Curriculum 1971-2014; broad, balanced and relevant.
Curriculum 2018; knowledge rich (or learning rich)?

Put simply, classroom learning is children, context, engagement, guidance and adaptation, evaluation of outcomes. The whole captured within communication.

Remembering always the maxim that education( life) is a journey not a destination. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, an American essayist, poet, and leader of the Transcendentalist movement in the early nineteenth century.)

It’s strangely fascinating occasionally just to be a bystander to conversations on social media. There’s a current penchant for everything curriculum, as if it’s the next new thing that no-one has ever thought of before You can almost hear the sound of cash tills ringing with the book potential.

The recent Ofsted commentaries on curriculum are strangely reminiscent of earlier HMI statements, one series of which was dubbed the “raspberry ripple” books because of their covers. The September 2018 commentary suggested that there was a lack of curriculum development expertise. In some ways this is not surprising, as for twenty years curriculum and pedagogy has been engaged through ever tighter dictat, seemingly removing teacher and school discretion, whereas autonomy is the life-blood of a thinking organisation.

Forgive me for being old(er). I started as a classroom teacher in 1974 after three years at training college; my first Primary class will now be coming up to 55 years old. In that extended career, I never worked in a school without a curriculum in some form. Some were stronger than others. They might have been based on a scheme for maths and English, with Topics (now called the foundation subjects) being the area that was apportioned to specific year groups. Once you knew the topics, there was the search for the available school resources, or perhaps an investigation in the locality to seek out appropriate places to visit or people with local interests. We were, to all intents and purposes, organising the knowledge, supplemented by the County Library Service and, from time to time, museums and costume services. It was relatively easy to put together a package of essential knowledge that would be shared, sometimes with teachers making some kind of information book that was derived from the various sources.

In looking through my notebooks from my career, I came across a diagrammatic version that was the top layer of an early curriculum map. It’s not detailed, but an overview that enabled themes to be allocated to year groups, then further developed through locality resources and resource boxes.
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In many ways variations on this have been a feature of my career. Start at the top layer, then work ever deeper, providing greater detail at different points to support teacher thinking in their classroom. This last layer might include agreed details that have to be structured into the theme narrative and retained for future use.

​These early thoughts were supplemented further with a very active inspection and advisory service and teachers centres that provided both courses and in-house support to school development.

From an earlier blog:

Curricula are usually written by experts, from the expert perspective, ensuring that information is delivered, whether or not it is appropriate for the learner’s current needs. 
As teachers, unconstrained by predetermined curricular expectations, we were able to assume the mantle of experts, reflecting on what the four year olds brought with them in the way of life experiences which would be the start points for school based experiences and exploration.

So history started as My story, based on storyboards created with a series of photos, then developed into His or Her story, with reference to parents and grandparents. Local walks to look at houses of interest started a link between History and Geography, with sketch mapping, drawing in situ or photos being taken (development time, much easier now?). Parents and grandparents came to tell their own stories, recorded onto c45, 60 or 90 tapes to be replayed and reflected upon. For homework, children were asked to telephone grandparents to ask a series of questions. Timelines were created throughout, so historical perspectives were constantly being revisited, as knowledge was added. And we got back to the Victorians with photograph based family trees, together with the accompanying narrative.

Building materials became the stuff of science, complemented by Lego or other construction material, as well as clay models of houses, made out of very small bricks, fired in the kiln. Trials with garden clay compared to the bought variety. One child brought in a tile found in their garden, which we took to the local museum to be told it was Roman. Visiting the local church we discovered even more tiles, being used as wall bricks and on the way back a local aunt offered the chance to have a look inside a house originally dating to 1580. I know, risk assessments, CRB etc. The Tudor context allowed exploration of timber as a building material. One idea often led to another, with settlements, including the Anglo-Saxon beginnings of the village being explored, with the support of the local history society.

In reality, what is a curriculum? It is a series of related contexts within which learners will enhance their understanding of the world in which they live, allowing opportunities for language acquisition, broadening communication, real contexts for writing and other recording.  The mathematics of measures and data creation supported the core learning at every age. So the basics were the backbone of topic work. The contexts provided the creative structures into which the relevant subjects could be fitted.

Asking questions and seeking answers were the basis for both library research and experiential science activity, which might be based on the notion of finding out interesting ideas to share with the rest. Every subject had value for what it brought to the child as thinking and learning opportunities. The art table was a permanent fixture within the classroom, with half a dozen children regularly interpreting information in picture form.

When the National Curriculum was brought in in 1987, I was a deputy in a First School. Our audit of the school curriculum against the NC showed a 95% correspondence, with a couple of tweaks to be effected.

This became a feature of revisions; small tweaks were needed to accommodate the update.

I came across my notes from 1987, when I had responsibility for science. I had grouped the sixteen attainment targets, yes 16, into three main areas; scientific processes, our environment, make it move/forces, and three supplementary areas; electricity/magnetism, sound and music and light. These might have been organised as larger, three-week projects, or perhaps a week of experiences.

It was not long before a reorganisation led to the sixteen ATs becoming four main areas; virtually the same content, but a reduction in areas for assessment, essentially materials, physical world, living world and scientific exploration.
When I became a HT in 1990, we worked hard on the curriculum, because, although the school had taken on elements of the NC, there were gaps which needed to be addressed.

The approach was refined over time and can ne read about in a blog on planning. There is a clear focus on layering.
In addition, as a school, we also looked at quality versus quantity in writing.

It was clear that children were being asked to undertake a considerable amount of writing, but that, for the most part, any writing in subjects other than English were of poorer quality.

We moved from this to identify the main writing approach for the week, which would be developed through different stages; modelled, organised and drafted, with occasional redrafting for display quality, for an audience.

The two-page approach to writing that we developed is shared as writing process, tweak your books which morphed through all writing in one exercise book, to using the exercise book as a personal organiser. This highlighted that writing is writing in every subject. It allowed for each week, or fortnight to be devoted to a particular project, perhaps a report from a practical experience, to letter writing, or imaginary story. As a head, I encouraged teachers to consider the use of time available for quality writing. This could be an hour by hour for essential teaching and modelling, note making or early organisation activities. It might be a morning to enable a range of drafting and evaluation/critique activities. Timetable flexibility allows quality to emerge, rather than unfinished work. Over time, the time frames reduced to emphasise fluency.

Topic areas, essentially the foundation subjects, were organised in different layers, as articulated in the planning blog. Topics lasted as long as was needed, but all allocated topics had to be shared. Topic themes were resourced by subject coordinators, with a topic specification and a collation of the resources available within the school. Book resources were sourced through the County Library Service.

Within these areas, we reflected on the commonality of learning themes and came up with the “Making Sense of Experience” model; a means of looking at deepening experience, at any age. The “Experience, explore, explain” mantra was central to the thinking; simple enough to remember, but embedding many different elements.

In 2014, the current NC was enacted. Having listened to Tim Oates, when we shared a panel, telling the assembled staff that the 2014 version was created to be easier to test, I started to worry. With it being maths and English heavy with testing in these areas, the next few years have shown that the wider curriculum has diminished, in some cases significantly. However, there is a strong argument for the curriculum retaining its breadth and depth.
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So why are we where we are?

My simple answer would be estate-wide small thinking, more from the point of view of ever closer attention on the minutiae of teaching and learning, especially by some individuals who have made national and international names, and a lot of money from publishing, by a focus on small bits. The words that we use, such as differentiation, assessment, planning, writing, reading, phonics along with others, have been packaged and repackaged into formulae, then interpreted into book form, to be sold into the education spending market, which itself has grown significantly over the past 25 years.

A couple of the latest high-profile areas are “growth mindset” and research. Each has the potential to become formulaic, distracting and ultimately to be devalued. The former, to me is what teaching and learning are all about, otherwise what’s the point and the latter, as an investigative mind-set, is what I’d want from all teachers, seeking to refine their practice.

The issue with buying a scheme for doing the thinking for you is that you can stop thinking about the whole and how things fit together, and that’s what I’d say some have done. These schemes can dictate timetables, as children are packaged up into appropriate sized groups to undertake the specified activities, often led by the less well-informed members of staff, so that, although “coverage” might be assured, the depth of understanding might be suspect for many. These groups are, by default, mini sets or streams, so can become self-limiting systems. Time is also lost, as children move between areas of the school to be part of their small groups.

There has been successive reorganisation of priorities, with literacy and numeracy taking over from English and Maths, with a subsequent downgrade of other subjects, all of which provide the background information against which English and Maths operate in the real world. There is talk of the knowledge curriculum, but the knowledge areas of the curriculum, in some places and for some children are under some threat.

The small thinking arises out of a sound-bite need for politicians, to show that they are doing something to improve the situation. The Literacy Hour was not the be-all and end-all of the Literacy Strategy, yet it became the simplistic message given on the radio and TV every morning. For the past four years, we have heard phonics equals reading as the mantra.

The problem with both messages is that it can distort practice to the point where other aspects of each subject, which are equally or more vital, are diminished, so teachers and children lose sight of the bigger messages.

Levels became the bête noire of the system because they became distorted into data points, rather than remaining as the progress descriptors that they were in the beginning. From misuse, they lost their purpose and became distorting, as they became high stakes in showing progress. The number and the data point lost the accompanying words, but, at least in some of the foundation subjects, the words could still be a useful starting point for reflection on progression.

Like all things, I’d argue that a focus on detail is essential, but that at every stage any change in one aspect needs to be reflected upon across the whole learning system, otherwise it can be distorting.

It’s a little bit like an exercise regime where concentration on one part of the body can create a distorting effect.
It's got to start with the whole, consider the parts and then put the whole back together. 

And when it comes down to simplicities, the whole relies on effective communication in all forms, pitched to the audience, using words that they can understand, sharing images to supplement the words and to enhance the capacity to make links with earlier experiences.

It takes an aware teacher to be able to do that with facility. Teachers need subject and pedagogic knowledge. Thinking teachers sharing a thoughtful curriculum and supporting each other with their own knowledge and sharing successful pedagogy can significantly alter the curricular diet for every child.
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A young man decided to become a teacher…

When I was interviewing for staff as a headteacher and when I am interviewing prospective entrants into the profession for ITE providers, I ask what on the surface is a relatively simple question; “What was the significant event that persuaded you that you could be a teacher?” This allows the interviewee to reflect on their past, but also to develop the theme through significant skills that they bring to bear on their role. This tipping point can be important to explore, especially where the candidate is a mature trainee, changing career course.

I have a vivid memory of one trainee who described how she had been involved in a summer residential scheme with a group of physically disabled children and supported them individually to overcome fears to be able to attempt to tackle a climbing wall. Another told of how he had worked in a refugee camp and learned that he could find innovative ways to help children learn without expensive resources. The insights and the obvious enjoyment of the experience came through and they both went on to become a very high-grade prospective teachers.

While some get into teaching through their interactions with children, discovering that they can communicate effectively and make relationships, enabling their charges to attempt challenge, others love their subject and sharing their knowledge. Marrying the two creates a whole, which is the purpose of teacher training; the what and the how.

Why did I become a teacher?

I had a job with ICI, in a biological research station, nestled into an old quarry beside Brixham fishing harbour. Becoming a “scientist” had been my lifelong ambition. The reality, of counting bivalves and worms in bottom samples that we sourced from the North Sea off Teeside and Whitby, palled after several months, partly because of the horrendous effects of sea-sickness and partly the counting. Finish one tray, record, start another. When looking at colleagues who had progressed to Experimental Officer, it became clear that I’d be doing the same for years to come. I loved the outdoors, the environment, entomology, history, geography; in fact I was interested in the world around me. Ok, I was probably a bit geeky, in that respect.

A mature team colleague at Paignton Cricket Club had just finished his teaching course at St Lukes College, in Exeter. After talking with him, he suggested taking the train to chat to someone about the possibility of training. There was a significant shortage of teachers, as the generation that had trained before or after WW2 were coming, en masse, to retirement.

As it was June, the campus was empty, but a kind receptionist tracked the head of science to his room and sent me along. We chatted broadly, across science, but also sport (St Lukes was a PE college) and after half an hour asked if I wanted this to be an official interview. Fifteen minutes later, I was sent to fill in the application forms and started that September. That is a decision that I have never regretted, even when the going has got really tough. I found my natural niche.

I did change course after the first year, moving from pure science to Environmental Studies, which was a brand-new course designed by the previous head of science to enable Primary teachers to be able to teach the breadth of the curriculum.  

Teaching practices in Totnes, year one, and Torquay, year three, meant digs for the first, during a winter of power cuts, so planning and marking by candle-light. For the second, I had a lift from two PE specialists, both of whom were on their way to international status, so the hour or so each way passed quickly.

The second-year experience was an extended study practice, where the entire teaching group was twinned with a school in Sidmouth. We would be paired with a small group of children, plan for learning, enact it, evaluate the outcomes and make subsequent decisions for learning. Getting to know the children also meant home visits. This entailed staying on in Sidmouth, walking to the family homes, having a scripted chat, then a long bus trip back to halls, which were six miles out of Exeter, unless someone with a car was around.   
 
It became clear during 1974 that the teacher shortage was coming to an end. At the same time, the James Report was considering the potential for offering teachers sabbatical time after a period of service. It was envisaged that this would support further training, perhaps to Masters level.

Both had an influence on deciding to get a job for September 1974. Even as a probationary teacher, I had a class of 39 mixed ability children. There was no such thing as a teaching assistant, nor technology. Resources were very limited, but there was a pleasure in creating learning opportunities from little, using the local environment as a significant resource, eg taking the class to the local graveyard to read the first chapter of Great Expectations…

Becoming a teacher was never designed to make me rich; perhaps comfortable was the best that could be hoped, and it was a career, which, in 1974, was still considered an asset. I started teaching in the year of the Houghton award, where teacher pay was enhanced after many years of very low pay rises. Four times that income, plus a small borrowed deposit, was enough for the mortgage that bought the first house; I could aspire.

Today, a teacher in similar position would need a mortgage ten times their income and a large deposit. That cultural shift will have a huge impact on life plans.

Teaching is teaching and of it’s time. It has always had to adapt to changing needs, but, over the past thirty years, we have seen revolution from politicians that have put pressures on the system, such that successful, experienced people left. This inevitably reduces the core of knowledge available, with new people having to learn from scratch how to make things work for them.

The fact that you are teaching one approach while a “new” version has to be developed and embedded is stressful and an additional burden.

Change has rarely been handled in an evolutionary fashion, apart from the first iterations of the National Curriculum, which largely described what my local schools were doing, with 95% correspondence. Managing “improvement” would reduce the stress burdens of people who are, at the core of their role, paid to think.

Governments often see change as synonymous with improvement and then have to twist and turn as consequences become apparent to everyone. It can be analogous to the cowboy builder; who put this up like this…?

I’d still encourage someone with aptitude to become a teacher, and also, in time to develop themselves towards headship. Both are great jobs and they are very much and always will be needed.

I sometimes think we need Governments to step back and let teachers get on with the job and to become the advisers in the system. Children, in every classroom, deserve teachers who enjoy their jobs, know that they are doing a good job and that their efforts are appreciated.
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Leaders, at every level, from Government down, only achieve if each classroom is a space for learning.
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The HMI report for 2018 includes a commentary about the teaching of and support for SEND.

​In many ways, I am not surprised. Working with Inclusion Quality Mark for eight years up to 2014, it was clear, from visits to and supporting schools, 2013-14, attending and presenting at conferences, that the complexities of the changes that were being wrought on schools in a very short time would be very difficult to achieve. That the changes also included system changes outside schools, at a time when austerity cuts were really beginning to bite, only served to exacerbate the situation for more vulnerable children.

Schools felt that they had to focus on curriculum and assessment, the latter having been put into free-fall by a Government unwilling to offer clear guidance. As schools would also be inspected on the new system, it became an imperative, especially for schools which felt vulnerable; borderline good, RI or SM.

Systems are still not yet fully effective in all schools. The sheer weight of requirement, especially for Primary schools, to embed mathematics and English, meant that the wider curriculum was sometimes given less prominence, to a point where this is flagged up as a concern for the 2019 inspection framework. It is also feasible now, after four years, that schools are beginning to see issues with their earlier decisions and are making adjustments.

One big structural change in 2014 was to put emphasis on the classroom as the prime place where good or better teaching and learning is seen as addressing the needs of all individuals. Therefore work has to be well planned, well delivered, activities engaged with, feedback given and supportive, developmental feedback afterwards.

In which case, the class teacher becomes the conduit through which SEND decisions are effected, with enhanced responsibility. Consider for a moment the position regarding Performance Related Pay (PRP) where a teacher can be held responsible for the outcomes of all groups of learners.

Teachers need to know their children very well, to be able to personalise interventions and commentaries. The deployment of available support, for specific purpose, with defined, checkable outcomes, will be essential. However, as the highest trained person in the classroom, the teacher may reasonably be expected to take the greater burden of the most challenging learning needs, while the support does just that, supports other learners.
All aspects need to be considered, starting with the appropriateness of the task, or the necessity to adapt, the need for support to achieve an appropriate outcome.

Within the task, the deployment of staff to be the eyes and ears, with the capacity to intervene appropriately to need will be essential. It will become an essential skill to spot and deal with issues as they arise to smooth the learning path. These interventions will need to be noted in some way. Therefore a methodology needs to be considered. In the first instance, the exercise book could become a part of the dialogue of concern, noting advice given, as well as clear, readable, understandable feedback. A secondary need will be to keep a track of teacher thinking, within and between lessons, through post it notes, amended planning, or diary format.

The teacher needs to get better at initial investigation of issues.
 
In addition, within the 2014 NC, the idea of levelness gave way to yearness. I blogged about this, from 2013, as I could see considerable potential pitfalls, especially for children who didn’t “make the grade” in the previous year. This may have been further exacerbated as teachers chose to stay in the same year group for a few years, to make use of their need to get to grips with yeargroup requirements.

Primaries are possibly in a much more difficult position, in that the new National Curriculum is very year-group based, with the assessment criteria as articulated, to know and understand the year group requirements. The use of the phrase “Secondary ready” cast an implied level of expectation against the achievements at year six. The rhetoric to date seems to suggest whole cohorts moving at the same speed. Topics are also relatively year group specific, which could cause issues if a child is either slower or faster than their cohort at learning in a specific subject. It is arguable that for Primary schools, level-ness has been replaced by year-ness.  So measurement of progress will be against year group expectations. Within the documentation, it is possible to infer the hierarchy of expectation, so schools may do that to ensure that their learners are tracked against the new criteria.

Where schools have been freed from the need to use levels and asked to create their own systems, those which have been shared through social media like Twitter have to date looked very much like levelness in a different form. And they always will, because the schemes shared have been recording sheets to keep a track of children’s performance.

And that’s my main issue. Subjects have hierarchical skills, which have to be introduced, practiced and embedded in produced work. Levelness articulated the hierarchy of skills and allowed this within whole class tasks and topics, with all learners challenged at a personal level, in the best practice. Level and grade criteria support expectation, planning, in-lesson interventions, reformulating of challenge to need, feedback, both oral and written, then food for thought after the lesson.

Year-ness will do that, but I have a slight worry that the articulation of achievement within the new system at Primary level has the potential to become a new system created barrier to learning for a number of vulnerable learners.
We had a system that could have been tweaked to make it more coherent, challenging, robust and acceptable through the system.
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We may embed new issues. I hope that I am wrong.
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All classes are mixed ability, even a set or streamed group, so creates an internal dynamic that needs to be accommodated; from prior records, simple starter assessments to confirm or ask questions, to seek to refine planning that allows appropriate imparting of information and learning challenges, both of which may be subtly altered in delivery through engagement with individual or group needs.

This is articulated in another blog; 65, based on the teacher standards.

Not all Special Needs get identified early. Some become more obvious as school challenges get harder. Some may have a source outside school, but which impacts in the setting, eg social and emotional needs.

Individual responses will offer challenges and cause concern. This may multiply over time, if established as a seeming pattern of response. Investigation and recording of the developing situation informs a discussion with the school SENCo. Not to do so might result in a request to do so over the next period of time. This delay can be the source of irritation in a teacher who wishes an immediate remedy.

From 2013
·         SEND is no longer “someone’s job”, it is everyone’s job…

Training is an interesting issue, in that there are and will be significant calls from all sides for “more training”. The availability of external staff is likely to be seriously strained in the near future, as all schools ask for the same personnel. I can see a number of options addressing these needs.

Local specialists (possibly including Special School staff) to create fact sheets available to all local schools, to address possible concerns across a range of needs, ASD, ADHD, SALT, OT as an example.

• In-house solutions 1. Some special needs in learning can be evidenced against the outcome of younger children. Therefore, by definition, the expertise is in-house. Exemplar portfolios will help with decision making, if they incorporate both a statement of what’s evident and a description of potential next steps. In “old money” a level 2 child in year five is operating on a par with an average year 2 child. By talking with the year 2 teacher, the professional dialogue will offer insights into routes. In a separate system, it may be necessary to make links with feeder schools.
• In house solutions 2. The school SENCo, if (s)he has undertaken the required training, should be in a position to offer the broad-brush explanations necessary for class-based colleagues.
• Planning for learning needs to look at the dynamics as well as the fixed points. The plan, based on expectation, should prompt thinking on the hoof, ensuring interactions that result on lessons being tweaked to the evident needs.

The basic principle of SEND, know your children well, and that would be my suggestion for the 2019 inspections; how well do schools know and support their children’s needs?

It could be that simple…