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Curriculum for Excellence - principles of curriculum design and planning for inclusive curriculum delivery

In this section, I will examine the Curriculum for Excellence principles of curriculum design and make reference to each of the curriculum areas. In particular, I will examine how the principles impact upon the planning issues discussed in Part Two. I will show my understanding of individual principles by outlining how I would apply them to the curriculum areas and look at three principles in the specific context of planning for inclusive education. The first curriculum area I would like to consider is Expressive Arts and the first principle is breadth. The breadth principle states that “all children and young people should have opportunities for a broad, suitably weighted range of experiences. The curriculum should be organised so that they will learn and develop through a variety of contexts within both the classroom and other aspects of school life”. There are many opportunities for breadth of learning via interdisciplinary work between, for instance, dance and PE, design and various technologies, modern languages and role play (familiar to me from my work as an MFL teacher in secondary education). Expressive arts provide children with the opportunity to present and perform (EXA 0-01a/EXA 1-01a/EXA 201a) , an experience with enormous confidence-building potential for young children and one which is relevant across the curriculum and in adult life. Black-Hawkins, Florian and Rouse provide an example of a primary school that makes the arts an integral part of the whole curriculum. In this school, arts are the medium “through which all learning takes place” and there is clearly great potential for variety and breadth of learning in this area. In my own planning for the Vikings project, I introduced an element of role play by organising a Viking market simulation in which team members assumed the roles of buyers and sellers in the market. The second curriculum area I would like to consider is health and wellbeing and the second principle I would like to discuss is personalisation and choice. Health and wellbeing, like literacy and numeracy, pervades CfE. The health and wellbeing principles and practices section promotes learning and teaching which “engages children and young people and takes account of their views and experiences, particularly where decisions are to be made that may impact on life choices; uses a variety of approaches including active, cooperative and peer learning and effective use of technology”. The first approach facilitates personal choice and the second provides personalisation by varying the learning methods. In the Vikings project, I gave pupils the opportunity to choose individual roles and tasks within teams and targeted the social skills strand of health and wellbeing in some of the learning activities (HWB 1-11a). The third curriculum area I would like to consider is languages and the principle I would link to this area is depth. The depth principle states that “there should be opportunities for children to develop their full capacity for different types of thinking and learning. As they progress, they should develop and apply increasing intellectual rigour, drawing different strands of learning together, and exploring and achieving more advanced levels of understanding”. The guidelines for effective learning and teaching in the literacy and English strand of the languages curriculum area include such approaches as collaborative working and independent thinking and learning; frequent opportunities to communicate in a wide range of contexts, for relevant purposes and for real audiences within and beyond places of learning; building on the principles of Assessment is for Learning. These approaches are relevant to all strands of the languages curriculum area, but they also facilitate learning across the curriculum. Such approaches highlight the importance of literacy for learning in general and it was also with literacy in mind that I incorporated collaborative learning (LIT 1-09a), frequent opportunities to communicate (LIT 1-10a) and formative assessment (ENG 1-17a) into my planning for the Vikings project. The way to achieve depth in learning is to make the learning experience varied, revisiting areas of the curriculum in different contexts and adding something new each time.

The fourth curriculum area I would like to discuss is mathematics, which I would like to consider in the context of the coherence principle for curriculum design. The coherence principles states that “taken as a whole, children and young people's learning activities should combine to form a coherent experience. There should be clear links between the different aspects of children and young people's learning, including opportunities for extended activities which draw different strands of learning together”. The features of effective learning in mathematics are replete with coherent approaches to learning and teaching, such as “planned active learning which provides opportunities to observe, explore, investigate, experiment, play, discuss and reflect; learning collaboratively and independently; opportunities for discussion, communication and explanation of thinking; building on the principles of Assessment is for Learning ensuring that young people understand the purpose of what they are learning; making links across the curriculum to show how mathematical concepts are applied in a wide range of contexts, such as those applied by science and social studies.” The teaching and learning of mathematics will be coherent if its presence and relevance is felt in using these approaches across the curriculum. The problem-solving capabilities and critical thinking skills that are an integral part of good mathematics teaching are also vital for the life-long learning we want to foster with our primary pupils. I attempted to ensure coherence in planning my Vikings topic by organising activities so that each half of a team worked on one aspect of a problem before bringing the whole team together to combine the learning into a coherent whole.

The fifth curriculum area is religious and moral education and I would like to discuss this area in relation to the principle of relevance. The CfE principles and practice question how religious and moral education contributes to the curriculum as a whole. The relevance principle states that “children and young people should understand the purposes of their activities. They should see the value of what they are learning and its relevance to their lives, present and future”. The religious and moral education experiences and outcomes enable pupils to, for instance “investigate and understand the responses which religious and non-religious views can offer to questions about the nature and meaning of life; develop respect for others and an understanding of beliefs and practices which are different from my own”. So, irrespective of the beliefs held by the families of the primary school children or of those held by the teachers, religious and moral education has much to offer that is relevant in helping the pupils to form values for life. This is closely linked to the four capacities, enabling each child to become a successful learner, a confident individual, a responsible citizen and an effective contributor. My planning for the Vikings project included an examination of the Vikings' beliefs, inviting the pupils to consider why the Vikings did not hesitate to attack Christian monasteries in the earlier raids to Britain .

The sixth curriculum area is the sciences and I would like to consider this area from the perspective of progression. The progression principle states that “children and young people should experience continuous progression in their learning from 3 to 18 within a single curriculum framework. Each stage should build upon earlier knowledge and achievements. Children should be able to progress at a rate which meets their needs and aptitudes, and keep options open so that routes are not closed off too early.” The sciences curriculum area in CfE sets itself ambitious goals: “While every child and young person needs to develop a secure understanding of scientific concepts, their experience of the sciences in school must develop a lifelong interest in science and its applications.” The principles and practice for sciences place high quality of learning and teaching above content and the experiences and outcomes aim to develop interest and motivation through such approaches as active learning and purposeful play, problem-solving, investigation and inquiry, relevant contexts, effective use of technology, collaborative learning and building on the principles of Assessment is for Learning. Progression is ensured by revisiting the skills outlined in the experiences and outcomes with increasing complexity and depth.

The seventh curriculum area is technology and the principle I would like to relate it to is challenge and enjoyment. The challenge and enjoyment principle for curriculum design states that “children and young people should find their learning challenging, engaging and motivating. The curriculum should encourage high aspirations and ambitions for all. At all stages, learners of all aptitudes and abilities should experience an appropriate level of challenge, to enable each individual to achieve his or her potential. They should be active in their learning and have opportunities to develop and demonstrate their creativity. There should be support to enable children and young people to sustain their effort.” This principle can be linked to some of the recommended approaches to teaching and learning in the technologies including developing “curiosity and problem-solving skills, a capacity to work with others and take initiative; skills in collaborating, leading and interacting with others; searching and retrieving information to inform thinking within learning contexts; discussion and debate”. The principles and practice for technologies emphasise tapping into children's “natural inventiveness and their desire to create and work in active ways”. In the Vikings project with the P3/4 pupils, it was noticeable that the children showed great enthusiasm for working collaboratively on the ICT-related exercise. Children and young people seem very comfortable with computer-related activities, which is a strong motivating element in technologies teaching and learning.

Having considered each of principles of curriculum design and related these to all of the curriculum areas, I would like to consider three principles in greater detail. The three principles of curriculum design I highlighted for special consideration in Assignment A were coherence, depth and relevance. To what extent has my understanding of these principles evolved in the primary context and to what extent was I able to consider them when planning my learning and teaching activities in the Vikings project?

Coherence

Did my various learning activities in the Vikings project form a coherent experience and is it possible to identify links between the learning activities and draw them together? I attempted to establish coherence by checking previous learning on the topic in an initial plenary session. I organised learning within and between teams to pool knowledge and draw it together. I encouraged the children to draw comparisons with the lives of Viking children and their own. I discussed words in modern English that originate in the Norse language. I practised writing skills with an initial exercise to prepare the pupils for a later, less structured newspaper-type written exercise. Overall coherence would have been improved by binding my planning more closely to MacDougall's eight steps. Coherence promotes inclusion if all pupils can make links to previous knowledge and to their lives beyond the lesson.

Depth

In Assessment A, I looked at theoretical perspectives on depth in learning including Chris Watkins' ideas about Learning is Individual Sense Making (LIS) and Learning is Building Knowledge as Part of Doing Things With Others (LBKO). The Vikings project provided me with the opportunity to test these theories in a primary setting. The development of speaking and listening skills, deep thinking and discussion in class is central to promoting depth of learning. In other words, improved literacy skills promote depth of learning. The techniques used with the P3/4 pupils included think-pair-share, (whereby the students first reflected on an aspect of their learning, then share it with another person in the class, before finally moving on to sharing their thoughts with a larger group) and wait time, in which I allowed the pupils sufficient time to reflect upon an answer to a question. As with coherence, I planned for depth by building on pupils' previous work on listening skills with Jane and tried to introduce additional social interaction skills, such as giving each other encouragement. Depth promotes inclusion for all pupils by allowing them to develop knowledge and skills at their own pace.

Relevance

In Assessment A, I asserted that teachers would be helped in making learning relevant by acquiring an in-depth knowledge of learners' outside interests and by establishing positive relationships with the pupils. There were limits to how far I could develop these aspects over a four-day learning experience, but I did manage to develop an initial relationship with the P3/4 class and to convey my own interest and enthusiasm for the subject. Pupils saw inherent relevance in a comparison between their own lives and that of their Viking counterparts and were interested to see how the Vikings contributed to our language. The pupils saw the value of teamwork and social competence and will hopefully develop these skills further in subsequent lessons. Here, I would reiterate the point made in Assessment A that relevance is complemented by the other six principles of curriculum design. If learning is relevant to pupils, they feel involved and included.

In Assessment A, I explored the theory behind the principles of curriculum design and considered some of the experiences and outcomes they hoped to achieve. The Vikings project gave me the opportunity to put these principles into practice, to provide the experiences and attain the outcomes. It was satisfying to gain some actual experience of CfE principles of curriculum design in a primary classroom, however tentative this experience may still be.