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Curriculum
The next edu-revolution*: Textbooks!
Each time I post something positive on twitter about textbooks, I get a strongly positive response. Now more than ever, with people talking about studying at home and the very real challenges and impact of the digital divide, it seems such a desperate and unnecessary state of affairs that textbooks have seen such a decline … Continue reading
Curriculum + Pedagogy. And Sandcastles.
From time to time you come across somebody saying Curriculum trumps Pedagogy – or is it the other way around? I’ve heard both. Usually the speaker is pretty confident in their assertion. I’ve heard people more or less protest that teaching isn’t ‘just about Rosenshine’ and, of course that can’t possibly be true. ‘Rosenshine’ is … Continue reading
Curriculum Murmurations #2: Secondary Models Analysis. Compromises!!
This is the second in a series of posts about the direction of travel with curriculum thinking. The introductory post is here: Curriculum Murmurations #1. Thoughts from 2019. The image of a murmuration captures the sense of a system looking for direction with all the twists and turns and fluctuations. In this post I am … Continue reading
Curriculum Murmurations #1. Thoughts from 2019.
A murmuration of curriculum. That’s how my wife – a secondary Deputy Head – described the current state of things nationally. It’s a great image: the energetic but chaotic swirling around of individuals trying to stay together, following-the-leader in short bursts within a flock that has no overall sense of direction; patterns emerging here … Continue reading
Curriculum Models 2020: A new collection exercise – please contribute.
In 2017 I produced a collection of 40 secondary curriculum models: 40 Curriculum Models 2017: It contains a set of models from a range of school types including some middle schools. People have found it useful but at at time when lots of schools have been reviewing their curriculum structures it seems like a good time … Continue reading
Signposting the hinterland: practical ways to enrich your core curriculum.
Working with several schools on curriculum development over the last couple of years, a regular challenge has been to resolve the tensions that arise from having finite time and the inherent need to make a selection of material to teach from all the possibilities that swirl around. What to cover? What to leave out? How … Continue reading
Particles and Scale. Two key ideas in teaching science.
Here are two short excerpts from my first book Teach Now! Science, The Joy of Teaching Science the 2014 Routledge series edited by Geoff Barton. Particles Across the entirety of a school life, students will develop an ever more sophisticated idea about the structure of matter and how materials are made up of particles – … Continue reading
Curriculum Thinking. Blog collection all in one place.
I’ve written a lot about curriculum in the last year or so… so here’s a one-stop-shop to access them all in place: Clarification about the idea of ‘knowledge rich’ and the wider context. Curriculum Review process: Details of Curriculum Review Challenges These two posts contain a lot of details that schools wrestle with – with … Continue reading
Curriculum Review at KS3: Some common issues.
Over the last couple of years I have had the great privilege of working with several schools on the process of curriculum review. It’s such an enlightening process for all concerned – asking questions about what should be taught, why things should be taught, what absolutely must be kept in, what gets squeezed out … Continue reading
Teaching and Learning Agenda 2019/20
The summer term is often a time when people gather their thoughts for the year ahead. The work I do with schools and colleges is largely driven by a medium term improvement agenda: combining some initial support – establishing areas to improve in current practice, setting some goals for the next 12-18 months – and … Continue reading
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