Curriculum Conversations (Episode 5): How do you implement curriculum change well?

- Welcome to part two of our curriculum conversation. In part one, we explored how school and trust leaders are responding to the curriculum and assessment review, what feels sensible to focus on now, and how schools can prepare for change without rushing into decisions. If you haven't watched that conversation yet, I'd recommend starting there first. In this part, we're turning our attention to implementation, how to approach curriculum change at a manageable pace, how to build teacher confidence and capacity, and what leaders can do to ensure pupils continue to experience a coherent, high quality education throughout the transition. Let's give some really practical advice. If a leader is feeling this pressure, as many are to start making changes and doing things now, what would you say to them to help them stay grounded? Tilly?

- Go and sit in the classroom. I think if you're a school leader and that's practical, I think just sometimes there's so much thinking and noise and views and drip feeding of things. Like my refuge is our two-year-old's room because we talk a lot of reach about cradle's career and how do we make sure our children have a great start from day one as part of this all through curriculum. And so going and sitting in the two's room is A, such a joyful experience, but B, really brings me back to the center of kind of why we do this really important work and how we make sure that we are constantly thinking about children at every single phase in their education and making sure that's exceptional so that they achieve this life of choice and opportunity. When I'm feeling overwhelmed, that's definitely my go-to is let's go and see some children and see how they're doing and go from there.

- That's such lovely advice. And I've already invited myself to Beck's school, so I'm now going to on the record say, "Can I come and sit with you?"

- Oh my gosh, please do.

- An utter privilege. Utter privilege.

- Yes, please.

- Okay. Becks what, what bit of advice would you give?

- So I think there's a huge amount about being a school leader right now, which is really hard. There are many, many more complex external pressures. Yeah, the exponential increase in complaints, really complex and difficult safeguarding challenges which are related directly to the fact that life is really tough for a lot of people. Yeah.

- I think that we are facing a situation where school leaders constantly feel as though they're being asked to do more with less. And in that space, how do you reconnect people with the joy of what is a brilliant job and the possibilities? And so we've been spending time with our leaders as we started to think to the next two-year cycle because we don't have one-year improvement planning. We have two year improvement planning just to give you a chance to actually do something. But we've been saying, "Well, if you had a blank sheet of paper and anything was possible, what would be most important for you to secure on behalf of your children next academic year in your school?" And really, really giving people permission to go back to their own sort of first principles and motivations and then help them realize some of that through the challenges of next year. So much determined for you when you're leading a school. There are lots and lots of pressures. If you look at the whitepaper and the curriculum assessment reform, on the last count, I think there are 93 different reforms that are coming down the road at schools over the next two, three, four years. Actually, in that space, how do you own your own space, make your own mark, and really be given permission to think expansively? So that's where we are in terms of our improvement planning cycle this year.

- I think that's a reconnect thing on both counts. Like the advice is about reconnecting possibly with like the passion for teaching and the joy of the job and trying to make space and remember that to a certain extent. Absolutely. Sounds wonderful. Let's consider the perspective of implementing curriculum change in ways that minimize the impact on pupil learning, because of course any curriculum change can have negative impact on pupil learning during transition, even though the aim is obviously to improve outcomes. But also the high workload that is associated with any change in schools, particularly curriculum. So when it comes to curriculum change, is it better to kind of try and phase this in or go all in? And how do you determine that decision?

- I think a lot depends upon context. If you look at sort of school improvement and you think about the different phases of development and performance of a school, I think that there is a sequence by which you sort of, you approach building the sort of complete, the complete picture. Ironically, I think that sometimes we've had adopted an all-in approach in some of our most challenging circumstances because actually we needed to bring about rapid change.

- Rapid change.

- And a sort of the much more purist and ideal approach to sort of year-on-year phased implementation. Well, it would just take too long.

- Yeah.

- That's a, you know, that's another five, six years until that comes to fruition. So I think it's about thinking about, well, what needs to, what is genuinely immediate for all? And then thinking about how do you phase implementation depending upon the phase of development of a school and actually the capacity for change. I think it's really easy to forget actually how much time in an academic year of what, 195 days, how much time does an individual teacher actually have to change anything substantial in terms of their curriculum? They certainly don't have the capacity to do it meaningfully if they're teaching multiple year groups, like, you know, multiple classes. And so I think that there's something about, it's actually something about the way that we structure staffing and school, which actually makes implementation more difficult than even it would be if you were just thinking about the sort of work in its sort of purest form. So our approach is very much meet a school where it is, consider key principles of change management, understand the human resources and capacity that are required and always, always quantify time and give yourself a lead-in. And I know that we often sort of consider, well, what will the challenges be from a pupil perspective? I think pupils are pretty resilient actually. I think that we think insufficiently too often about how much time do we need to take? What's the lead in? What's the support that we need to put in place for adults to feel confident in handling that change in classrooms?

- Yeah. We often demand probably the wrong word, but I think even within our own lives, we try and change too much at once. And I remember a great Doug Lemov, I think, quote, which is like, "If you try to catch five rabbits, you catch none." And so it's a really good way to think about, you know, the capacity for change within, you know, your teachers and schools beyond maybe what is desirable. And so balancing those two.

- Yeah, I would agree. I would really think about the adults here probably more than the children. I think we want to make sure that the work is done at the adult level and I think you want to contain adult stress because we know that adult stress has a negative impact on children's experiences in the classroom. And ultimately we want teachers that are ready to walk into the classroom every day and provide an exceptional education to our children. I think for me, probably I would think about the difference between approaches versus kind of curricular changes when I'm thinking about all-in opposed to phased. I think when you're thinking about phased, I think if you're thinking about an approach, you need to think about how well can you teach adults about that approach to make sure that it's fully embedded across the curriculum. So great example is ORSC. If we know that we are going to be encouraging ORSC across every classroom, in every subject area, there is no point in doing one insert and rolling it out because you're not going to have teachers that have mastered effective techniques to do that really well. And so that's definitely something where you're going to want to do it in kind of a more drip feeding way so that you build staff understanding, you build staff confidence, you build effective habits for the classroom. And then you see that approach really embedded throughout settings and having a really big impact on children. I think similarly where we're looking at more new curriculum areas, I want to think really hard about what's the best way to deliver that. So a great example is financial literacy. I think it's such an exceptional thing that's been put into the curriculum. I think it's really important. I want to think really hard about how you get that right for six-year-olds.

- Yeah.

- And so I think there's going to need to be some, some trial and again, not necessarily everywhere, but in some classrooms, in some of our schools, like thinking really hard about how do you get that right before you roll it out. By contrast, I certainly have curriculum directors, head of departments who are ready just to say, great, give me the new program of study and I'm excited to go because they feel like they have the capacity. And for all these people, they love curriculum, right? Like this is your-

- Doesn't everyone? Doesn't everyone? Obviously, sorry.

- Everyone loves curriculum, but particularly heads of department, like they love curriculum and they're really excited about kind of this next situation and making it even better. And so I think I've sat on the fence that I think there are some elements that you definitely want to take more cautiously because they just take more time or they require more caution. Whereas there are others where a more all-in approach can work.

- Yeah.

- And I think one of the key levers of that is how many people are being influenced by the change. Is it small department or is it kind of a cross-school approach?

- Yeah. Yeah, I think one of the pitfalls that I fell into when I was a, so I was a maths leader was, you know, getting very excited about the curriculum and rewriting from scratch, which took a lot of time. A curriculum that I thought was, was better sequenced and more coherent and implementing that, but actually not from a pupil perspective, considering how that re-sequencing sort of interacted with what they'd already experienced in terms of the curriculum. And I think that was like an interesting pitfall that when I reflect on, you know, there is a pupil perspective because they should still have a full entitlement and they should still have that full curriculum opportunity even if you are introducing a new curriculum at some point within their curriculum journey. And so I think that's an interesting perspective to think about from that side of things as well. So during curriculum transition, what do we think a seamless experience for pupils actually looks like in reality? And when this is done really well, what will it look like and feel for pupils a few years down the line?

- I think the biggest risk which pupils would immediately feel and tell you about is duplication. So that's almost something that I think is quite easy to spot and would lead you to sort of go further. So I mean, I think that if you, if we get this right, classrooms feel more coherent. I think they feel, children feel more engaged and they feel more connected to their learning with adults who are confident and able to sort of move with agility through new materials. I think that what we would be seeing is no dilution of high expectations. So really secure levels of academic rigor. And I think that would be played out, you see that played out in young people really enjoying and embracing challenge. If we focus more on what children are learning, a lesson what teachers are doing, that's always a really good sort of way to get a quick snapshot on how well a curriculum is landing. But I also think the, it's not just sort of that it's not just in terms of the formal expressions of learning. I think a curriculum that's really brought to life, you see much busier, much happier, much noisier classrooms. And so there are things which are immediate that you can feel when a curriculum feels vibrant, well-structured, confidently navigated in the way that children are experiencing their learning. And I think that you can equally feel the reverse of all of those if you get that wrong. And I think to Tilly's earlier point, that's why it's so important to give the space and the time for adults to get to that place of confidence so that it doesn't play out negatively in classrooms when it first lands.

- Tilly?

- I think that element of teacher presence through change is so key. Like I think you, you really do want to make sure that your adults are confident so that they can respond to the children in front of them. Because I think we've all been in classrooms where you have teachers who are still struggling with the material or they're not quite sure or the lesson hasn't quite gone to plan and you can tell. And actually that's so challenging when you've then got 30 children who may or may not want to do exactly what you've asked them to do in front of you. And so I think I really would hope that done well other than providing those new duplication and other than, but you know, my brother did this in year nine and I'm not doing it anymore. The children wouldn't feel huge difference because the sequencing would be so clear as with the progression and there would be really high rigor. But I don't think that happens unless there's this, I would call it like pause and plan. Like you can't build a curriculum whilst you're flying it. It's too difficult. It doesn't work. And you almost always end up in a jumble where you suddenly get to lesson four and you're like, oh, that should have gone to lesson two. That would've worked much better. And so I really think we have time. September 27th, September 28, like we, we've got time to make those decisions really well and I would really encourage, you know, I imagine it will all come out and everyone will start talking about what they're doing really quickly. Like deep breaths, taking time because I think that's the way to ensure that you have really thoughtful curriculum that is really well embedded with your staff who have a deep understanding, who are well-trained on what that looks like, which means that ultimately they can deliver it brilliantly to your children in a way that is present and responsive. And I think then feeding on what you said kind of leads to excited and chatty and talkative and enthusiastic classrooms because I do think, you know, reinvigorating the curriculum always gives the potential for that to happen if it's done well.

- Yeah.

- And I certainly hope that that would be one of the things that happened. I've talked about it a lot, but I do really feel passionate about ORSC. And I think therefore more talkative classrooms as the norm, more chances to assess through ORSC, more chances for children to share views I think is really exciting. I would like to see more engagement all the way up to key stage four. Like I know that, you know, I'm not going to talk in front of the expert about the importance of key stage three really working, but the chance for children to see their route through education that is absolutely broad, absolutely balanced, is for everyone, but enables them to think hard about what they enjoy and what they like studying. I think that balancing act is going to be really important for school leaders. And then thinking about all the other time, because that's what the curriculum review says, you know, we're going to condense the amount of curriculum time to make sure that there's more other time. Children require experiences. We talk a lot about skills, attributes, and academic qualifications. And skills and attributes certainly for a lot of that need to happen outside of the classroom. And so I think trying to give teachers time to think really hard about what the right things are for the pupils in front of them, all of the pupils in front of them, and for the future that we're preparing our pupils for is a really exciting element moving forwards.

- I love the fact that we've kind of come to like an image of classrooms with pupils that are more engaged and vocal and confident because I think that's absolutely the kind of measure of effective curriculum. And so thank you very much both for your time. It's been wonderful to hear about what you're doing in your schools and trusts. Your expertise is clearly visible and I'm sure hugely valuable to everyone who's interested in thinking about curriculum change in this period. Thank you.

- Thank you for having me.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for watching this two-part curriculum conversation. We hope these conversations have given you greater clarity and confidence about how to approach curriculum change thoughtfully over the coming months, while keeping the needs of pupils and teachers at the center of decision-making. You can find more support, guidance, and curriculum resources from Oak on our website. If you missed part one of this discussion, do go back and watch it as well. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks for watching. If you've got any questions, please pop them in the comments. And of course you can head to our website for more information.