Published Blogs
Curriculum Development - Golden Threads
3/9/24
“An aspect of this that I really enjoy is making connections. To me, curriculum development is an everchanging jigsaw puzzle, whereby the pieces often change shape or fit together in different ways. The nature of education is that it is developing all of the time, dependent on the cohort that are being taught or the changing demographics of the local area a school serves. What worked for your children two, or five or ten years ago, may or may not be right for them now.”
Where’d all the good people go
18/10/24
“As a primary school teacher for over 15 years, I’ve basically spent my life in schools (aside from my four years of university) either as a child attending or as a teacher at the front delivering learning. Now, one of the most important things we aim to develop in schools is children who are ‘good people’. Now, that seems like a bit of a throwaway or bland term to use, but essentially, I believe that with the support of my own family and my schooling, I have grown up to be a good person. A well-rounded individual. Someone who is aware of their actions and how they may or may not impact others and with the social skills and ‘cultural capital’ to make my own way in this world.”
A continually evolving curriculum
18/7/24
“We've just completed updating the LCC website and are already discussing what will come next. I want to examine how we can bring the 'golden threads' into science. We are also looking at ways of bringing real-life scenarios into the Learning Challenge Curriculum and could have something special with links to PSHE put together early next year. These are just a few of the things we will be working on that will make the subscription worthwhile for our schools. We'll be looking at other things, like developing new units and components, and I haven't mentioned our #PrimaryHistoryBites yet! I've loved making the first four, and I have plans to make several more, including versions my 9-year-old daughter will voiceover so that all children can access them. I want to go further and create #PrimaryGeographyBites and potentially explore other curriculum areas, too!”
Geography: The Art of Comparison
16/2/24
“What I think is so important to developing children who have a secure knowledge of geography, is ensuring that we encourage the art of comparison. Now I’m not just talking about how one geographical feature may be bigger than another (although lower down in Primary schools, these simple comparisons are an important starting point). We have to develop a clear and modelled approach to developing these comparisons as the children move through their learning.”
Geography ‘in the field’
21/11/23
“Fieldwork is the necessary experiential learning that we simply must embed as part of our geography curriculum in order to ensure that the children develop a solid understanding of the knowledge and concepts that we plan within our curriculum mapping. In order to teach geography successfully, we need to make a purposeful decision as subject or curriculum leaders to give children the right experiences at the right times.”
The curriculum jigsaw
10/10/23
“Developing a curriculum in a Primary school is like putting the pieces of a puzzle together, and there are different ways of approaching this, but ultimately, it all has to fit in the right way for the children that you teach.”
Curriculum Development: Substantive Concepts in History
3/10/23
“Substantive concepts are the ‘big ideas’ that we want to ensure that children develop a good understanding of in their learning, so that they can use and apply their knowledge of them in new and unfamiliar contexts. It is by ensuring children have a secure knowledge of these ‘big ideas’ that we can prepare them in becoming life-long learners.”
Developing progression across the curriculum
31/8/23
Developing progression across the Primary curriculum is an absolutely crucial aspect of developing learners who continue to be successful throughout their education. As teachers, what we do matters so much more than just for the day, week or term that we teach something, but in the wider sense of what the children do over the next few years and beyond. Everything children do in Primary school is formative and will set them up to hopefully succeed in all that they want to achieve as they move forward through their education. What we do in Primary schools is so unbelievably important and I cannot stress this highly enough.