Leadership of the curriculum
‘A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.’
- John C. Maxwell
There are a number of things which leaders need to take account of when thinking about the curriculum. The first is that the curriculum is more than subjects on a timetable; the second is that the national curriculum is not a scheme of work and the third is that colleagues need time to plan, to collaborate and to reflect. The role of leaders is to know what the curriculum is for, how it is constructed and what content is covered. The work of Christine Counsell in unpacking the key questions to be asked is fundamental to supporting leadership of the curriculum. Her blog posts are essential reading for all leaders as they consider the quality and purpose of the curriculum in their settings.[1]
To take the first, namely that the curriculum is more than the subjects on a timetable. Leaders need to know the quality of the content of what is being taught. It is not an easy task to do this with subjects which are not the leaders’ own subject specialisms. This is where they need to trust the subject leaders as specialists and to have conversations with them about what is being taught and the rationale for it being included. This should not be ad hoc. It is one of the most important aspects of quality assurance which will ensure that pupils receive their entitlement to a broad, rich offer. Tom Boulter, deputy head for curriculum has written about the importance of taking a close interest in the detail of the curriculum. ‘We run meetings three times each year between myself, faculty leadership and the SLT link for that area. One of these meetings is dedicated entirely to curriculum at KS3, and involves listening to and discussing the rationale for the specific content being delivered, and the resources provided to students and teachers. My view is that, whilst in the past SLT have not often tended to be involved in discussion of the detail, it’s actually a core responsibility of any senior team. If you are a senior leader in a school, particularly with any curriculum responsibility, the day-to-day content being taught in all subjects should be high on your list of priorities to give your attention; it’s fundamental to your job.’[2] This is echoed by John Tomsett who asks his subject leaders the following question: ‘What are the specific hallmarks of pedagogy in your subject?’[3] This encourages colleagues to go beyond the generic, to the specifics within their subjects.
The second is that the national curriculum is not a scheme of work. It might be a surprising observation, but too many conversations about overall planning and purpose are answered refer back to the national curriculum as though it is the actual scheme for what should be taught. It is the minimum content to be covered and it needs to be translated into meaningful, demanding schemes to bring the subject alive.
The third element relating to planning is the most important here. There is never enough time. So given that, what should leaders do to create the space for proper curriculum thinking and planning to take place? Well the first is to recognise that not everything can or should be done. It is better to start with fewer topics and to do these well and build on them over time. To take an example, if the school has recognised that it has not offered sufficient geography at key stage 2, in addressing this, why not take one area eg India which is often taught in year 3 and plan and for the first time round, teach this to all year groups in key stage 2? Then in the next round to take another topic and do the same. By the time the original year 3s have arrived in year 6, there will be new topics and so they will not be repeating what they have already done. The value in doing this is that several classes will be doing work on the same plans at the same time. This means that teachers will be able to plan together, share what has gone well and what needs to be tweaked and there will be plenty of examples of pupils’ work to compare. Working in this way means that teacher expertise grows incrementally and is consolidated through conversations with other professionals. This is light years away from teachers working in isolation.
If we are serious about improving the teachers’ subject knowledge beyond English and maths then directed time should be created for this. A number of schools such as Durrington[4] have overhauled their planning time so that it is focused on subject planning and resourcing rather than administration which is done by email and kept to a minimum. At Durrington they have prioritised planning time so that it is subject specific, regular, collaborative and within the context of what is being taught at that time.
Beyond this, in order to create time there needs to be a long hard look at some of the work such as written marking and data collection which does not add to pupils learning. If sensible approaches to marking such as Andrew Percival’s[5] and Clare Sealy’s schools[6] where they take a minimal approach to marking, then this frees up time for thinking about curriculum planning. Working to minimal marking not only saves time for teachers, it is more effective for pupils who have a much clearer idea of what they need to do to improve.
A key thread in this is that teachers should not be planning in isolation. Every teacher with responsibility for a curriculum area should be encouraged to work with others within the school, join subject networks where these are available locally, tap into the expertise of subject specialists within a MAT if they are part of one, engage with the subject communities on Twitter and belong to the relevant subject association. Linked to this aim for more collaboration is that subject leaders in secondary schools should have time to gain insights into what pupils have already been taught in their primary schools.
In order for curriculum planning to be effective, leaders need to make sure that planning takes account of the research on effective learning, for example Bjork’s work on ‘desirable difficulties’ which found that if learning is too easy and straightforward it is less likely to be secure in the long term memory. The research is now clear that some activities in classrooms result in better learning and it is important that teachers are aware of the headlines of these and consider how to adjust their practice where appropriate. It is not easy trawling the research and this is why it is important that schools support their colleagues to become members of the Chartered College of Teaching[7] because one of the strands of their work is to make the research available through their website and their termly publication Impact.
Subject specific continuing professional development has been the poor relation compared with generic pedagogic CPD. However, work by Philippa Cordingley at CUREE[8] has found that programmes that unhand teachers’ subject knowledge and/or their ability to teach in specific subjects has a greater impact on pupil outcomes than generic CPD. Again, from the research: ‘while teachers in England rate subject specific or contextualised CPD more highly than generic pedagogic CPD, their leaders are less convinced – and both groups see it as much less common and desirable than do their peers in high performing countries.’ If we know this and we are serious about raising outcomes for all pupils, we need to make sure that it is given sufficient time in schools.
There are no quick fixes for this. Philippa Cordingley and Toby Greany’s work found that many school leaders do work to build a strong professional learning environments and systems for developing depth in content knowledge at the heart of school improvement, as the case studies in the report show. But there is a long way to go to make this practice widespread. ‘Effective leaders use performance review to identify and balance CPD needs for the school as a whole and for individuals. Primary and secondary schools with a strong CPD offer and a focus on how teachers learn through deepening subject knowledge work hard to sustain support and make it systematic, using different kinds of evidence and making sure there is a clear logical connections between analysis of the needs of individual and groups of teachers, school self-evaluation, improvement and CPD activity.’
[1] https://thedignityofthethingblog.wordpress.com/
[2] http://thinkingonlearning.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/improving-curriculum.html
[3] https://johntomsett.com/2018/05/06/this-much-i-know-about-subject-specific-pedagogy/
[4] https://classteaching.wordpress.com/2016/09/19/subject-planning-and-development-sessions/
[5] http://primarypercival.weebly.com/blog/no-written-marking-job-done
[6] https://thirdspacelearning.com/blog/why-my-school-banned-marking-confessions-of-a-primary-headteacher/