How to Review a Primary School Curriculum: Does It Need Rewriting?

Does your school really need to rewrite its curriculum? Not necessarily. A curriculum review should begin by identifying what is working, what isn't, and why, rather than assuming that a new curriculum is automatically a better curriculum. As I explain in 'Curriculum-Making: Start With The End In Mind', it is worth being clear about what you want your curriculum to achieve before deciding what content to include.

Does the Curriculum and Assessment Review Mean You Need to Rewrite Your Curriculum?

The government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) gives schools another reason to look carefully at their curriculum, but it does not mean that every school should start again from scratch. The government has said that a revised National Curriculum will be published in 2027 for first teaching in 2028, with greater clarity around content, sequencing, knowledge and disciplinary skills.

In fact, the review's emphasis is on evolution rather than revolution.  So, before deciding to rewrite your curriculum, ask whether it is actually the curriculum that needs changing. Perhaps you need to improve its sequencing, clarify what pupils should know, reduce unnecessary content or strengthen implementation rather than throw the whole thing away.

I've written more about what the CAR means for primary schools in my blog post 'What Primary Schools Need To Know From The Curriculum And Assessment Review', and about how schools should respond to the government's response in 'Now That We Have The Curriculum And Assessment Review Report, Should Schools Get On With Rewriting Curricula?'. I've also explored how schools can start reducing the volume of content in the primary curriculum now, rather than waiting for the new National Curriculum.

The key question, then, isn't simply “Does our curriculum need rewriting?” It's “What evidence do we have that our curriculum isn't working as well as it could, and what is the smallest change that will make the biggest difference?”

How Should You Assess Pupils After Reviewing Your Curriculum?

Now it's time to have a think about how to assess pupils, what with the curriculum content all done and dusted.

But the more you think about curriculum assessment, the more you realise it's not that easy.

Especially since there are a few things you know you must avoid:

• Endless APP-style grids

• Massive teacher workload

• Paperwork for paperwork's sake

• Evidencing rather than assessment

  
  

Your problem might not lie in how you are going to assess pupils. It might lie in why you decided to select the content you teach in the first place.

This is also why it is worth distinguishing between problems with the curriculum itself and problems with its implementation. A curriculum can look perfectly sensible on paper but still not work as intended in the classroom. In From Paper to Practice: Beyond Curriculum Intent, and Into Implementation (Part 2), I explore what happens when curriculum thinking has to make the journey from the document to the classroom.

In this blog post about developing a concept-based curriculum, I set out a simple formula for developing a concept-based curriculum. But it's also a formula for deciding on the content you cover in your curriculum.

Content = concepts in context

You may have thought about your concepts and something of your context, but when you look at how I defined context, you might see there is something you forgot to do at the start.

Content – the information to be taught and learned

Concept – an overarching idea or theme

Context – particular subject-specific parameters

The information to be taught and learned can be derived from teaching an overarching idea or theme within particular subject-specific parameters.

Start With Your Curriculum's Aims and Purposes

The context part of the equation should have guided you to think about what your goals are for each individual subject. This is the starting point I explore in more detail in 'Curriculum-Making: Start With The End In Mind'. By goals I mean those aims and purposes - the reasons why you think your pupils should learn this subject; the things you want them to gain from this subject (and not just individual facts); the ways you want them to think about the subject, and how they feel towards it; the way that subject is going to equip them for aspects of life even if they don't pursue an academic study of it.

The National Curriculum document does quite a good job of outlining something of the above for each subject, but you will probably want to add to that. When was the last time you looked at the aims and purposes section of the National Curriculum? And to what extent did that section provide the context for your choosing of content when your curriculum was written?

Using Curriculum Aims and Purposes to Define Content and Assess Pupils

If you have a curriculum which was developed right from the very beginning with those aims and purposes as part of the context, then you will have less of a problem when it comes to working out how to assess pupils. You simply have to assess them against those aims and purposes. You will also have no problem pruning the curriculum content so that it best helps pupils to achieve those aims.

If you set out to develop a curriculum simply by thinking about what content to insert into it, you may have a bigger problem. If this was your approach, the only option you now have is to assess pupils on how well they can remember the content taught.

And, as I'm sure you'll have realised, this is onerous and fairly pointless – for all the work it will take, you will only know which facts they have remembered.

The point of assessment shouldn't simply be to produce evidence that pupils have encountered a particular collection of facts. Assessment should help you understand whether pupils are achieving the aims and purposes of your curriculum.

If you know what you want pupils to gain from studying a subject, you have something meaningful to assess. And if you know what you want them to gain, you can also make better decisions about which curriculum content is actually necessary.

Do You Really Need to Rewrite Your Curriculum?

However, you probably don't have to rip the whole thing up and start again.

Most likely you can spend some time thinking about your true aims and purposes for each subject (they will all be different). Then, once these are in place, the curriculum content can be tweaked and pruned accordingly. Pedagogical approaches to actually delivering the material might also be on the list to be adapted in line with your new goals and purposes.

There is no need to panic either – this is something that will take some time and collaboration.

Bring your staff in on this. Get their opinions. Give subject leaders the responsibility to do some thinking and reading around this issue. The people who teach the curriculum are going to have some pretty useful things to say about it.

And if you do decide that changes are needed, rewriting the curriculum is only part of the job. You also need to think about how you will help teachers to make those changes work in practice. In Helping Staff To Adopt Your New Curriculum, I explore some of the things you can do to get staff on board with curriculum changes and support them as they put the new curriculum into practice.

And if you do decide that changes are needed, rewriting the curriculum is only part of the job. You also need to think about how you will help teachers to make those changes work in practice. In 'How To Implement a New Primary Curriculum', I explore the practical steps schools can take to turn curriculum intent into classroom practice. I also explore the specific challenge of getting staff on board with curriculum changes in 'Helping Staff To Adopt Your New Curriculum'.

Need Some Help Reviewing Your Curriculum?

You don't necessarily need to throw your curriculum away and start again. But working out what needs changing, what can stay, and what will make the biggest difference to pupils isn't always easy.

That's where I can help.

I work with schools to review their curriculum, identify where the problems actually lie, and develop practical improvements that make sense for your pupils and your staff. That might mean a significant rewrite. It might mean pruning some content, improving sequencing, clarifying what pupils should learn, rethinking assessment or simply helping your existing curriculum work better in the classroom.

If you're wondering whether your curriculum really needs rewriting, let's work it out together.

Get in touch to arrange a conversation about your school and what you need.