Would stopping a child in a school corridor and asking them to tell you the names of the six wives of Henry VIII in order and their individual outcomes be a good test of the quality of a school’s curriculum?
No.
If this information was the sole focus of a school’s curriculum then it wouldn’t be a bad question to ask, but 13 years focusing on the marriages of that Tudor king wouldn’t be a broad and balanced offer.
The quality of a curriculum cannot be ascertained in a few quiz questions because a curriculum is not just a series of pieces of information, rather it is made up of webs of knowledge, of narratives.
To ascertain whether a curriculum is any good our “corridor questioner” would need to ask questions which find out whether these narratives and/or webs are understood and doing this is not easy.
Judging a curriculum is a subjective art but there are some more objective measures that can help us make a decision as to its quality. An obvious marker could be external exam and test results. If the results are “good” it is often assumed that all is well, but unfortunately it might not be a true reflection of curriculum quality.
Reasons for successful results could be due to forces outside of the school’s control – student intake, tutoring, use of study guides etc. Maybe the results show a wide range of grades with some classes doing better than others and some papers showing higher grades than others – are students attending catch-up classes after school, in the holiday days or at weekends? These could be signs that all is not well with the curriculum.
It would be easy to blame individual teachers, but teaching is a team game. Think of it as a relay with each concept taught, in this metaphor, a baton. If the student taking an exam finds it difficult to answer a certain question, it is not just down to the most recent teacher, it might be the concept, the baton, that was passed to them was not of sufficient quality.
I’m losing myself in the metaphor here, because when a baton is dropped the race is over, whereas a dropped concept can be picked up. But a good curriculum is passed on through the years from teacher to teacher, class to class, institution to institution. Think about everything that needs to be in place for students to get a handle on statistics, understand Macbeth, or translate a foreign language into English.
School curriculum
When we say “curriculum” we are of course talking about the sum total of a number of curricula. The curriculum is made up of everything taught explicitly and implicitly. It involves subjects and disciplines, extra or co-curricular clubs, enrichment classes, school trips, and even assemblies.
A school curriculum can be designed without much thought – the sum of its parts merely an accidental collection of all of these different areas. Or the curriculum might be held together by overall aims, a direction for all to follow.
The latter is best, although these aims need to be loose enough to enable a variety of subjects and other curriculum elements to thrive, and tight enough to be more than mere management-speak.
Subject curricula
The major part of a school’s overall curriculum is, of course, the curriculum as planned and taught in each subject area. If students and teachers have a good understanding of how a subject’s curriculum hangs together, where it is going, where one is “now” and what has been learnt so far, then we could say it is “joined-up” or cohesive – this is a sign of a good curriculum.
Curriculum cohesion questionnaire
In my book Curriculum Revolutions I have included a curriculum cohesion questionnaire as the first part of the design process, to help teachers and leaders to enhance their curriculum offer.
A survey of staff can ascertain how well the curriculum being taught is coherent and “joined-up”. If all staff understand how their curriculum builds its narrative, how it unfolds over time, in broad brush strokes and in the details, it is a sign that the curriculum on offer is a good one.
A questionnaire should encourage discussion and consideration of different aspects of the curriculum and curricular decision-making. For instance:
- How much autonomy is currently granted to teachers individually to teach in their own way? Why and to what effect?
- Do we know what our colleagues are teaching, why and when – in our own subject as well as other relevant subjects?
The questionnaire will flag up potential areas that might lack cohesiveness, one of which is the relationship between breadth and depth. The need for careful balancing of knowledge between context and detail can often get lost, particularly in a blocked curriculum where one disconnected topic follows another, a curriculum design that is not suitably “growthful”.
This is why sequencing matters. One of the ways to think about sequencing is by how one area of knowledge opens up other areas – this broader based knowledge enables students to put their learning in context and navigate subjects.
Breadth and depth
To navigate a subject well, students need a map or web of knowledge and skills with a balance between breadth and depth. Breadth allows a student to traverse the subject, allowing them to see the wood from the trees.
Depth is the detail, the trees in the wood, the branches, the twigs, and leaves.
Students can discuss elements of the curriculum in detail and also talk in broad terms about where this detailed knowledge fits together, connects with other learning and beyond. If students can do this in an eloquent way it is the sign of a good curriculum.
Curriculum shapes as ‘cognitive architecture’
Different shapes can also help us when it comes to designing a rich curriculum. Some are well known. The focus on both depth and breadth, for example, can be described as the T-shaped curriculum, with breadth expressed as the horizontal and depth the vertical.
The important thing is to get the balance right, a balance that is, of course, different in different subjects.
The spiral shape, made famous by Jerome Bruner, is a particular favourite of mine. This spiral can bring about a degree of order and simplicity to the complex matter of developing patterns of thought and schemata, through which students can begin to really understand and recall complex ideas involved in the subject they are studying.
Other shapes can also come into play, from “upside-down” triangles expressing the broad to the detailed, to interleaving spirals where a number of ideas are explored, helping teachers to easily design complex webs of knowledge.
Extra/co-curricula
All aspects of school should be considered when looking at curriculum. The most important impact on a student’s life may occur in a history classroom or physics lab, the school orchestra, a Duke of Edinburgh course, the school play, athletics track, debating society or chess club. This is why the school’s overall curriculum aims are so important as they help guide provision in all aspects of school life.
- Are non-examination, non-timetabled enrichment activities valued?
- Does the school provide students with glorious educational opportunities that may be considered “extra” but have equal importance? For some students, these are central to their school experience and are what gets them to school on the darkest of days.
Audit
Every year or so, all staff should be involved in carrying out a curriculum audit, with student feedback included in the process. This audit can have a general or specific focus to ascertain what, if anything, needs to change.
Continual process
The analogy often used is that of the Forth Railway Bridge, where the story goes, that once it has been painted, the painters have to begin again. Maybe this used to be true, but they now reckon on repainting it every 30 years or so. However, taking a look and making changes to your curriculum every 30 years will not suffice. A curriculum needs to reflect changes socially and culturally, both in the knowledge being taught, including when facts change, and also to reflect who is being taught and by whom.
My book Curriculum Revolutions refers to visiting and revisiting the ipsative process of curriculum design. It is intended as a steadying and focusing tool that will enable schools to simply and effectively create curricula that communicate complex ideas and thoughts and grow skills over time.
- Martin Robinson worked in east London state schools for more than 20 years as a teacher, head of department, head of faculty, advanced skills teacher, and school leader. For the past 10 years he has worked as an education consultant delivering CPD about curriculum design, teaching methodology and culture. Martin’s latest book Curriculum Revolutions: A practical guide to enhancing what you teach has been published by John Catt Educational. Visit www.trivium21c.com and follow him at @Trivium21c