This term your school’s curriculum is inevitably going to be in the spotlight.
With the curriculum and assessment review set to deliver its final findings some time in the autumn, schools are rightly turning their attention to what they teach and why. This is welcome; get the curriculum right, and everything else - pedagogy, assessment and even behaviour - becomes that little bit easier.
But too often schools fall into predictable traps. Underpinning these pitfalls, three ideas keep coming up: purpose, deliberate action and reflection. Strong schools know where they are heading, take deliberate steps to get there and regularly stop to check they are still on course.
Curriculum design is never “done”. It is an ongoing process of asking, “What do we want for our pupils? Are we giving them the knowledge and experiences they need to get there? How do we know?”
After years of visiting schools as teachers, leaders and inspectors, we wanted to capture what the best schools do well, and how others can learn from that. We’ve explored these lessons in our upcoming book How Do They Do It? What can we learn from amazing schools, leaders and teachers?
Drawing on those lessons, here are the most common curriculum mistakes we see and how schools avoid them.
1. Intent: confusing statements with substance
When Ofsted first started asking about curriculum “intent”, some schools assumed they needed a beautifully worded statement on their website - often written after the curriculum had already been designed. Teachers were sometimes even asked to memorise it, ready for a perceived “inspection quiz” that never came.
The result? A glossy paragraph that bore little relation to what pupils actually experienced.
Great schools take a different route. They start with purpose before anything is planned. They ask, “What do we want pupils to know, understand and be able to do by the time they leave us? ”
That purpose then drives decisions about content and structure. When intent is lived, not laminated, staff don’t need to memorise it; they embody it.
2. Breadth: confusing quantity with quality
The phrase “broad and balanced” appears in just about every curriculum document, but its meaning is often misunderstood. Schools sometimes interpret “breadth” to simply mean “more of everything”, cramming timetables or curriculum maps with every possible topic. Primary history jumps from Ancient Egypt to the Victorians to the Second World War in a breathless rush; PE offers a carousel of sports without any depth of skill development.
The best schools think as carefully about what not to include as what to include. They consider the core entitlement for all pupils, ensure that subjects have the time they need to be taught well, and make deliberate decisions about enrichment.
Breadth is not about skimming the surface; it is about ensuring that every pupil has access to the knowledge and experiences they need to thrive, without stuffing the timetable to bursting point.
3. Ambition: setting the bar too low - or impossibly high
Ask any teacher if they are ambitious for their pupils and the answer will be “yes”. Yet too often ambition is set too low, particularly in key stage 3, where students find themselves revisiting work they mastered years ago. In other cases, ambition overshoots: pupils are given content they simply don’t have the foundations to tackle yet.
Schools with genuine ambition pitch their curriculum with care. They look outward (to high-performing schools, subject associations, exam performance and employer expectations) to calibrate what is truly ambitious in their context. They also think carefully about pupils who face barriers to learning, ensuring that high expectations apply to all.
And crucially, they give students time to do something ambitious with their learning - whether that’s creating artwork, writing essays that demand deep reasoning or performing challenging music.
4. Sequencing: having a map - but forgetting to follow it
Curriculum sequencing is about more than listing topics in a logical order; it is about making sure that what comes first supports what comes next. Too often curriculum maps look beautifully designed, but the thinking behind them doesn’t make it into day-to-day teaching. Pupils never get to connect the dots between one topic and the next, and knowledge doesn’t build.
Great schools make sequencing “live”. Teachers know what knowledge students already have and where it will be used again. They design lessons and assessments that actively draw on prior learning. This doesn’t mean rigid scripts or identical lesson structures - but it does mean a deliberate approach that ensures students are standing on firm ground before moving forward.
5. Coherence: the ‘theme week’ trap
Coherence matters; a curriculum needs unifying threads that make sense to pupils and staff.
However, things often go wrong when leaders attempt to force-fit everything around one theme; for example, making geography lessons on rivers focus on the Nile because Year 4 are “doing Ancient Egypt”, regardless of whether it’s the right time or place in the sequence for this learning to sit.
At its worst, the idea of coherence becomes tokenistic: a slogan on a long-term plan, unsupported by any meaningful change in classroom practice.
The best schools find their way around this by embedding coherence through shared values and common purpose. Staff understand not just what they teach but why, and this purpose runs through subject planning, assessment and wider school life. Assemblies, tutor time, rewards and displays reinforce the same values. Everyone pulls in the same direction.
6. Implementation: assuming good outcomes equals good teaching
Schools often assume that if results look good, implementation must be strong. But outcomes can hide flaws. Pupils may be succeeding despite poor curriculum delivery (thanks to external tutoring or catch-up interventions) or because earlier teaching masked weaker current practice.
Great schools look beyond surface outcomes. They pay attention to what happens in classrooms: how teachers explain and model, how pupils practise, how misconceptions are addressed. They recognise that almost any approach “works” somewhere, so they focus on principles rather than gimmicks - ensuring that teachers have clarity about why they teach the way they do, and time to adapt it to their subject and phase.
This means investing in subject knowledge, respecting subject distinctiveness and providing time for collaborative planning. Policies support rather than dictate, allowing teachers to apply shared principles in ways that make sense for their subject.
Purpose, action and reflection
The curriculum and assessment review will no doubt spark fresh debates in schools across the country. Whatever recommendations emerge, the best schools will respond with the same habits that already serve them well: a clear sense of purpose, deliberate action and regular reflection.
Strong curriculum thinking is not about chasing the latest policy trend, but about building something robust enough to endure, and flexible enough to adapt. When change comes, effective leaders revisit their intent, check that sequencing still makes sense and ensure that staff understand and can implement any adjustments.
If the review prompts changes to content or assessment, the principles outlined here will still apply. They are universal because they are rooted in what works for pupils, not in the shifting sands of policy. Get these foundations right and you can adapt with confidence - knowing that your curriculum is designed to help every child thrive, whatever the next set of recommendations may bring.
Mark Enser and Zoe Enser are the co-authors of the upcoming book How Do They Do It? What can we learn from amazing schools, leaders and teachers?
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