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Curriculum
EVENT: Powerful Curriculum Design
If you are interested in curriculum design, this one-day course could be the perfect opportunity to explore a range of powerful ideas to take your school forward. Martin Robinson and I will be delivering the programme based on our experience working with schools around the country. Please come and join us for what promises to … Continue reading
40 Curriculum Models 2017:
With enormous thanks to everyone who has contributed, the spreadsheet below now shows the curriculum models for 40 different schools. I’m going to stop there. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fuZV6mg5BQLDnQ3xACDMqTuKbUKZGr5k9iYz56RpDvM/edit?usp=sharing The collection includes the models for grammar schools, comprehensives, middle schools and international schools. No two are the same. There’s a mixture of 25, 30, 50 and … Continue reading
Promoting Cultural Capital: We are naming our classrooms.
As part of a long-term, school-wide initiative to develop our students’ cultural capital, we are going to be giving each of the spaces in our school an identity linked to a significant person. Each department has been asked to select people who represent their subjects, blending historical and contemporary figures and seeking to achieve a … Continue reading
Emerging KS3 Curriculum Map and Exhibition Plan
Our Head of School for KS3 has been working with subjects leaders to pull together a map of our curriculum. This idea is to look for links, to plan future links, and, more routinely, keep tabs on what is going on in our students’ learning lives. All too often the detail of the curriculum is … Continue reading
The Art of Timetabling: Principles and priorities
This is the crunch time for the legion of timetablers across the country – and for the teachers who wait to see what they come up with. As a former timetabler myself, I’d like to dedicate this post to my partners in crime, especially Matt who is working on the Highbury Grove timetable right now. We’ve come a … Continue reading
Our Comprehensive Curriculum for All
One of my main goals in my first year at Highbury Grove has been to review the curriculum and make the changes necessary for September 2015. I’m really pleased with the process and the outcome; parents, governors, staff and students have all influenced the thinking through various consultation processes. I described some of this in … Continue reading
The Trivium and the Baccalaureate: The flesh and the bones of a great education.
At Highbury Grove, we’re actively developing our thinking about the curriculum, pedagogy and learning ethos we want to create, shaping the educational experience of our students in line with our overarching values and vision. There are three interrelated strands to the thinking: 1. The National Baccalaureate @Highbury Grove. In line with the national developments, … Continue reading
Curriculum Models. A Sharing Initiative
A few years ago I undertook an information gathering exercise for the Grammar Schools Heads’ Association, collecting over 70 different curriculum models. I asked people to send me their model in a format that matched our own, using Excel, so that it was easy to browse through all of the models in the … Continue reading
Labour’s National Baccalaureate: Strong on Principles and Pragmatism
Over the last year, I’ve been working with IoE Director, Chris Husbands, as a member of the Labour Skills Task Force; it has been a fascinating process. This week the third and final report from the group was published, outlining some recommendations for 14-19 curriculum and qualifications reform. I recommend reading the report in detail … Continue reading
Teaching the Timeline: Chronology as Core Curriculum
Increasingly, I find myself drawn to the issue of chronology; the importance of understanding the scale and sequence of historical eras and the framework for locating every event and every historical figure relative to every other. This is the big picture; the story of everything we’ve ever known and ever done. This hyperhistory site is … Continue reading
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