Maintaining a Healthy Culture through Curriculum Reform


Maintaining a Healthy Culture through Curriculum Reform

Guidance for Middle Leaders


DRAFT

Context

There is a trend in schools towards greater standardisation, particularly in relation to curriculum content. In practice, this might involve:
  • Teachers delivering the same curriculum content in the same order
  • Standardised formative and summative assessments
  • Standardised resources, such as knowledge organisers and models
  • Standardised homeworks
  • Standardised classroom approaches and pedagogy

There are a number of reasons why schools are choosing to develop in this way. These include:
  • Reduction of teacher workload, and the reduplication of work across many teachers, in planning and creating resources
  • Added coherence to CPD
  • Increased ability for teachers to collaborate meaningfully together and share practice
  • Overall higher quality and consistency of student experience over time
  • Ability for subjects to cope with unexpected change, eg teachers leaving mid-year
  • Improved potential for intervention and catch-up resources, meaning that schools are better able to help absent students to catch up
  • Ability to facilitate better revision activities and resources for exam groups
These are significant benefits and it is unsurprising that schools are interested in moving in this direction.

However, it also represents change which is likely to have a powerful influence. We should therefore be vigilant towards how this change might feel and be received by teachers, and the potential for positive and negative contribution to culture and the lived experience of working in schools and subject teams. Conversation with teachers in schools implementing this change indicates that the following ideas are important.

What is it like to be ‘on the receiving end’ of standardisation?
  • For some teachers, greater standardisation is welcome, for the reasons outlined above. This appears particularly to be the case for non-specialists or teachers with heavy draws on their time outside of their subject teaching, eg those with significant pastoral responsibilities.
  • Some subjects lend themselves to greater standardisation, and have traditions of standardised ways of working, more than is the case in other subjects.
  • For some teachers, standardisation feels much less comfortable, and can create unintended, potentially damaging consequences. This can be the case when:
  • New materials are introduced quickly, with insufficient accompanying training and time for teachers to think and talk about their teaching.
  • Individual teachers have a strong interest in elements such as curriculum design, lesson planning or resource creation.
  • There is insufficient clarity about core expectations, ie what is mandatory for all teachers to do or deliver, and equally, what is open for teachers to change or take their own approaches.
  • There is insufficient opportunity for teachers to engage with the process of curriculum design, eg by being involved in content selection or sequencing, or having opportunities to give their opinions about materials being used.

What can subject leaders do or avoid?
  • Be clear as to which content or methods are mandatory. Accompany this with a very clear sense of the rationale. An example might be ‘we all teach this unit in Year 8, because it provides the foundation knowledge necessary to understand this unit in Year 9’, or ‘we teach vocabulary explicitly because we know this is an identified weakness’. It’s unlikely that full consensus on the optimal approaches or content will be reached in a team, and therefore it’s important that leaders are able to provide clear guidance and a final decision when there is disagreement.
  • However, it is important to be equally clear as to which content or methods are not mandatory, and can be tweaked, edited, adapted, or not used at all in favour of an alternative approach of the teachers’ own devising. Where content or methods are not mandatory, make sure that teachers know this, and encourage them to experiment or make changes if they want to do so.
  • Aim for an optimal balance between mandatory and non-mandatory. Ensure that there is enough space for teachers to innovate, make decisions for their classes, and exercise autonomy.
  • Be cautious about providing too much by way of pre-prepared resources. Don’t pre-photocopy non-mandatory resources, for example, as this means that they can’t be adapted, which can feel restrictive.
  • Emphasise that there is space for creativity and autonomy at individual teacher level, and that this is encouraged. Build slack into medium term plans to allow for this if possible.
  • Build in systematic approaches to invite feedback on mandatory content or methods. For example, after a standardised assessment or unit of work, have an agenda item or use a quick online survey to ask for teacher views on how it went, and how it could be improved.
  • Build in planned opportunities for dialogue around content and methods informally and through meeting time. Pre or post Unit Briefings can be a good way of doing this.
  • Be conscious that well-intentioned, enthusiastic recommendation or advocacy of a particular approach can feel hectoring or demanding. It is hard for teachers to change what they do, so be prepared for the reality that not all teachers will take up approaches quickly, even if you as leader are confident they will make a difference. If you are convinced that an approach will make an essential difference to the students, make it mandatory. If not, be aware that some may respond to over-advocating by feeling inadequacy or resentment.

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