When Nadhim Zahawi announced the expansion of Oak National Academy into a new arms-length national curriculum body, he gave two reasons for the decision: cutting teacher workload and improving lesson quality.

The new body will provide teachers with ready-made curriculum maps and lesson resources, so his first aim seems an obvious sell. But what about the second? Can centralised resources really improve teaching?

Speaking at the Association of School and College Leaders conference in March, the education secretary explained that, as well as deterring teachers from “reinventing the wheel”, he hoped the new Oak would offer a good practice model for “improving lessons immeasurably”.

It sounds like a simple shortcut to better teaching - so simple, in fact, that plenty have already tried it.

Schools have been using centralised curriculum resources of one kind or another for decades: a large multi-academy trust (MAT) might devise its own centralised scheme to roll out across several schools, while an individual school might buy in something externally produced. Within that, there will be varying levels of prescription but what these resources have in common is that, instead of teachers designing a sequence of lessons themselves, at least part of that process happens collectively.

What’s different about Oak is Department for Education (DfE) backing. While Zahawi has stressed that the materials are “entirely optional” and “will not be mandated by Ofsted”, the government’s funding commitment to Oak, outlined in the recent Schools White Paper, has some people worried.

The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), for instance, has challenged the government over the absence of “clear evidence” for the proposals - even suggesting it might seek a judicial review over the lack of “due process”. Meanwhile, Dame Alison Peacock and Cat Scutt, of the Chartered College of Teaching, have raised concerns about the new body “narrowing the concept of what excellent teaching is”.

However, Emma McCrea, Oak’s head of curriculum, points out that their lessons are designed to be flexible rather than being used as a full curriculum that is “prescribed across all schools”.

“While there are lesson resources that teachers can use as a supportive, helpful starting point, they will be fully adaptable,” she explains. “We’re completely optional, which hopefully ticks that autonomy point, which is the main drawback of a centralised curriculum.”

Leaving the specifics of Oak aside, does the evidence support the proposal that centralised curricula make lessons better? Academic research in this area is thin on the ground. However, two studies from the US around “scripted” teaching - in which teachers are provided with a pre-prepared framework for their lessons - offer some interesting insights.

‘While there are lesson resources that teachers can use as a supportive, helpful starting point, they will be fully adaptable’

In 2011, Barbara Beatty, professor emerita of education at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, analysed teachers’ reactions to four types of centralised “scripted” curriculum, including Direct Instruction and Montessori pedagogy.

She found that, when teachers chose which “script” they used and received training, they were happy to use it and felt it supported their teaching. “Tensions” arose only when teachers weren’t given any choice or prior training.

Rocio Dresser, an associate professor in elementary education at San José State University, also highlights the importance of autonomy. In a study in 2012, she looked at teachers’ reactions to two externally designed curriculum programmes in literacy.

Dresser found the introduction of the programmes left teachers “feeling powerless and overwhelmed”, and concluded that “scripted programmes keep education and learning at a superficial level” because teachers and students can’t innovate or deviate from plans.

Closer to home, a recent impact report into Oak National Academy revealed more positive findings: 56 per cent of teachers using the resources agreed that the quality of their in-person lesson delivery had improved as a result; 58 per cent agreed that their planning had improved; and 61 per cent reported that using Oak’s resources had saved them time.

Schools using own schemes

There are also schools in the UK that are using their own centralised curriculum schemes.

David Andrews is the director of curriculum at Outwood Grange MAT, where a centralised curriculum has now been in place for three years across 12 primary schools.

Working in collaboration with subject leads, he designed curriculum plans for each subject, outlining the core knowledge and skills. Teachers are provided with a resource bank for each unit and, in some cases, there are specific explanations, which they are expected to use word for word.

“We’re talking about scripting in a very broad sense: it’s about the sequence of learning,” says Andrews. “We give that so we can ensure the children are building on knowledge and skills over time. We focus a lot on what the core vocabulary is for each lesson, and teachers can innovate around that, but the core is fixed.”

The approach appears to have worked: across all the primary schools in the trust, children are exceeding the national average in all key stages.

Lee Wilson, the primary chief executive, says it gives all students equal access to an outstanding curriculum. Teaching has improved, he explains, because staff are no longer pressured to create lessons from scratch in areas they may not be confident in.

“Gone are the days where teachers have a blank piece of paper on Sunday afternoon, struggling to create a unit of work for primary literacy,” he says. “Our teachers really appreciate having a starting point; a scripted scaffold. As a primary teacher trying to plan 12 subjects, I would have given anything for that.”

Other trusts are trialling similar approaches. Ark MAT, for example, has created a range of “mastery” programmes, which are available to teachers across the country.

Nick Wallace is the head of secondary English at Ark Curriculum+, the trust’s social enterprise specialising in curriculum development, and he developed the secondary English mastery programme.

“English mastery is a resourced curriculum but not a planned curriculum: there is a real, clear distinction,” he says. “We offer teachers a suite of planning tools, guidance, classroom and teaching materials, homework tasks, quizzes, ‘reteach’ activities and standardised scripts so they can teach a fantastic curriculum.”

’Rather than spending their time writing PowerPoint decks and model answers, teachers can engage with the curriculum content’

At no point, he stresses, is there an obligation to teach the lesson in the prescribed way.

“Teachers are supported to plan in better ways: rather than spending their time, their weekends and their evenings, writing PowerPoint decks, model answers and planning lessons - all of which are bureaucratic exercises - they can engage with the curriculum content and concentrate on bringing learning to life,” he adds.

The impact is demonstrated in an evidence review, published in April by the Education Endowment Foundation. The majority of school teachers (80 per cent) said that English mastery reduced their workload in relation to planning and marking, while 74 per cent were satisfied with the overall programme.

The report also concluded that “some more experienced teachers reported limited buy-in to the programme, as they felt it was too prescriptive, and reduced their opportunity to be creative when planning and delivering lessons.”

These findings echo those of Beatty and Dresser: when teachers feel restricted and deskilled, the programmes are unlikely to be a success.

Not a quick fix

Overall, then, the evidence - anecdotal and from research - presents a mixed picture.

According to John Tomsett, education consultant and former headteacher of Huntington School in York, this is to be expected, as centralised resources will never be a quick fix.

“The curriculum is a never-ending thing you tweak to make your own. No centralised scheme is the final answer to really good lessons; it’s a combination of what you teach and then how you teach it,” he says.

Curriculum expert Mary Myatt agrees. If teachers are to be “responsive to the children in front of them”, they will always need to find ways to “amplify the resources”, she says.

For that reason, we can’t assume centralised resources will automatically improve teaching or save teachers time, points out Lekha Sharma, head of lower school in an all-through academy.

“In my experience, resources often have to be heavily adapted to suit the context you’re working in, and for the children to really be able to access and engage with it, and that takes time,” she says.

Does this mean that centralised schemes aren’t worth using? According to Sharma, it isn’t that clear cut.

’The curriculum is a never-ending thing you tweak to make your own - no centralised scheme is the final answer to really good lessons’

“A centralised curriculum, in certain contexts, is absolutely what a school needs to make sure they’re able to focus on the teaching and the delivery,” she says.

Something like Oak, she adds, has the potential to be “an absolute godsend” to schools that aren’t part of a larger network that facilitates collaboration, or without a skilled member of staff in charge of curriculum design and delivery.

Schools struggling with recruitment may also find it particularly helpful to lean on a centralised scheme, suggests Tomsett.

“There’s such a shortage of staff, especially in London, and you have to make schemes teacher proof,” he says. “I’ve been into schools recently and they’re on their knees trying to find people. You have a supply teacher, who you’ve never met before, delivering lessons - perhaps even long-term - and you need a quality package of work to give to them.”

Ultimately, the success of a scheme all comes down to context and implementation. So, what does a good implementation model look like?

For Tomsett, it’s crucial, first of all, to ensure teachers trust the resources. This means leaders communicating their own belief in them.

“Teachers trust fellow teachers. The reason research schools are so helpful is because you’ve got teachers promoting research to other teachers. They don’t trust academics,” Tomsett says.

Myatt agrees with him. Teachers, she says, will rebel against resources which just provide the “what”. Instead, schools need to make sure they communicate the “why”.

“When you talk them through the rationale for it, you’re likely to get buy-in from staff. For this to work, staff need to accept this curriculum intellectually but also emotionally,” she explains.

Tarjinder Gill, associate director of research and pedagogy for primary at Outwood Grange, likewise thinks that communication is key.

“If you lose a little bit of autonomy, so you can gain in terms of children’s learning. It’s something we, as teachers, should be willing to accept,” she says. “The main thing is having a feedback loop and someone to talk to when something isn’t working. If there’s no back and forth, it’s poor management and poor communication.”

Alongside this ongoing communication, schools should take a collaborative approach to design, says Myatt; this reduces the risk that a scheme will fail because of a lack of consideration of how it will work in practice.

“Centralised resources need to be carefully curated, with sufficient input from the people who are going to deliver them or representatives from those subject areas,” she explains. “The approach needs very thoughtful leadership work. Somebody might have a good idea, and everyone at the strategic level might agree it’s a good idea, but conversations around how that can be realised on the ground in the classroom are often missing.”

According to Myatt, the best approach to designing your own centralised scheme is to approach the task with a high level of co-construction, with someone (a senior leader, perhaps) who oversees the development of the curriculum and facilitates discussions with subject specialists.

And if you are introducing something pre-made, there still needs to be collaborative discussion, she adds: “We need to be able to have conversations around learning. There can’t be micromanagement which says everyone has to follow the same bit at the same time.”

It’s also important that any centralised resources are not so prescriptive that teachers feel they have no freedom to personalise things, says Sharma; saving planning time can’t come at the expense of stripping teachers of their autonomy.

“We need to protect the professional judgement of the class teacher,” she stresses.

‘We need to be able to have conversations around learning…There can’t be micromanagement’

Tomsett agrees that this point is crucial. “Whatever the scheme is, teachers have to be able to make it their own,” he says. “Children have got to learn, know, understand and apply this content. That depends on the pedagogy of the teacher to make it interesting for them.”

Wallace has seen how a centralised scheme that prevents staff from doing this can fail. In 2014, Ark implemented Direct Instruction’s expressive writing programme in some schools because research suggested it was effective.

But there were mixed results: while some teachers really valued it, others reported that they found it inhibitive and cumbersome.

“Some said it changed their relationship with students,” says Wallace. “Because they were working with the script so much, and trying to read from a 300-page document, they couldn’t do the formative assessment they wanted to do. It just placed too many barriers between teacher and students.”

In the end, the MAT decided to scrap the use of the programme in its schools.

Too much prescription is a bad thing but, if a centralised scheme is designed and implemented well, Myatt believes it can help to develop teachers’ professional judgement rather than squashing it.

“The people bringing those materials together are thinking really hard about substantive knowledge: how to convey that, in which unit, building on where you want pupils to go,” she says. “That deep curricular process, if you’re lucky enough to be engaged in it, is so interesting.”

This process also has benefits for those who go on to use the scheme: “If I’m using carefully curated resources as a teacher, my own subject knowledge and disciplinary subject knowledge, and the pedagogical knowledge, grows as I’m using them,” she adds.

Indeed, the impact report for Oak National Academy found that the majority of users said using Oak’s resources had increased their own confidence in curriculum design (56 per cent) and made them more likely to discuss curriculum design in their own schools (55 per cent).

That’s a sign that, if implemented well, the new curriculum body might just achieve what Zahawi hopes it will.

Will Oak tick the right boxes?

The big question is whether the new version of Oak will actually tick the right boxes: will it remain truly optional? Will it preserve teacher autonomy? Will schools be encouraged to involve staff in discussions around its use?

Currently, we don’t have clarity on all of that. In a series of tweets at the end of last week, Oak’s principal, Matt Hood, confirmed that the new arms-length body would remain independent, that materials would remain optional and free, and that they would continue to work collaboratively with schools, trusts and subject specialists to develop their resources.

However, he added: “There are a host of things that have not yet been decided - type of content, subjects, teacher choice - and what an [arms-length body] should definitely not do.”

Until that all becomes clear, even if experts suggest that centralised curriculum resources can, in theory, make you a better teacher, it is difficult to say whether the government’s plans will deliver on that promise.