Curriculum - change, choices and direction.

This is one of those posts where I am thinking out loud and working things through. It may be interesting if you are in a similar situation, if not then this is probably more fun. 

To summarise the competing pressures on the direction of our KS3 curriculum at the moment:

Our vision of our own curriculum.

The idea of cognitive load, essential knowledge and interleaving.

The requirement for cultural capital and personal development.

The NCELP schemes of work and the new GCSE.

Our own Vision

In an earlier post, I mentioned how Terry Lamb's research into pupil voice inspired me when I became head of department. We interviewed groups of pupils in order to help design the Languages curriculum.

What we discovered was that they wanted more opportunity to use their French for a purpose. As a result, we developed a KS3 curriculum based around creative projects with tangible outcomes. This in turn, required us to devise a curriculum which equipped pupils to be creative. So we have competitions, exhibitions, letter exchanges, projects and events all built into our curriculum.

This meant stripping down our curriculum to concentrate on a core repertoire of language that pupils can use across topics. And as well as making progress by learning more vocabulary and grammar, we concentrated on their progress in being able to use the language more and more independently, fluently and creatively. In fact, the grammar we taught them is chosen deliberately to add features to what they can already do with the language.

This curriculum and the projects involved have all evolved over the last 15 years, with new projects added and some that we have left behind. But the central vision remains one of a curriculum where we equip pupils to use their language creatively.

Cognitive Load

With this curriculum stripped down to a core, I think we anticipated some of the ideas that have come into schools around the idea of managing the Cognitive Load. Departments are being asked to identify the key knowledge that pupils have to learn well. And schools are being asked to make sure that knowledge is revisited in order for it to be learned better and not to be forgotten. As you can see from our Year 8 Exemplar Poster above, we actually work not just by revisiting language, but instead by making sure nothing is ever left behind. The core of opinions, reasons, tenses, is present in every unit, and new knowledge is added to it and used as another opportunity for pupils to practise getting better and better at using it. In fact, far from stripping the curriculum down even further, we were already talking about adding more back in. Using the metaphor of the curriculum as a river current, we believe that the strength of the progression was strong enough to pick up and sweep along with it more and more knowledge.

Cultural Capital and Personal Development

This is one of the areas where we are working on building in more knowledge. In terms of Personal Development, we offer excellent opportunities for the pupils to use their French for self expression - in a French Art Exhibition, in creating books for Primary learners, in exchanging letters with pupils abroad... 

I think the emphasis has been more on the linguistic progression than on Culture, so this is an area where we are sharing and trialling new material. And feeling our way for whether it integrates with the language-learning, or if it sits apart. We have started to use (for example) more poems and songs, to work on things like table manners and etiquette, and to work with many more videos. Some of these are followed up with work in French, and some stand alone as valuable context.

NCELP schemes of work and the new GCSE

I said that we had stripped back our curriculum many years ago, and felt we were now ready to start putting more grammar back in, confident that our pupils' progress is strong enough to pick up more, without losing the thread of their increasing ability to use the language fluently and for real purposes. One of the things we were looking at was the NCELP schemes of work. They seemed ambitious and rigorous in how they planned delivery of grammar content. Our plan was to look to these for inspiration and ambition, to see what we can add to our curriculum. Without losing the central drive to maintain pupils' ability to use a working repertoire. I didn't want to adopt the schemes of work wholesale, losing some of our projects and losing the idea of a core of language pupils can use and slowly add to. My plan was to keep the department's vision and let it continue to evolve.

With the proposals for the new GCSE, especially the separating out of language-learning into 3 pillars (phonics, vocabulary, grammar) and leaving out the idea of developing communication, the NCELP approach has been characterised as dry learning and testing of "knowledge". It is depicted as ignoring the reality of pupils' development in their ability to use the language and their drive to express themselves. I think this may turn out to be a caricature. If I am able to, then I will make sure that language is added in carefully, enhancing what pupils can do, rather than clogging up their ability to use a core repertoire to express themselves.

Ofsted

I don't think I have mentioned ofsted in this Nice blog yet. My impression was that they would be very interested in a department with a strong vision. That they would ask about what we teach and when. And that they would want us to be able to give clear and reasoned answers to those questions. With a strong curriculum vision and careful development of what pupils can do with the language they are learning, I was hopeful that we could answer those questions. But if there is an expectation that we "do" certain grammar points at certain times, and that we should put acquiring knowledge ahead of the ability to use it, then we are going to have to change our vision.