Curriculum-Making: Start With The End In Mind

Curriculum-making begins with thinking about the desired impact, or outcome, before you start thinking about the how and the what. In other words, effective curriculum design starts with the end in mind.

By this I mean that the starting point of any curriculum should not be what needs to be covered or how it is going to be taught, but what you want pupils to achieve when they are taught the content.

What Do We Want Our Curriculum To Achieve?

Knowing: If your desired impact is simply that pupils finish a year group, phase or school knowing certain pieces of information then you can crack on with deciding exactly what pieces of information that should be - the what needs to be covered. But if you want them to achieve something more than that there is more thinking to be done.

Application: Perhaps you want pupils to be able to do something with the facts and skills (aka the substantive and procedural knowledge) that they will inevitably learn.

Disciplinary thinking: Maybe you want pupils to think in certain ways, say, like a historian, or a geographer.

Characteristics: Or it might involve some of those 'soft skills' (y'know, the ones that actually get us through life successfully): kindness, empathy, love, care...

Emotions: It could be that we want pupils to feel a certain way about learning and being learners: enjoyment, passion, excitement, happiness...

Attitudes: Developing particular attitudes might enter into our desired outcomes, too: resilience, curiosity, hard working...

There are a whole host of things that come together to form the outcomes you desire for the pupils you are planning for. Most likely, you will want a well-rounded set of goals.

Perhaps something like this:

What we want for our children in art:

to have the opportunity to experience success in every art learning episode; to be inspired and empowered; to become proficient in art skills and techniques; to remember key identified information relating to artists, artworks and art movements; to develop creativity and expression through art; to be critical, able to evaluate and explain their own work and the work of others; to understand the world around them.

Knowing

Application

Disciplinary thinking

Characteristics

Emotions

Attitudes

The above statement includes statements from 4 of the 6 categories. It might be improved with some additional points around developing characteristics and attitudes (although it could be argued that some of the statements cover this already). However, this statement was written to capture exactly what was needed in the particular school - I'm not suggesting there are rules about how to do this, only guidelines to help you get what you and your pupils really need.

You might have something similar for the subject you lead - lots of us call this an intent statement.

What Does This Mean For Curriculum Content?

A statement like this, no matter how it is written, is a useful way of setting out your stall from the beginning. It can then become a touchstone for all future curriculum work and a lens through which to view the implementation of your curriculum. These broader goals also give us something against which we can think about progress. I've explored what this might look like for assessment in 'How To Assess Foundation Subjects In Primary (Without Breaking Teachers)'. This also gives us a useful test for deciding what to leave out. If content isn't helping us achieve our wider aims and purposes, why is it there? I explore this further in 'Reducing the Volume of Content in the Primary Curriculum'.

Once you've established what you want your curriculum to achieve, the next challenge is turning that thinking into something teachers can actually implement. For a practical look at that process, see 'How To Implement a New Primary Curriculum'.

Once you are clear about what you want your curriculum to achieve, the next question is whether your existing curriculum actually enables you to achieve those things. I've written more about that in 'Primary School Curriculum Review: When to Rewrite'. You also then need to make decisions about the content that will help you get them there. My thinking about concept-based curricula provides one way of doing this. One way of thinking about the relationship between what we want pupils to learn and the content we select is content = concepts in context. I've written more about how this can be used to develop a curriculum here.

If you're thinking through these issues currently, you might find the following blog posts helpful too (just click on the image):

Need Help Turning Your Curriculum Vision Into Reality?

Knowing what you want your curriculum to achieve is the starting point. The harder part is turning those ambitions into a coherent curriculum that works for your pupils, your staff and your school.

I work with schools to develop and refine curricula that are purposeful, manageable and rooted in what you want pupils to know, understand and become able to do.

If you're reviewing your curriculum, developing a new one, or simply wondering whether what you have is working as well as it could, I can help.

Here's how it works:

1. Get in touch Tell me a little about your school and what you're trying to achieve.

2. Let's talk We'll have a conversation about your curriculum, your context and where you want to get to.

3. Develop a plan We'll work together to identify the changes that will make the biggest difference and work out how to make them happen.