Developing The Curriculum As A KSCo

By Izzy Hilliard

When taking on the role of a curriculum coordinator, I was daunted by the idea of line managing my colleagues; planning open days and analysing key stage data. The idea of planning schemes of work for students was one that really excited me. I had always enjoyed planning my lessons and watching students make progress in those seventy five minutes. I also believed that the unit plans for Key Stage Three English were in pretty good shape, and therefore that part of my job was completed.

However, over the course of my first year, the English department was evolving and changing in relation to subject reports and research. The emphasis placed on skills was important but there was a new focus placed on knowledge and the explicit teaching of knowledge. On reflection, our unit plans for key stage three were looking outdated and needed to be changed. 

Therefore, I got started on planning a Year 9 unit for a novel called Ugly Dogs Don’t Cry by DD Armstrong. (If you have a spare moment, give it a read. It is set in Ladbroke Grove and is a modern retelling of Of Mice and Men based on two teenagers.)

Planning a seventy five minute lesson, and outlining the idea for twenty one lessons are different tasks, but not as different as we may first suspect. In coaching conversations with leaders of the school and other curriculum coordinators I was given the same advice. When faced with an empty excel spreadsheet for the scheme of work two decisions have to be made from the offset:

1. What essential understanding(s) do you want students to have by the end of the unit?

2. What do you want students to be able to do by the end of the term? What skill will you be assessing? 

3. What knowledge do you want them to gain over the term? 

4. How is what they are doing more challenging than what they were doing the year prior?

For me, talking to the team and leaders helped me figure out the answers to those questions. A unit plan is not something which is a completely solo project. The input from Department Leads and subject teachers are extremely valuable. Together we decided on how to assess their analysis skills and the knowledge and ideas we wanted to have. Furthermore, we discussed how to build towards having more sophisticated analysis, teaching them knowledge such as lexical fields; tonal shifts and focus changes instead of verbs; adjectives and adverbs and writing frames that came from a more detached, critical viewpoint. Deciding on what is the essential “golden nugget” or understanding of a unit is difficult as there always appears multiple goals. Yet, what I knew that the Year 9 cohort needed to understand was that their analysis should be detached and critical. I want to ensure that whilst the team promotes personal responses to analytical questions, simultaneously students are able to write authentic responses that retain a degree of criticality. 

The job of a curriculum lead therefore is to decide on the four questions posed, after collaborative conversations. Once the questions are answered the rest of the work falls together. You want to ensure each lesson builds to your overall goal and includes all of the knowledge you want to incorporate into the term. Also- have some fun! Each coordinator, teacher and leader has their own unique knowledge on their subject. Put that into the unit that you are planning. Once I began doing that, believing in the knowledge that I had, I was able to enjoy and feel excited about the unit I was planning.