How to design a curriculum
Be clear on how to design an effective curriculum with this guidance on 3 core principles to bear in mind, plus resources and examples to help you improve your curriculum design.
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What is curriculum design?
Curriculum design is, broadly speaking, how you interpret a designated curriculum in the context of your pupils.
This means taking the schemes of work and end-of-year expectations and delivering them while taking into account:
- Your local environment
- The expertise of staff
- The traditions of your school
It’s likely that for you, the “designated curriculum” will be the National Curriculum. However, the above principles also apply to academies and international schools that may use a different curriculum as a framework.
3 core principles of curriculum design
1. The curriculum should be developmental
This means it should:
For example, a child may learn about light and dark in Key Stage 1, but as they move through school they would learn about areas such as how light is created, electricity,
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Also in 'Structuring the curriculum'
- Alternative provision: curriculum requirements and examples
- Anti-racism: how to review and re-frame your curriculum
- Bloom's Taxonomy: summary and use
- Covering LGBTQ+ content in your curriculum
- Cultural capital: how to weave it into your curriculum
- Curriculum accessibility for pupils with SEND: checklist