Potential Culture Development Through Modified Curriculum for Subject Teachers

Potential Culture Development Through  Modified Curriculum For Subject Teachers

There is a current trend in schools towards greater standardisation, particularly in relation to curriculum content. This might involve:

• Teachers delivering the same curriculum content in the same order
• Standardised formative and summative assessments
• Standardised resources, such as knowledge organisers and models
• Standardised homeworks
• Standardised classroom approaches and pedagogy

There are a range of reasons why schools are choosing to develop in this way. These include:

• Reduction of teacher workload, and the reduplication of work across many teachers, in planning and creating resources
• Added coherence for CPD
• Increased ability for teachers to collaborate meaningfully together and share practice
• Overall higher quality and consistency of student experience over time
• Ability for subjects to cope with unexpected change, eg teachers leaving mid-year
• Improved potential for intervention and catch-up resources, meaning that schools are better able to help absent students to catch up
• Ability to facilitate better revision activities and resources for exam groups

These are significant benefits and it is unsurprising that schools are interested in moving in this direction.

For some teachers and subject teams, this represents major change, and will therefore have a powerful influence on both practice and culture. We should be vigilant towards how this change might feel and be received by teachers, because it carries the potential for positive and negative contribution to school and team cultures and the lived experience of teachers. Through conversations in school on this issue, the following attempts to summarise some of the main issues, and offers suggestions for middle leaders.

What is it like to be ‘on the receiving end’ of standardisation?

For some teachers, greater standardisation is extremely welcome, for the reasons outlined above.

Some subjects have traditions of standardised ways of working which may make further change more straightforward, culturally and practically.

For some teachers, standardisation feels much less comfortable, and can lead to unintended and potentially damaging consequences. This can be the case when:

• New materials are introduced quickly, with insufficient accompanying training and time for teachers to think and talk about their teaching.
• There is insufficient clarity about core expectations, ie what is mandatory for all teachers to do or deliver, and equally, what is open for teachers to change, or to take their own approaches.
• There is insufficient opportunity for teachers to engage with the process of curriculum design, eg by being involved in content selection or sequencing, or having opportunities to give their opinions about materials being used.

This can result in teachers feeling forced to adopt practices that they don't subscribe to, leading to resentment, frustration, or a lack of openness. Teachers are essentially faced with a choice between teaching in a way that they feel isn't optimal for their classes, or covertly continuing with existing or preferred practice. In either case, the impact on trust, openness and dialogue are potentially severe.

What can subject leaders do?

1. Provide explicit guidance and clarity as to which elements of content or approaches are mandatory. Accompany this with a very clear sense of the rationale. An example might be ‘we all teach this unit in Year 8, because it provides the foundation knowledge necessary to understand this unit in Year 9’, or 'we follow this feedback policy because...'. 
2. Be equally clear as to elements which are not mandatory, and invite tweaking, editing, adaption, or rejection in favour of an alternative approach of the teachers’ own devising.
3. Aim for an optimal balance between mandatory and non-mandatory practice. Ensure that there is enough space for teachers to innovate, make decisions for their classes, and exercise autonomy.
4. Be cautious about providing too much by way of pre-prepared resources, even when this feels like an obviously helpful time-saving measure. Don’t habitually mass photocopy non-mandatory resources, for example, as this means that they can’t be adapted and so become mandatory in practice.
5. Build in systematic approaches to invite dissent, eg by asking for feedback on mandatory content or methods, or explicitly asking for disagreement during training. For example, after a standardised assessment or unit of work, have an agenda item or use a quick online survey to ask for teacher views on how it went, and how it could be improved.
6. Build in planned opportunities for dialogue around content and methods informally and through meeting time. Pre or post Unit Briefings can be a good way of doing this.
7. Be conscious that well-intentioned, enthusiastic recommendation or advocacy of a particular approach can feel hectoring or demanding. It is hard for teachers to change what they do, so be prepared for the reality that not all teachers will take up approaches quickly, even if you as leader are confident they will make a difference. If you are convinced that an approach will make an essential difference to the students, make it mandatory. If not, be aware that some may respond to over-advocating by feeling inadequacy or resentment.