Planning the Primary National Curriculum

A complete guide for trainees and teachers

Keira Sewell

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781529756210
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Enseignement primaire

A complete guide for trainees and teachers To prepare to teach the new PrimaryNational Curriculum, you need more than just the Programmes of Study. You need a resource to help you understand, plan for, teach and assess the curriculum. This is it! Your guide toplanning the Primary National Curriculum. This book explores how to plan in primary schools. It covers curriculum design and structure, challenges to learning, and how children learn. New in this edition is a piece on Decolonising the Curriculum. For each curriculum subject the programme of study is included, with notes to help you interpret it for your own class. The textcovers how the teaching of each subject can be organised, assessment opportunities, key and essential resources in each subject, and how ICT can best be used in each subjectto enhance teaching. Sequenced lesson examples in all subject chapters link theory to practice and highlight progression. The final section of the book explores the many ways in which the curriculum can be delivered. It includes the creative curriculum, dialogic teaching, cross-curricular learning and more current thinking about interpreting the curriculum.

Section 1 Overview of planning

This section will explore the structure and organisation of the national curriculum, providing a context for planning and the related Teachers’ Standards. Generic principles of planning will be discussed in Chapter 2.

1 The planning context

Keira Sewell

Context 1 Implementing the national curriculum

The requirements for the national curriculum for England are laid out in the framework document. Not all schools need to teach the national curriculum and, even when they are required to or choose to teach it, the national curriculum should be considered as only one part of a broad and balanced curriculum.

The first national curriculum was introduced in 1989 and comprised of nine subjects. Since then there have been a number of revisions, the most recent being the framework document for the national curriculum in England implemented from September 2014.

It is likely that you will be training and working in some schools where minor changes have been made to reflect the revised curriculum and in others where the curriculum has been completely rewritten. It is important, therefore, that you understand the changes made in the revised framework so that you can ensure your planning reflects these and complies with the statutory requirements.

Key changes

The changes made in the revised national curriculum (DfE, 2014) can be summarised as follows.

• The national curriculum is only statutory for maintained schools in England and these schools must publish their curriculum by subject and year group online each year. Academies can choose whether to follow the national curriculum.
• The national curriculum is to be considered one part of the curriculum offered by a school and no further guidance will be given by the government on how to plan or teach the curriculum offered.
• English, mathematics and science remain as core subjects but with an expectation that numeracy and literacy will be taught through all subject areas. There is an emphasis on phonics in the early teaching of reading.
• Art and design, design and technology, geography, history, music and physical education remain as foundation subjects. Information and communications technology has been replaced by computing with an expectation that ICT should permeate all subjects. Languages are now included in the national curriculum for key stages 2 and 3.
• There remains an expectation that personal, social and health education (PSHE) and religious education (RE) will be part of any school provision although the content of this remains, largely, within the control of each school. Sex and relationship education is not statutory in the primary phase. Citizenship and sex and relationship education are statutory from key stage 3.
• In assessment, levels have been removed and schools are free to choose their own system of reporting. Children will be expected to understand and apply the concepts, skills and processes outlined in the programmes of study appropriate for their year group or key stage. Schools will still be required to report progress to parents at the end of each key stage, and end of key stage tests will remain.

Structure of the national curriculum

The overall structure and requirements of the national curriculum are laid out in Section 2 of this chapter and you should read this to better understand the requirements. However, in summary, the national curriculum framework for primary schools is comprised of three core subjects:

• English
• mathematics
• science

and eight foundation subjects:

• art and design
• computing
• design and technology
• geography
• history
• languages
• music
• physical education.

Each of the subjects has a programme of study, identified as ‘statutory requirements’ or ‘subject content’, and some subjects also include non-statutory guidance or examples. You do not need to use these examples but they provide an illustration of what you might do or how you might teach the content.

The core subject programmes of study are laid out for each year group or, in some cases, for two years (i.e. lower and upper key stage 2). The foundation subjects programmes of study are laid out for each key stage.

For assessment purposes, attainment is based on achievement of the programmes of study by the end of the period of study (either year or key stage). The 2014 national curriculum is different to previous documents in that the statements in the programmes of study should be considered learning outcomes rather than learning objectives. We will explore this further in Chapter 2.

The revised national curriculum gives schools much greater freedom in terms of planning and assessment and encourages them to respond to local agendas and needs and to incorporate regional and national agendas and events. For a number of years schools have taken much greater ownership of the curricula offered and you will find a good deal of variance between the approaches to planning and assessment adopted by schools. For this reason, while it is critical that you understand the statutory requirements of the national curriculum to ensure what you offer is compliant, you need to understand the rationale underpinning the approaches each school takes. As part of this, you will need to develop a personal philosophy of education.

Developing a personal philosophy

Consider the following.

• What do you think education is? Is it a process or a product? Is schooling the same as education? (Read Sewell and Newman (2014) to reflect on some of these ideas.)
• Does the purpose of education change from the primary to the secondary phase and, if so, why and in what ways?
• What do you think children should be able to know, understand, do and be by the end of the primary phase?
• How should a primary curriculum reflect these ideas? (Read Hedges (2014) to reflect on this.)
• What principles can you apply to your planning to reflect your personal philosophy of education?

Draw up a list of principles that you would wish to underpin all of your planning in schools and keep them in the front of your planning folder. Refer back to them regularly to ensure they are still current and relevant. Your views will evolve as you become more experienced and knowledgeable and as a result of changes to our understanding of education as a society. A good starting point in considering your personal philosophy is the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2013).

Teachers’ Standards

The Standards which measure the development of any teacher are used for a variety of reasons including accountability, pay levels, quality assurance and achievement of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and the induction period. They are presented in two parts:

• Part 1: Teaching
• Part 2: Personal and professional conduct

Consider the eight headings for part 1 of the Standards which state that a teacher must:

1. set high expectations which inspire, motivate and challenge pupils;
2. promote good progress and outcomes by pupils;
3. demonstrate good subject and curriculum knowledge;
4. plan and teach well-structured lessons;
5. adapt teaching to respond to the strengths and needs of all pupils;
6. make accurate and productive use of assessment;
7. manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning environment;
8. fulfil wider professional responsibilities.

Why do you think these are the minimum requirements of a teacher at any level and how should these principles underpin your planning? Add these ideas to your personal philosophy notes.

Now consider part 2 of the Standards which state:

A teacher is expected to demonstrate consistently high standards of personal and professional conduct. The following statements define the behaviour and attitudes which set the required standard for conduct throughout a teacher’s career.

• Teachers uphold public trust in the profession and maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour, within and outside school, by:
  • treating pupils with dignity, building relationships rooted in mutual respect, and at all times observing proper boundaries appropriate to a teacher’s professional position;
  • having regard for the need to safeguard pupils’ well-being, in accordance with statutory provisions;
  • showing tolerance of and respect for the rights of others;
  • not undermining fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs;
  • ensuring that personal beliefs are not expressed in ways which exploit pupils’ vulnerability or might lead them to break the law.
• Teachers must have proper and professional regard for the ethos, policies and practices of the school in which they teach, and maintain high standards in their own attendance and punctuality.
• Teachers must have an understanding of, and always act within, the statutory frameworks which set out their professional duties and responsibilities.

How do these Standards contribute to your own per...