

The single most important piece of advice I’d give to any prospective curriculum designer is that a curriculum without a complementary model of teacher development will surely become ossified.

Curriculum development is teacher development.

Dr Richard Kueh is head of primary curriculum and teacher development at Inspiration Trust

Could expedition learning be the holy grail?

The curriculum at XP is value-driven, standards-based and teacher-led in terms of its design. We use the national curriculum and core GCSE standards at key stage 3 and 4 to guide us as to which areas we cover in depth.

Our approach is to teach this knowledge and skills-based content through cross-subject learning expeditions. Each expedition is rigorously mapped against the standards above to ensure coverage and depth.

Our model is most akin to Expeditionary Learning schools in the US, which have elements of project-based learning as part of a wider learning expedition, including an immersion event, a guiding question and case studies involving fieldwork, leading to an authentic culminating product that is exhibited publicly.

There are other examples of project-based learning models, such as High-Tech High schools, from which we have learned, too.

An important distinction between HTH’s model and ours is that HTH projects start with the culminating product as the initial idea and then standards are mapped based on what knowledge and skills are needed to produce that artefact. In our case, and in EL schools, we start with the standards and design learning expeditions that will illuminate those standards.

Our curriculum design is a product of our design principles, which are:

• A common mission
• Connect with the world
• Personalisation
• Teachers as learners
• Language is our culture

The model at XP was developed through visiting other schools, synthesis of our research and working alongside a school designer from EL education to develop our design principles and, in turn, our curriculum.

Iteratively, we have developed the model through further engagement with research, peer-to-peer staff learning, fine-tuning of learning expedition ideas, repetition of learning expeditions and expedition review. Each learning expedition is reviewed by our staff “crew”, using a set of criteria, which then inform not just future versions of the expedition but also our curricular model and pedagogy as a whole.

When we do have visitors at the school, they often remark about the challenges of being able to reproduce a similar model in their own contexts, often impinged, as they see it, by scale, inertia or by perceived accountability measures preventing them from taking risks.

My advice would be that, just as is the case with EL and HTH schools, ours is a model, and to try to separate our curriculum from our pedagogy and from our culture is difficult because they are all so closely intertwined.

We would not suggest to anyone that they should pick up our model wholesale and try to replicate it in their context. Determine, as a school, what it is that you stand for, and how this will help your students to succeed, and then develop your curriculum around these ideals.

Martin Said is head of school at XP School in Doncaster

‘Our school’s core values are the DNA of our curriculum’

Rather than subscribing to a preordained model, we are building our new curriculum around fundamental, underlying principles. We see these as the “DNA” of our curriculum - they thread through everything we do. These are the core values of our school, as well as literacy and leadership. They underpin everything that we do, at all levels of the curriculum.

In terms of our approach to the content of our curriculum, we’re starting to use a “spiral” model; our students will build upon existing knowledge and concepts as they work their way through the key stages, strengthening and increasing their knowledge and understanding as they go.

We are using Threshold Concepts. These are transformative concepts that, once understood, shift a student’s way of viewing the subject area - they’re “portals” to the next stage of learning. We are using these as underlying principles for curriculum development. We are mapping these across our whole-school curriculum, in order to ensure that the “spiral” progresses logically, and is challenging and relevant.

We have opened up a strong dialogue between our middle leaders; they’re our strongest force in terms of the development of our curriculum content. They’re identifying links and connections in and between their subject areas, so that the curriculum offered to our students is rich and fulfilling.

This is currently the most rewarding - but most challenging - element. It is our intention that our curriculum will continue to grow and develop: curating it will be an ongoing process. We’re identifying subject experts within faculties for this, to ensure excellent, high-quality content.

I would advise any school curriculum leader to consider the school’s principles and values before moving forward with curriculum planning. Each school has a nuanced context, so lifting a model from elsewhere is unlikely to fit.

Sarah Barker is assistant headteacher and teacher of English at Orchard School, Bristol

Tearing up the timetable to offer 21st-century learning

At Kingussie High School, we believe that a progressive and relevant curriculum, with high-quality learning and teaching, leads to motivated and successful learners.

We quickly realised that it is virtually impossible to fit all the requirements of a 2019 curriculum into a traditional timetable model, so we explored a different approach to deliver a curriculum of which we can be proud. Essentially, we redesigned our school day. We offer a full range of “traditional subjects” at Kingussie High School that operate alongside our other “less traditional” offerings, which are as follows.

We embedded “Reading for Pleasure” into a short period for all pupils. We also incorporated a weekly assembly for S1-3 (equivalent to Year 7 to Year 9 in England), which sits against Personal Support Time for S4-6 (equivalent to Year 10 to Year 12) pupils. The following day the year groups reverse.

Our Broad General Education runs until the end of S3 and consists of the following elements.

We developed an S2/3 elective where we timetable both year groups into mixed-age classes. This allows for curricular personalisation and ensures that students receive a longer block of time to examine a subject in more depth. The electives include: film studies, computing science, and School of Sport.

In S3 we then offer electives in home economics, art and music, which offer students opportunities to extend their skills for potential future qualifications.

Rota classes are utilised to ensure breadth of delivery and for pupils to experience subjects they may choose in future. In S3, we timetable a rota involving rural skills, digital passport and Gaidhlig (Scottish Gaelic).

We then have “Flexible Timetable”, which runs over a double period, with the purpose being to develop skills through rich experiences. During this time, pupils in S1-2 work on various interdisciplinary projects such as “Make £5 Grow” (make-5-grow.co.uk) and “The Youth and Philanthropy Initiative” (visit bit.ly/YouthPhil for more details).

S3 undertake a selection of subjects on a rota, such as art and home economics.

Our S4 receive Core PE during this time, while S5-6 have the opportunity to undertake elective units, which include the Scottish Baccalaureate Project “Sociology: Culture and Identity and Experimental Procedures”.

Technically, we run off a “35-period model” (although some are not full 50-minute periods), which means that Reading for Pleasure, Assembly, Personal Support Time and Flexible Timetable take up five periods out of our 35 periods.

In terms of attainment, we have noticed continued improvements in literacy and numeracy and in general attainment across the board to stay above our virtual comparators.

Partnerships are vital to the delivery of our curriculum, especially if we want it to be properly tailored to our local context. We work closely with local estates to deliver our rural skills programme, which has proved successful for many years. We have enhanced our senior phase curriculum through continued partnership working with the University of the Highlands and Islands to co-deliver an HNC in sports coaching and developing sport and an NC in activity tourism.

The delivery model is flexible and, through inventive timetabling, we ensure that the effect on other subjects is minimised.

National Progression Awards are used in our senior phase curriculum to extend our qualification offering. This year we have run NPAs in subjects such as achieving excellence in sport and digital passport.

Our focus for the future is system leadership. At the heart of system leadership is the notion that all professionals within a school think of children in other schools as just as important as children in their own schools. We have placed an emphasis on networked sharing and we have sought endorsement from students, staff and parents to place sharing at the core of Kingussie High School.

Andy Brown is deputy headteacher at Kingussie High School in the Scottish Highlands

‘Tidying up’ the learning

“Doing curriculum” feels a lot like watching Marie Kondo: you get excited about tidying and then open the junk drawer in the kitchen. The concept sounds so easy, but the reality is much messier.

In our trust, we committed early on not to simply standardise the curriculum across the schools. What we want to achieve is putting a floor, not a ceiling, on practice. Time will tell if we succeed.

The starting point was to agree shared curriculum principles. Curriculum should rest on a defensible theory of knowledge. So that sits underneath our principles.

On top of that, we have agreed our own definition of curriculum, what parents and pupils can expect from our curriculum, core aims that all schools will adopt, and some quality criteria for curriculum plans, schemes and models of assessment.

This was all possible because of the group of middle leaders from across the trust who made up our working party. They’re the sounding board. They have kicked the tyres on the principles and are leading the thinking on how we put them into practice.

We also had a school volunteer to be our first guinea pig. Tamsin Poulter is principal at Cliff Park Ormiston Academy in Great Yarmouth and she generously offered up her school to be a test bed for new ideas about the curriculum. Staff at all levels in Cliff Park have been meeting at intervals to look in depth at what the theory means for real in the classroom.

Having agreed principles, this term, we will be putting together a “toolkit” to give practitioners examples, guidance and resources for putting the principles into practice. We also have groups across the trust who will be developing more in-depth curriculum resources.

Rachel Kitley, at Cowes Enterprise College on the Isle of Wight, is leading work to develop an innovative universal key stage 3 curriculum that marries a key island industry (maritime) with a knowledge pathway across several academic subjects, culminating in a design and technology-led boat-building project.

We have also been fortunate to have been awarded £2 million by the Big Lottery and Ormiston Trust, and some of this will fund what we hope will be a world-class PSHE and career curriculum and a technology-enabled approach to assessment that will look holistically at the whole child, as well as the whole curriculum.

Amelia Walker is national director of strategy and quality improvement at Ormiston Academies Trust

Flexibility is the key for an inclusive curriculum

Last year in Scotland, 26.7 per cent of all 18-year-olds gained a place at university (Ucas, 2018). This was a great achievement for some of the young people in our country who will likely have been successful by following the same curriculum process that we did when we were younger.

However, it is important that, for the other 75 per cent of young people, there is an appropriate curriculum pathway - at school - for them to reach their full potential. We must also ensure that equal weighting (and appreciation) is given to the achievements of those for whom university is not the final destination.

Our aim at Craigroyston is to ensure that the curriculum is varied, exciting and, most importantly, inclusive at all ages, stages and levels. A young person can come to our school and do a mixture of National 3s, National 4s and other awards until the end of S6 (equivalent to Year 12 in England); equally, they can choose to do N5s, Highers or Advanced Highers in almost any subject.

The key to making this flexibility work is time, creativity and knowing our learners.

Approximately 10 per cent of our young people go on to university - therefore the curriculum must reflect this. Our university candidates are given every opportunity to succeed - but the curriculum also caters for the other 90 per cent, too.

Around 25 per cent of our students have English as an additional language, so in Broad General Education and senior phase they can be coursed into an English for speakers of other languages class. This gives our EAL pupils the time for immersion in all other subjects, but also gives them the opportunity to work on their English in a place where their confidence can grow.

Around 15 per cent of our young people arrive in S1 with significant literacy and numeracy difficulties, so the curriculum they experience must provide for that with smaller class sizes, nurture and opportunities for targeted, embedded group work.

In short, the curriculum is provided for the young people in front of us - not who we may expect to have.

As such, our curriculum is evaluated annually, which means listening to both staff and pupils - and really listening, not just ticking the self-evaluation box. If the curriculum becomes stale, then so does the learning and teaching, and with that the experiences of our young people. It underpins everything we do.

This session, for example, we have noted that our S6 curriculum doesn’t provide enough opportunities for our young people who may have peaked at certain levels or in certain curricular areas, so we need to make a change. Next session we are introducing S6 Journalism, S6 ESOL leadership and sociology, to name but a few.

Time and creativity play important roles in making this happen. This session, we used the January in-service day for evaluation and discussion, and protected time is given during the month of May to focus on the development of any new qualifications. Our teachers are encouraged to be creative and flexible - the young people are in front of them each day, so they know what works.

To widen our curriculum, we have built relationships with partners who can help us to provide our young people with opportunities that will not only enhance their skills for employability but also secure a robust, sustained positive destination after school. This year, some of our S6 pupils have worked successfully with Standard Life, Apex and Leonardo. Four of these young people have now secured an apprenticeship or job with these companies.

We have also recently built a partnership with Columba 1400, a leadership academy. We work together to deliver the Craigroyston Columbans. This course is for our Senior Phase pupils who need additional support with literacy, numeracy and self-confidence. It helps them to develop their life skills; they experience a week away from home on the Isle of Skye and gain a SQA Leadership Award.

We use the curriculum as an approach to inclusion. Like using differentiation within a class, we look at our learners as a whole and think about how we can support and challenge them using the curriculum. It’s not a bolt-on or add-on or tick box. Whatever is delivered is embedded within the curriculum. It’s real, it’s inclusive and, most importantly, it benefits all our young people.

Shelley McLaren is headteacher at Craigroyston Community High School in Edinburgh

Cognitive science and a ‘knowledge’ curriculum

We have been very influenced by the work of Professor Michael Young (see Tes’ “How to build a curriculum: part one”, 17 May) and his claim of entitlement to knowledge for all students.

We believe our curriculum should equip students to pursue further study at the most elite level, should they choose to, to participate as educated citizens in a democracy and to experience the beauty and wonder of being able to explain the world around us.

What does this look like in the classroom?

After carefully sequencing all our units throughout key stages 3 and 4, we plan each unit around a pupil booklet with carefully crafted explanations and lots of practice questions, drawing on principles from cognitive science, such as dual coding and elaboration.

We’ve paid careful attention to the roles of substantive and disciplinary knowledge, threshold concepts and concrete examples. We have scheduled retrieval practice homeworks and quizzes, and all our summative tests sample the entire course taught to date, so that students understand the difference between short-term performance and long-term learning, and revise everything that they have learned rather than just the most recent unit.

The introduction of the model took place in several stages. First, we introduced our curricular vision to the team and agreed it as our guiding principle. Then the postholders within the department agreed the macro-sequencing of the units and the attributes of the unit planning we wanted to include - ie, what we wanted to teach and in what order.

The next step was to create some exemplar booklets to share with the department. Having shared these, we then asked staff to volunteer for units to write explanations and questions. We collated these and put them together into the booklets in order to quality-assure them while still maintaining the collaborative element.

It’s been an incredibly successful and rewarding project - it’s far from finished but it’s a very motivating type of work for all involved.

Our advice to leaders? Put knowledge first, and see where it leads you. You won’t be disappointed.

Ruth Ashbee is lead practitioner for curriculum at The Telford Priory School in Shropshire. She blogs at rosalindwalker.wordpress.com and tweets @Rosalindphys 

Hand, heart and head

We have a mission to empower young people to take on the world. There are two underlying assumptions here:

1. Schools should foster academic and personal growth.
2. Freedom is a legitimate goal for education. When people act on the world and are not acted upon, they exercise freedom.

When thinking about our curriculum, we wanted to make sure that it could fulfil the mission. We wanted a broad, big and expansive offer - a curriculum of the head, heart and hand.

A curriculum of the head is about making sure that children have the key building blocks of knowledge in subject disciplines. Subjects are pathways to a truth about the world and are, therefore, important to student empowerment.

In practice, this means more time for reading, writing and maths in the early years, and a focus on history, science and Spanish throughout the school. The richness and criticality comes from a curriculum that can zoom out to see the big ideas - evolution, revolution, the aesthetic - while zooming into the key facts and skills.

A curriculum of the heart asks children to discover who they are so they can make informed choices about their future. In practice, this means dedicated “coaching time” across the school, whereby small(er) groups explore themes that matter to them, often drawing insight from texts and using oracy as a tool to find their voice.

A curriculum of the hand fosters a hands-on approach to learning and prioritises creativity - starting from the arts subjects but going well beyond.

Examples of recent projects include Year 9 low literacy students using their maths and oracy to persuade the Olympic legacy company not to build a concrete factory on the Olympic Park or Year 12s Kickstarter-funding a documentary about homelessness and hosting a pre-launch conference for all local stakeholders to discuss the issue.

Perhaps what underpins all this work on curriculum is a belief that children can do extraordinary things at school and that the best way to find empowerment in the future is to find it now.

Oli de Botton is headteacher and co-founder of School 21 in Stratford, East London

Sequential learning from Reception to sixth form

As original proposer and executive head of Cobham Free School (CFS), an all-through establishment founded in 2012, I have had the privilege of devising and implementing a new curriculum from scratch.

The cross-phase nature of the school gave us the opportunity to take a fresh look at how knowledge acquisition can be logically sequenced from Reception through to sixth form. Hence, the meticulous planning of curriculum content to ensure progression, coupled with appropriate choice of courses, has been a central consideration in developing and growing the school.

At CFS, we have felt it important to provide a broad curriculum based on a traditional range of courses, aspiring for almost all students to achieve the English Baccalaureate at key stage 4. Languages are valued, with French taught by a specialist throughout primary phase, and Latin and Spanish are part of the curriculum for pupils from Year 7 upwards.

Sport is also a key feature of our offer, and we have formed links with local organisations (Chelsea Football Club Foundation and Cobham Rugby Club) to help achieve our aims in this subject area.

Developing a culture-rich environment, where the arts can flourish alongside core EBacc subjects, has been a high priority, influencing the original vision for CFS.

Music has particular prominence within the curriculum, recognising the research that cites the associated benefits for cognitive and social development. Taught by specialists from Reception upwards, solid foundations in the basic musical elements are established early on, before we gradually introduce more complex material. All pupils have string tuition in Year 1 with the world-famous Yehudi Menuhin School, and have an option to continue lessons throughout the primary years.

The choice expands to include brass and woodwind from Year 7. Significantly, singing pervades the CFS community, with pupils being exposed to a variety of genres and approaches; they progress from learning simple melodic patterns during early years to performing increasingly demanding works as they journey through the school.

To achieve our goal to develop a cohesive, knowledge-based curriculum, we have ensured that colleagues share expertise across the phases, with senior department specialists planning the content in collaboration with primary teachers. Inset has provided the chance to explore the various theoretical perspectives of a knowledge-based approach; the implications for classroom practice; and the particular benefits for disadvantaged pupils.

As is typical of many free schools, CFS is currently based in temporary accommodation. However, our sixth form, offering traditional facilitating subjects, will be opening in September in a smart new permanent site, designed to meet our curricular needs. With Years 3 to 11 relocating there in the future, even more possibilities for cross-phase teaching and knowledge-sharing will be enabled, and I am looking forward to this next exciting chapter in the school’s history.

Michaela Khatib is executive head and founder of Cobham Free School in Surrey

Active learning helps student engagement

St Andrew’s College is based within a secure child and adolescent mental health (Camhs) setting. The residential provision can take up to 110 patients, and all have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983. Every young person within the hospital has access to education, as well as personalised therapy and treatment from an on-site multi-disciplinary team.

Last year, more than 450 qualifications were achieved by these adolescents. Despite our youngsters being very poorly, it is imperative that we offer a curriculum that is not only bespoke, but also offers engagement and opportunity, and contributes to their recovery and journey onwards. Many of our learners have had poor experiences at school, poor attendance, significant gaps in knowledge, and bad relationships with teachers.

We reviewed our model of delivery last year, and are now offering what we call an “Activ8” curriculum. We encourage our learners to participate in eight different subject areas, making delivery as active as possible to promote a less sedentary approach.

As far as possible, this is in groups because it also contributes towards recovery. We try and find a specific hook of interest with each young person to get them engaged in their own learning, which often leads to them wanting more education.

The eight subject areas are literacy, numeracy, science, art, technology, vocational, physical and PSHE. Qualifications are targeted at the appropriate level, whether that be Unit Awards, Functional Skills, GCSEs or even A levels - our cohort has that broad range of ability.

We are delighted that some of our learning disorder patients are achieving a diploma in life and living skills by focusing on the Activ8 model.

We have project and enrichment days that support the curriculum, and we focus on celebrating achievement, promoting confidence and encouraging a more enquiring approach to education generally.

We are unique in our setting and expertise, but to any provision reflecting on embarking on curriculum review, I would offer the following advice: consider the finished product and how it can be reached in the most flexible and creative way to promote engagement, self-esteem and independence, and let the journey to the achievement be as relevant as the destination.

Julie Sadler is headteacher at St Andrew’s College in Northampton

Put teachers at the centre of curriculum planning

For the past six years, we have been working to create our own bespoke curriculum framework. We wanted a curriculum that enabled us to pinpoint the specific skills that we need to teach our pupils, but at the same time allow our teachers to think creatively about how they teach them.

We believe that by putting teachers at the centre of the curriculum development processes, this provides excellent professional development. By sharing expertise and discussing the principles behind assessments and curricula, teachers are empowered to prioritise the learning of every individual.

We reviewed a number of special school curricula as a starting point and cherry-picked the bits that work best for our students and our school and, ultimately, align with our school’s values.

Previously, teaching was being directed by schemes that were fairly generic for all pupils, alongside teachers attempting to differentiate directly from the national curriculum.

We began to change this process by identifying up to six priorities for each curriculum area that were relevant to our cohort of pupils. This became the foundation for our curriculum framework and has now evolved to a comprehensive skills-based curriculum, underpinned by assessment tools.

We began by considering the strengths of our own practice to date, which formed the backbone of the initial document. From here, we were able to augment bits from other schools’ curricula or principles of teaching children from other professionals. This included speaking with speech and language therapists and occupational therapists, for example.

There’s something incredibly empowering about having a document created by the teaching team that drives all teaching and learning in school. As well as ensuring that we are providing the best educational outcomes for our students, the curriculum has driven lots of excellent professional development across our team.

At all stages, a collaborative approach that puts teachers at the centre of curriculum planning is important to ensure that there is a shared vision. It is also about developing a deep understanding in all teachers of how children with learning difficulties can learn and develop.

Craig Clarke is deputy headteacher at Bardwell School in Bicester, Oxfordshire

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 31 May 2019 issue under the headline “How to build a curriculum: part three”