The classroom isn’t working for working class students. So, what can we do about it? Last time I suggested we embed four knowledge domains into our curriculum in order to give working class students access to the “secret knowledge” usually reserved for their more affluent, privileged peers.
But we also need to address the problems inherent in the curriculum – that of coverage and content – and the problems with our assessment system – that it privileges the privileged and fails the working classes.
We can do this by taking a three-step approach – what Andy Griffith and I, in our forthcoming book The Working Classroom, call the 3Es…
- Equality through the core curriculum: This is about achieving equality in the way we design the core curriculum (that is to say, timetabled lessons and extra-curricular activities) and by giving all students access to the same ambitious curriculum, irrespective of their backgrounds, starting points, and different needs.
- Equity through curriculum adaptations and interventions – this is about achieving equity through adaptive teaching approaches and additional support strategies that are designed to help disadvantaged students access the same core curriculum as their peers and achieve.
- Extension through curriculum extras and enhancements – this is about extending the curriculum experience for working class students through extra-curricular activities and carefully designed enrichment activities which provide long-term opportunities for students to acquire the secret knowledge and skills otherwise denied them.
It might help to think of the 3Es as a three-step process to be tackled in order.
Working class students
Article 1: In pursuit of equity in education: Published May 1, 2023
Article 2: Four domains of secret knowledge: Published May 10. 2023.
Article 3: Curriculum equality: This article
Article 4: Curriculum equity: Published May 23, 2023.
A caveat
This series of articles is about helping working class students compete more fairly with their better-off peers. It is about turning disadvantage into advantage. Most of what I suggest is aimed at doing more for those who start with less. But the first step on our three-point plan to counter classism is levelling the playing field; it is about ensuring that all students are taught the same ambitious curriculum. This might sound contradictory, but it is not.
Shortly, I will argue in favour of giving equal access to all students, irrespective of their backgrounds, their starting points, and their additional and different needs, to an ambitious, broad, and balanced, and planned and sequenced curriculum with excellence at its heart. Why? Because to do otherwise is, in our view, to perpetuate existing disadvantages, to double-down on differences.
In short, equality is an antidote to dumbing down or reducing the curriculum for some students. To offer less is to say a child’s birth will be their destiny; it is to deny them the chance to compete fairly.
So, equality is about giving all students access to the same curriculum. It is also about embedding throughout the core curriculum the four knowledge domains I shared last time which give students access to the secret knowledge that will help them get on in life.
If, as you read this section, you think I’ve steered away from my mission to help working class students, be under no illusion: this is only the first step. Once we have given all students equal access to the same ambitious curriculum, we then need to do more for working class students to help them access this curriculum and achieve. Doing more might take the form of adaptive teaching or interventions, or it might take the form of extra-curricular activities or curriculum enhancements – or it might be all of the above.
So, let us now explore step one in more detail…
Equality through the core curriculum
The regulatory standards for independent schools (DfE, 2016) provide a useful way of thinking about curriculum coverage. The standards require schools to provide a curriculum that gives students experience in the following areas: linguistic, mathematical, scientific, technological, human, and social, physical, and aesthetic and creative, so that it promotes spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development.
A broad curriculum, therefore, might be regarded as one in which there are enough subjects on a student’s timetable to cover all these experiences. Narrowing the curriculum for disadvantaged students clearly runs counter to this definition of breadth. A broad curriculum offers all students a wide range of subjects for as long as possible.
A balanced curriculum, meanwhile, might be regarded as one in which each subject is not only taught to all students but is afforded sufficient space on the timetable to deliver its distinct contribution. The danger here is that some subjects, such as art, music, and languages, are squeezed out of the timetable by English, maths, and science. It is not uncommon for English to have five or more lessons per-week and art just one, or for the arts to operate on a carousel with, say, design technology – each being taught for one term in the year.
In my 2019 book, School and College Curriculum Design 1: Intent, I articulated a six-step process for designing an ambitious, broad, and balanced, and planned and sequenced curriculum to which all students are afforded equal access. I also discussed these points in an episode of the SecEd Podcast back in 2020. The steps are as follows:
Step 1: Agree the vision
This requires each school to consult on and communicate a shared definition of what is meant by the word “curriculum”, as well as a working definition of what that curriculum encompasses in practice within the context of that school. This working definition might include, where relevant, aspects of the national, basic, local, and hidden curriculums.
Agreeing a curriculum vision is also about deciding upon and articulating the purpose of education within that school (why do we exist, what is our hope for all students?).
Step 2: Set the destination
The second step is to identify what we want all students to know and be able to do at the end of their curriculum journeys – be that at the end of a module or topic, at the end of a year, key stage, or phase, at the end of their school studies, or indeed in 10 years’ time.
This stage begins by developing a shared understanding of the importance of knowledge – especially the four knowledge domains we articulated earlier – and then agreeing, within subject disciplines, what knowledge matters most to our students’ future successes.
A part of the process of setting the destination is identifying the key concepts that must be taught – and learnt – in each subject discipline. These “foundational” concepts – a combination of knowledge and skills – provide the “end-points” towards which all students are headed.
Step 3: Assess the starting points
This, broadly speaking, takes two forms: the starting points of the taught curriculum and the starting points of the learnt curriculum.
The taught curriculum is that which is written down in curriculum plans (national curriculum documents, awarding body specifications, schemes of work, and so forth) and taught by teachers. The learnt curriculum, meanwhile, is that which each student has actually acquired – what they really know and can do, including their misconceptions and misunderstandings.
In terms of the taught curriculum, it is important to know the end-points of the previous curriculum – what students are expected to know and be able to do by the time they begin studying your curriculum. This is important because you need to ensure, as far as is possible, that there is curriculum continuity – that each stage of education flows smoothly and naturally into the next and that each new year, key stage and phase of education consolidates and builds upon what has gone before rather than needlessly repeating prior content.
This can be achieved, in part, by ensuring that transition arrangements are improved and that teachers and subject leaders in each phase work more closely with their counterparts in the preceding and succeeding phases in order to share data and engage in joint professional development and curriculum planning.
In terms of the learnt curriculum, it is important to understand what each student knows and can do and what they do not yet know and cannot yet do. This can be achieved, in part, through better data-sharing but also by using on-going assessments such as class discussions, hinge questions, multiple-choice quizzes, and exit tickets in order to ascertain where each students’ “struggle zone” is positioned as well as to activate their prior learning.
Step 4: Identify the way-points
Once the destination and the starting points are known, the curriculum must carve a path between the two and this path must grow ever steeper as students near the end. In other words, the curriculum needs to be increasingly complex and challenging as students travel through it, and it must help students to develop as independent learners, too. One way to do this is to identify the threshold concepts that students must acquire at each stage – the checkpoints through which they must pass on the way to their destination. These thresholds concepts can also act as a source of meaningful assessment – a progression model – which measure students’ progress.
Step 5: Define excellence
This is, in part, about developing a growth mindset, believing that every student is capable of achieving excellence, no matter their starting points and backgrounds. But it is also about “teaching to the top” for all students and not dumbing down or reducing the curriculum offer for disadvantaged students. Defining excellence is also about having high expectations of every student and about explicitly teaching them the study and research skills – including how to take notes and revise – that they need to succeed. Delivering excellence requires the curriculum – and teachers – to pitch learning at the appropriate level, which is to say hard but achievable because if the work is too easy or too difficult then students simply will not learn.
Step 6: Diminish disadvantage
The final step is to diminish disadvantage because we have to accept that not all students start from the same point and that some will require more support and more time to reach their destination.
Providing equal access to the same ambitious curriculum by using these six steps is about teaching to the top and embodying high expectations of all. It is key to helping working class students because:
- Every student gets the same entitlement to seeing/experiencing excellence.
- Every student is treated as though they can incorporate elements of excellence into their own work.
- It helps all students to improve on their previous best work.
- It helps students to realise that all improvement comes from an iterative process of comparing one’s current work to that of the excellent models that have been deconstructed for them.
Next time: In our final article next week, we will tackle equity through adaptive teaching and curriculum intervention.
- Matt Bromley is an education writer and advisor with more than 20 years’ experience in teaching and leadership including as a secondary school headteacher, principal, FE college vice-principal, and MAT director. Currently, he is a public speaker, trainer, school improvement advisor, and primary school governor. Matt is author of numerous books on education and co-hosts the award-winning SecEd Podcast. His new book, The Working Classroom, co-authored with Andy Griffith, is due out soon. Visit www.theworkingclassroom.co.uk. Read his previous articles for SecEd via https://bit.ly/seced-bromley. Visit www.bromleyeducation.co.uk
Further information & resources
- Bromley & Griffith: The Working Classroom, Crown House Publishing. 2023: www.theworkingclassroom.co.uk
- DfE: Independent School Standards, 2016: www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulating-independent-schools
- SecEd Podcast: Curriculum design (featuring Matt Bromley), 2020: Part 1 and Part 2.