Developing a flexible, aspirational and inspired curriculum for your school context is important if children and young people are to be able to recognise their learning as relevant. This relevance enables an authentic approach to teaching and learning, giving learners a sense of belonging before they launch into the unknown. The security of experiencing learning that is rooted in their local context is better for motivation and other aspects of personal development as learners explore and uncover connected concepts and coherent ‘local to global’ stories of progress, challenge and opportunity.
The PowerPoint slides here were presented as part of a regional curriculum conference in the North of England in January 2020. They outline the need to interrogate features of school contexts in order to identify rich opportunities for learning as well as gaps in experience, knowledge, understanding and skills that need addressing. Having identified these gaps and opportunities, schools are encouraged to review their values and vision statements to ensure that there is coherence between ‘context and curriculum’.
The challenge for schools is to navigate the needs and interests of their school community within the ever changing landscape of national and international guidelines and expectations. This combined with a resurgence of research and a greater focus on evidence-based practice, means that schools need to be equipped to design a curriculum that enables education for all, where equity and entitlement are paramount.
If you would like further support to consider the extent to which your curriculum reflects the needs and interests of your context, please get in touch via admin@curriculumfoundation.org.
Curriculum Foundation. Developing a flexible, aspirational curriculum for YOUR school context