Why You Don't Need An Intent Statement (But Why It Is Actually Useful To Have One)
- Aidan Severs
- Oct 6
- 4 min read
The real title of this blog post is 'Why You Don't Need An Intent Statement (But Why It Is Actually Useful To Have One)', which might just be a record twice over: firstly for its length and secondly because it's the first time I've felt the need to have italics in a blog post title.
Whilst I was doing a remote curriculum review for a school (book yours here or here, you won't regret it, and it's pretty cheap), I was trying to find a useful blog post I'd written but couldn't. This new blog post exists to help the old one be found, and to elaborate a little on its content.
Here's the blog post, it's a good one:
Back to this blog post though.
Why You Don't Need An Intent Statement...
Why don't you need an intent subject for your subject's curriculum? Because no one says you have to, not even Ofsted. When Ofsted started using the '3 I' language, many school leaders went to town on writing intent statements. But nowhere were they mandated.
In fact, the creation of such statements could belie a misunderstanding of what exactly constitutes 'curriculum intent'. A school's curriculum intent is actually everything that they intend to teach: from long term plans, to skills progressions, to individual lesson plans.
...Why It Is Actually Useful To Have An Intent Statement: A Touchstone
However, whilst ‘intent statements’ aren’t a necessity they can help curriculum makers and teachers. How so? Well, they provide a touchstone (a test, or benchmark) for any curriculum development and teaching. An intent statement, or a set of goals/aims/purposes, for each subject’s curriculum (perhaps based on or inspired by those available in the National Curriculum) can help when deciding on content and sequencing and a whole host of other curriculum-making activity.
...Why It Is Actually Useful To Have An Intent Statement: Assessment
And there's another reason to have an intent statement - assessment. Assessment across the foundation subjects of the primary curriculum has been a thorny issue over the last few years, and one which has not yet been solved satisfactorily. However, I do have some ideas and one of them involves making sure you have a good intent statement for each subject. I write a bit about it here but in summary: when you start with the end in mind, you know exactly what you want your pupils to achieve overall. You can then base any assessment that happens on these overarching goals, rather than on every single curriculum objective that you write into your curriculum.
For more on this second point, see:
And What Might An Actually Useful Intent Statement Include?
This is where that previous blog post comes in.
In it I outline that one good way of writing such a statement/set of goals is to think about what it is you want your children to be able to do when they have finished being taught the curriculum. ‘Able to do’ could cover what you want pupils to know (in general, this will be covered in much greater detail in the rest of the curriculum intent documentation), how you want pupils to apply what they know, the ways in which you want them to think (usually ways that are specific to that subject), characteristics you want them to develop, emotions that you want them to feel and attitudes that you want them to display.
I won't cover too much else of what I wrote there as it's bad juju for the internet, but you can read it here: https://www.aidansevers.com/post/curriculum-making-start-with-the-end-in-mind. It includes an exemplar curriculum statement which is broken down into how it covers the above 6 points (Knowing, Application, Disciplinary thinking, Characteristics, Emotions, Attitudes).
Stop! Write Your Intent Statement Before Further Curriculum Development
If you are currently developing your curriculum, I'd strongly advise downing tools and revisiting or creating an intent statements or set of goals/aims/purposes before you do any more work. I suggest this as it can help to ensure that you don’t have to rewrite curriculum content at a later date – such a statement or set of goals provides a foundation for good decision-making, particularly because it helps you to start with the end in mind. When you know what you want for pupils at the end, you can think better about the steps you need to put in place to help them to get there.
Although no one is asking you for a curriculum intent statement for your subject, it can be a supremely useful internal document that helps you to stick to your mission.
If you'd like some bespoke help with redeveloping your curriculum, here's your 3-step curriculum development plan:
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