How to design a subject curriculum in 7 easy steps

(gentle music)

Hello everyone, welcome to this video

on "How to Design a Subject Curriculum".

My name is Chris Fountain,

the English subject lead here at Oak.

I'm gonna walk you through seven steps

on how to design a subject curriculum,

using English as an example,

but you can apply these steps

when planning your curriculum for any subject,

so let's get started.

Step one, decide the timeframe,

outcome and requirements of your curriculum.

Whether you're planning for primary or secondary,

you'll need to decide which year groups you want to cover.

Are you looking to design a new curriculum

for all of your phases?

Or do you just want to focus on one key stage?

Your answer to this will depend on the strengths

and weaknesses of your current curriculum

and the extent to which any new subject content can blend

with what you already have across different key stages.

Next, map out the time period you're covering.

How many terms and half terms, how many lessons?

When you know how much time you have,

you can start to think about what can fill that time.

When thinking about the outcome

and requirements of your curriculum,

it's essential to start at the end.

What do you want pupils to know, and to be able to do

at the end of the curriculum?

You don't need lots of detail

but it's important to have a clear purpose,

something to drive the choices you make in your curriculum.

For example, by the end of key stage three English,

you might say that you want confident and curious readers.

By the end of key stage four,

you might want those same pupils to now be critical

and independent readers.

Once you have decided on a content endpoint,

cross reference it

with any content requirements in your subject timeframe,

what is the national curriculum for this key stage?

What example requirements are there, if any,

make sure your endpoint complements their aims and content.

Step two, identify the most important content.

To decide what content will fill your curriculum,

first look at the National Curriculum

and examples you are working with

but remember that they are not curricular,

there are sets of standards to meet.

It is important to include all of that content

but also to go beyond it

when choosing what students will learn about our subjects.

Once you have the content, think about our logical order

for teaching that content.

What is the foundational knowledge?

What cannot be learned until students

are confident in a different area.

In English, there is little point

getting students to read Shakespearean sonnets

when they don't understand what a metaphor is.

It is important to sequence knowledge

and skills development carefully,

across the full timeframe of your curriculum,

so that pupils develop both in a logical order.

Once you have defined and ordered your content, again,

diligently check it against the national curriculum

and any applicable exam boards.

If you have any gaps, go back

and include that content in the most appropriate place.

Step three, organise your content

into overarching concepts or big ideas.

Overarching concepts or big ideas

are sometimes known as vertical concepts.

Essentially, the buckets of content that are covered

multiple times throughout your curriculum.

For instance, in a secondary English curriculum,

you will constantly come back to Shakespeare, poetry,

pre 20th century literature

and non-fiction writing amongst others.

I need to organise my content into these categories

and make sure I have adequately covered

all of them in depth.

Doing this exercise is critical

for creating consistency across your curriculum.

You want to make sure that the way pupils learn

about Shakespeare in year seven is consistent

with how they learn Shakespeare in year nine.

The knowledge should compliment each other

and develop stronger mental models for pupils.

Step four, order your content into units.

When planning the units you'll teach,

it's likely you'll have too many things you want to include.

So compromises will need to be made.

This is why it's so important to identify

the most important content for meeting your curriculum aims

during step two, you need to be ruthless

in bringing everything back to that,

whilst continuing to meet the national curriculum

and exam board requirements where appropriate.

Once you have found the right compromises

and blends of units, you need to sequence them.

Decide what to teach, when.

Firstly, within each overarching concept,

decide which units are foundational

and which cannot be taught

until certain other content has been learnt.

What is the sequence of progression?

Then think about the order of units within each year group.

How do you make sure there is variation

to support student learning?

Within English,

this might mean doing a reading unit and the first half

of a term and a writing unit in the second half,

you could also build in content blocks for your curriculum.

Maybe each year group starts

with a certain kind of unit, such as Shakespeare.

So it is easier to see progression

and make links within that overarching concept

over the years.

Step five, audit the breadth

and diversity of your curriculum.

Consider are you giving pupils access to the widest range

of content from the most diverse range of backgrounds?

Similarly, think about your local context.

What is the culture outside the school gates?

What has happened in your local area

that is relevant to your subject?

I visited a very diverse school

in east London that did a history unit

on the legacy of the slave trade within that area.

That type of addition can breathe so much life

into your curriculum.

At this stage in the design process, take a moment

to look through your sequence

and make any necessary changes.

Step six, design your units.

This is the time intensive part.

The key thing is to find a process that works for you.

To get started, take a look at our guide

for how to design a unit,

which we've linked to on this page.

Think about how you want to tackle the design.

Do you want to start at the beginning

and design sequentially from there to the end?

Or do you want to tackle your area of greatest needs?

Maybe the year eight curriculum has been neglected

and you urgently need to refresh it.

Try working year group by year group

to help you manage staff workload,

that way, you slowly build up a better curriculum

and can smoothly transition pupils to the new curriculum

as the years pass.

Step seven, review and iterate.

A curriculum is never really finished.

You need to be constantly gathering feedback

from teachers, students and data

to work out what is and is not working.

Be prepared to make changes where necessary

curriculum design is a constantly evolving process,

but it is a fantastically thought provoking one too.

So now we've walked through those seven steps.

I hope you feel more confident to get started

on your curriculum design project, good luck and enjoy.

And if you need extra support,

download our quick guide, it includes all of the steps

that I've walked through,

as well as additional prompt questions