Curriculum Design: Key Stage 3

Top priority for 2009-10 will clearly be completing the introduction of the new history curriculum for 2008.  Have you been as creative as you could have been to exploit the new flexibility?  Will you evaluate how effective your thematic teaching has been? Now encouraged to be more innovative, and with a less pervasive inspection regime breathing down our necks, schools should feel more inclined to think more radically. We will be experimenting with more overviews and more linked depth studies. This site offers plenty of curriculum models along with thought provoking rationales. Whether you take a lot from just one of two examples or a little from each, it is unlikely that there will be nothing to tempt you here. Conceived on the basis of a number (about 25-30) of enquiries, rather than the six monolithic, free-standing  units, the new curriculum is less orthodox and therefore needs more explanation. This should be a high priority so that all staff, including non-specialists can explain the reasoning to the pupils.  For those of you offering just a two-year KS3 you will value seeing what other schools are doing.

If you have been asked to deliver one of those 'here-today gone-tomorrow' Learning to Learn skills courses, then you will be helped to make the best of a bad job. The PLTs and Opening Minds agendas are analysed and suggestions made to turn them to your pupil's advantage.

As well as guidance and imaginative ideas on curriculum design this section of the site also addresses issues concerning: literacy, numeracy, ICT and citizenship which increasingly seems to be finding its home in history. The Literacy section takes you well beyond writing frames and key words to look at genres of writing and interesting approaches to speaking and listening. The numeracy section offers you many more dynamic and realistic examples than the DfES video of dividing a monk's day into a pie chart!! The Citizenship section is very significant. Not only does it contain examples of how history and citizenship have been thoughtfully combined, it also gives ideas for activities and suggestions on how to make the 'newer' topics in the 2008 orders more exciting. Most of us would love to know how to make the Uniting of the UK more attractive to teach and few of us would not benefit from seeing how others teach the themes of migration and immigration which are so politically charged.

Further sections deal with creativity and thinking skills both of which have now become important planks of the KS3 curriculum. You will be delighted with the range of worked examples of thinking skills strategies such as history mysteries and living graphs that also feature in the outstanding lesson section.

£49.95 for 12 months unlimited access.