The spotlight
Every subject leader rightly thinks that their subject is important. And every subject requires colleagues’ attention to build subject knowledge and to understand the discipline of the subject as well as the key concepts that make up subject specific study.
The standard of primary education set by the national curriculum is high and although it is arguably too full of content for some subjects, it is still the standard we strive for.
But there is only a finite amount of time available to develop our curriculum and colleagues’ knowledge of it. If we try and pay attention to too much at once, nothing will be done in any sufficient depth.
This is why curriculum leadership is a senior leader’s (and definitely the Headteacher’s) job. We must direct colleagues to pay attention to (and not pay attention to) different subjects at different points in time. We need to know which subjects are stronger and which need more development. Knowing this in all of each subject’s complex glory requires a good understanding of what makes a curriculum strong (or not) which again brings us back to the national curriculum. But it takes some interpretation to make sure we don’t miss anything important. Four curriculum concepts are important for leaders to understand:
Curriculum leadership also requires a set of behaviours and concepts around which to frame their work – the active ingredients of their curriculum strategy. For example:
Curriculum leadership in the primary phase demands knowledge of all this and more so that we can design a great curriculum and support colleagues to develop their subject knowledge to the appropriate standard. Checklists can help subject leaders to structure their mental model of subject leadership.
This level of expertise enables a senior leader to assume the role of the spotlight. Great subject leaders are keen to make a difference in their subject and have certain knowledge and behaviours in common. They will likely have in depth knowledge of just their own subject and have things that they want colleagues to work on. They might talk to colleagues, send emails or share resources to do with their subject. But if multiple subject leaders do this, colleagues will soon reach overload and have to make their own decisions about what they should pay attention to. And those decisions might be based on their own preferences or their relationships with the subject leaders rather than what is actually a school priority.
The spotlight is the vaccination against this problem.
A senior leader must keep an accurate oversight of each subject, considering each subject leader’s requests and opinions before directing colleagues’ attention to what is most important at that time. Training might be allocated to a subject for a block of time to allow in depth study and review of content choices, end points and the sequencing of content.
But this doesn’t mean that other subjects are idely waiting in the wings. Its just that they’re not the focus of collective attention. This post describes how senior leaders might support subject leaders and other things that subject leaders might be directed to do while their subject is ‘out of the spotlight’ could include:
- Checking the subject overview for full coverage of the national curriculum
- Building knowledge of the work that children are producing in different units of work (particularly the work of the least advantaged children).
- Building their own subject knowledge by engaging in research from subject assocuations.
- Considering how generic pedagogical advice might best be adapted for their subject.
- A checking that there are adequate resources to teach the intended curriculum well enough.
- Preparing a sequence of sessions with colleagues to review content choice, end points and sequencing.
Controlling the spotlight involves knowing when a subject needs our collective attention and preparing subject leaders for when the spotlight settles on their subject.
The guardian
When the curriculum is reviewed, there will always be suggested improvements from those that have been teaching it. No matter the original curriculum design, as soon as it is experienced, flaws will emerge in content choice and in the sequencing of that content. No curriculum survives first contact with the reality of teaching it and getting children to understand and learn it. Improvements to any curriculum are to be expected.
It is those teaching it who have experienced the flaws first hand that are most likely to be in a position to provide feedback about things like:
- Whether there was too much or too little content.
- Whether the sequencing of content worked.
- How will the subject discipline came across in the sequence of learning.
- The clarity of what we wanted them to understand and remember.
Most would have an opinion about something that could be improved having taught it. But who actually makes those improvements? The curriculum guardian.
The curriculum must be considered as a complex whole. If one thing is changed in one place, it could well have an affect somewhere else. For example, in the history curriculum we might have planned some work on early currency in the Shang dynasty. When reviewing the unit, teachers might decide that it didn’t work and then drop it from the next time they teach that unit. But doing so might mean that there is a gap in children’s understanding of the substantive concept of trade in the progression across the whole of key stage 2. And this could mean that the curriculum as a whole loses coherence.
The teacher considering the unit of work on the Shang dynasty might not know this. To them, it is just a lesson or two or Shang currency. Teachers making changes based only on their own experiences risks the coherence of a curriculum and therefore an important role of a senior leaders is to be the guardian. The guardian of coherence. We need to know how a change in one place might affect the sequence of learning elsewhere within and beyond the key stage.
It might not be just content choice and sequencing that the guardian is there to protect. It is also the subject discipline, particularly in the foundation subjects. There is always a risk of curriculum choices being adapted that dilute subject specificity. Let’s take the example of a teacher (who is also a writing moderator) looking at a sequence of work in Geography and spotting the opportunity to finish off a unit with cross curricular, non fiction writing. Now there’s nothing wrong with doing this but the guardian has to make sure it is framed in the right way. The suggested task is writing, not necessarily Geography. The discipline of Geography might include explaining a human or physical process but there can be a subtle difference in purpose between this and a writing a non fiction piece geared towards applying what children have learned in the writing curriculum. The former would work for a Geography sequence and the latter in English.
The spotlight and the guardian; two vital roles of a curriculum leader.
MrNickHart 