Inspiring Primary Curriculum Design

James Biddulph, Julia Flutter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000081749
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This new book from the only university-run primary school in the UK helps schools design their own curricula by providing access to the latest education research along with supporting ideas and questions for how this can be applied successfully.

Co-written by practising teachers and research academics it combines practitioner expertise with the latest world class academic research. Each chapter includes examples of how schools approached designing their own curricula and shows how an evidence-informed approach can lead to new ideas that are bold, innovative and imaginative.

Packed with innovative ideas and practical suggestions, this book highlights the importance of using research evidence to develop teachers' practice in the realities of their own classrooms and schools. It is a key read for teachers, school leaders, teaching assistants and student teachers, especially those who recognise the important role of research in developing excellence in their practice.

CHAPTER 1

Curriculum making

Key concepts and practices

Mark Priestley and Constantinos Xenofontos

Introduction

It would appear – after a long hiatus spanning nearly 30 years – that curriculum is back on the agenda in England’s schools. This observation does, of course, require some qualification. In one sense, curriculum has never gone away; reform of the school curriculum has been a preoccupation of successive governments, with policy characterised by tinkering – and occasionally larger scale overhaul – of the National Curriculum, which has continued to exert a major – some would say malign – influence on practices in schools. However, this is different to saying that the curriculum, as an object or field of study and a set of discourses subject to critical examination by education professionals, has been the focus of educational attention in England. We would suggest that this has not largely been the case, and that the field of curriculum studies – by both scholars and education professionals – has been in decline for some time. Some commentators have talked of a ‘crisis in curriculum’ (Wheelahan, 2010) in recent years, echoing earlier talk in the United States that the field had become moribund (Schwab, 1969). Such rhetoric is perhaps overstated; nevertheless, we would agree that the field of curriculum studies has been in the doldrums for some years in the UK (Moore, 2006; Manyukhina & Wyse, 2019). A major cause of this has been the influence of the National Curriculum, a good example of a teacher-proof curriculum (Taylor, 2013). In its various iterations, through tight and prescriptive regulation of content and even pedagogy (Hofkins & Northen, 2009), it has sought to reduce teachers from active curriculum makers to technicians tasked with delivering a predefined product. This is amply illustrated by one particular trend in recent years – the decline of the curriculum studies Master’s degree. In the early 1990s, teachers were able to undertake Master’s level programmes with a primary focus on curriculum at many universities; in 2019, only one such programme remains in the UK, and it is currently projected for closure. These trends have been accompanied by a decline in curriculum scholarship and the retirement of key scholars in the field, and a distancing of curriculum scholars from the institutional settings (including schools) where curriculum is made and remade (van den Akker et al., 2013). A corollary of this has probably been the strengthening of a view amongst the teaching profession that curriculum scholarship is not relevant to the task of developing educational programmes in schools.

In the light of this apparent decline in curriculum studies, we therefore welcome signs that the field is experiencing something of a renaissance; ‘a vigorous debate on the school curriculum with questions concerning curriculum design and implementation moving to the top of the educational research and policy agenda internationally’ (Manyukhina & Wyse, 2019, p. 1). A notable trend has been the emergence worldwide of new forms of curriculum policy which explicitly reposition the teacher as an agent of curriculum change and active maker of the curriculum in local school settings (Priestley & Biesta, 2013). Examples of such development are found in Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence and the new Curriculum for Wales. This approach to curriculum policy has explicitly eschewed the detailed prescription of content – input regulation of the curriculum (Nieveen & Kuiper, 2012) – which has been a key feature of policy for much of the lifecycle of England’s National Curriculum. The repositioning requires teachers to be more than simple implementers of policy, but instead as professionals who interpret, translate, mediate and enact policy through the exercise of professional judgement. Overall, such curricula have placed questions about curriculum, including curriculum design/development/making, firmly back into the orbit of practitioners.

To some extent, recent trends in England reflect worldwide trajectories, although there are some significant differences which would seem to militate against the development of the extended role of the teacher as a curriculum maker, as has been encouraged elsewhere in the world. Prominent amongst these has been the knowledge turn, following the election of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in 2010. The launch of England’s revised National Curriculum by Michael Gove in 2012 represented a considerable divergence from international trends towards decluttering of content, and more autonomy in curriculum making – including selection of content – by teachers. Its prescription of content in core subject areas and the lack of specification in ‘unimportant’ non-core subjects (Alexander, 2012, p. 376), along with its lack of clear aims, have been heavily criticised as undermining curricular balance and coherence. According to Alexander (ibid.):

Since this contrast is reinforced by assessment requirements, with English, mathematics and science subject to national tests and ‘some form of grading of pupil attainment’, we can be reasonably sure on the basis of past experience that in a significant proportion of schools teachers will teach to the test and have scant regard for the rest.

Paradoxically, these ambiguities in curriculum policy seem to have opened up spaces for teachers to become more active and agentic curriculum makers. By encouraging the narrowing in the curriculum, about which Alexander warned, curricular policy has exposed the need for schools and teachers to be sites where curriculum questions are posed and addressed constructively. It is no longer the case – if it ever was – that schools can unproblematically ‘implement’ the government’s curriculum product.

It is heartening to see, in this political context, that curriculum debate is firmly back on the agenda in schools. The recent emergence of the Ofsted Intent, Implementation, Impact (Harford, 2017) approach to curriculum planning is encouraging, as it explicitly requires schools to address curriculum questions. It acknowledges that curriculum is something that ‘happens’ at various levels of the system, it recognises the important role of teachers as translators of policy and significantly emphasises the importance of conceptual clarity. It recognises the importance of knowledge, something that has been ‘downgraded’ to some extent in curriculum policy developments elsewhere in the world (Young & Muller, 2010; Priestley & Sinnema, 2014). Nevertheless, despite these encouraging signs, there remains a need for a more nuanced approach to conceptualising and enacting curriculum. The Ofsted model remains limited in many respects; it is too linear and top-down, and replete with problematic language such as ‘delivery’ and ‘offering’, rather than ‘experience’ and ‘development’; and there is too much focus on content, neglecting other curriculum practices, especially pedagogy and assessment, which are seen as not being part of the curriculum.

The remainder of this chapter will explore some of these issues, taking as its starting point the current debates about curriculum. To a large extent, these debates were foreshadowed by the Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander, 2009; Hofkins & Northen, 2009); this comprehensive approach to curriculum was perhaps published, however, at the wrong time to have the full impact it deserved. Given current debates about the importance of curriculum, we now seem to be at a more constructive juncture to critically examine the concepts and practices associated with curriculum, many of which were featured in the Review. The next section will explore the meaning of curriculum in more detail, especially examining critical concepts that should underpin the development of educational programmes in primary schools.

Curriculum concepts

It can be argued that effective curriculum making has to be underpinned by developed conceptual understanding by the curriculum makers (particularly practitioners); sense-making by teachers is suggested to be a key factor in the development of state-mandated, large-scale curriculum reform in systems perceived as successful, such as Finland (Pyhältö, Pietarinen & Soini, 2018). It is therefore useful to start this discussion with an attempt to define curriculum, which is a contested and often misunderstood concept. At a simple level, the curriculum simply means a course of study. The word is derived from the Latin word meaning racecourse or race, and has come to mean a general course, conveying the notion of going somewhere in a predefined direction. Indeed, this simple definition is one that is current in many schools, where the curriculum is seen largely as the glossy booklets that contain the content to be taught.

However, such a conception of curriculum is clearly inadequate for understanding the complex processes of schooling in today’s society. It can reduce curriculum simply to content, and ignore practices such as assessment and pedagogy that need to be considered when the curriculum is developed in schools. A more sophisticated definition is clearly required, and there have been many attempts to provide one. For example, the Dictionary of Education (Rowntree, 1981) offers the following definition:

[Curriculum] can refer to the total structure of ideas and activities developed by an educational institution to meet the learning needs of students, and to achieve desired educational aims. Some people use the term to refer simply to the content of what is being taught. Others include also the teaching and learning methods involved, how students’ attainment is measured and the underlying philosophy of education.

Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, in line with this more holistic view, states that the curriculum is ‘the totality of all that is planned for children and young people throughout their education’ (Scottish Government, 2008). There are many other approaches in the literature highlighting the complexities of what curriculum comprises. Robitaille and Dirks (1982), for instance, discuss three levels of curriculum: the intended (a set of formal documents specifying what the relevant regional/national education authorities plan), the implemented (the interpretation of the intended curriculum by teachers and the actual implementation taking place in the classroom, based on teachers’ beliefs, knowledge and experiences) and the attained (knowledge, understanding, skills and affective variables learners actually acquire as a result of teaching). These ideas were later used as a model of what curriculum is in the Second International Mathematics Study (SIMS) and have subsequently influenced the work of many educationists, who, in turn, provided more detailed/refined typologies.

Such definitions are helpful in that they provide a broad conception of the education that occurs in schools. However, this sort of broad definition can also be confusing, as the term curriculum comes to mean different things to different people. For these reasons, it is necessary to be clear about the various facets that make up the curriculum, and the ways in which these facets link together and interact in practice. One way in which this has been addressed is to identify how curriculum fits with other components of education, such as assessment and pedagogy, while seeing them as conceptually distinct practices. For example, Bernstein’s (1977) famous formulation of the three message systems of schooling – curriculum, pedagogy and assessment – is one such attempt to show how these practices interrelate. However, this typology comes with dangers if it allows education professionals to consider such issues separately, and we would advocate instead an approach which requires all such questions to be addressed as part of a holistic method of engaging with the development of educational practice.

With the above in mind, we offer an alternative, holistic definition of curriculum: the multi-layered social practices, including infrastructure, pedagogy and assessment, through which education is structured, enacted and evaluated. Such a definition moves us beyond thinking of the curriculum as a product which needs to be delivered or implemented. Instead, it views curriculum as something that happens – or which is done – differentially across different layers of the education system, as the curriculum is made in different institutional settings. Put differently, and to paraphrase Bernstein (1990), the curriculum is contextualised in policy, and recontextualised as it is [re]made (interpreted, translated, enacted) in different schools. This definition of curriculum also requires us to consider how different curricular practices interrelate, and how the curriculum relates to educational purposes, students and the wider social context, for example:

• Questions relating to curriculum for what, by whom … and for whom?
• The necessity of considering context, including the ‘hidden curriculum’, when engaging in local curriculum making.
• The importance of teacher professional development, bearing in mind Stenhouse’s (1975) aphorism that there can be no curriculum development without teacher development.
• The role of system dynamics as barriers to and drivers of curriculum making.
• The need to take an inclusive and holistic approach, which takes account of the perspectives and experiences of traditionally marginalised group...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• 1 Curriculum making: Key concepts and practices
• 2 Considering the possibilities
• 3 Nurturing compassionate citizens of the future: Weaving together pedagogy and curriculum
• 4 Rethinking spaces for learning: Designing a curriculum with freedom and flexibility at its heart
• 5 “Why do I have to sit down?”: Designing an age-appropriate curriculum for children in Year 1
• 6 Learning to learn from nature: How principles of Harmony in the natural world can guide curriculum design
• 7 Knowing about and acting globally in everyday classrooms
• 8 Education as the embracing of a loving universe: Designing an inclusive curriculum
• 9 No mountain high enough: Using music to raise academic achievement
• 10 Vision-driven curriculum practices: ‘Deeply Christian, serving the common good’
• 11 Oracy and the primary curriculum: What does research tell us?
• 12 Unlocking research: To new possibilities
• Afterword
• Index