Curriculum Development
Over nearly thirty years of teaching I have seen many different approaches to pedagogy, but one constant feature has been the need to engage children in learning that is meaningful for them, and that has a context. The best way to support this is to build a curriculum with links and themes that allow children to build their knowledge, understanding and skills on a foundation of appropriate content and concepts.
OFSTED have reiterated this in their recent changes to the Inspection Framework and School Inspection Handbook, placing a high importance on the development of a 'coherently planned and sequenced curriculum.'
OFSTED have reiterated this in their recent changes to the Inspection Framework and School Inspection Handbook, placing a high importance on the development of a 'coherently planned and sequenced curriculum.'
Inspectors will make a judgement on the quality of education by evaluating the extent to which:
Effectiveness of leadership and management: In making this judgement in schools, inspectors will consider:
- leaders take on or construct a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give all learners, particularly the most disadvantaged and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) or high needs, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life
- the provider’s curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning and employment
Effectiveness of leadership and management: In making this judgement in schools, inspectors will consider:
- The design, implementation and evaluation of the curriculum, ensuring breadth and balance and its impact on pupils’ outcomes and their personal, development, behaviour and welfare
- How well the school supports the formal curriculum with extra-curricular opportunities for pupils to extend their knowledge and understanding and to improve their skills in a range of artistic, creative and sporting activities
MRetc Thematic Curriculum
|
A Thematic Approach
There is evidence that teaching subject knowledge and skills as part of a wider topic based curriculum allows pupils to make useful links between areas of learning, and consolidate skills. Children are also likely to be more engaged in their learning if it has an exciting context MRetc Thematic Curriculum To support this successful learning model I have created a fully integrated Thematic Curriculum. It has been tried and tested in many schools, and has the advantage over other thematic curriculum as it can be fully tailored to suit your school - see below. Structure of the MRetc Thematic Curriculum
Knowledge retention and making connections The pupil topic maps provided for each topic support pupils to identify and remember the key knowledge from the topic, and will build into a useful pupil-created reference library 
|
Development and Implementation in your school The MRetc Thematic Curriculum can be used straight out of the box, or tailored to suit your school, with bespoke curriculum maps and topics created from scratch to fit with your schools location, history, subject specialisms or school development plan Support for school staff I can work with your subject leaders, curriculum leaders, SLT and teaching and support staff to ensure that they are engaged and involved in the development of the curriculum. I often work 1:1 with teaching staff to support planning in the first year, this helps to build confidence and good practice. |