This last year I have been privileged to be working with geography and history subject leads on unlocking the complexities of curriculum design coherence (Rata, 2019; McPhail, 2021), the model that underpins Ofsted’s current interpretation of the national curriculum. The knowledge-turn implicit in Ofsted’s research and inspection activity since 2018, whilst signalling a renewed commitment to the knowledge-rich curriculum, signalled also a significant shift in the view of knowledge from the Hirschian canonical model of cultural literacy that dominated initial interpretations of the 2014 English national curriculum to Young’s social realist concept of Powerful Knowledge.
Ofsted’s recent subject reports (History, July 2023; Geography, September 2023) suggest that some schools are still struggling with this change. The clear water between them can be crudely paraphrased as the difference between a retrospective reliance on the ‘best that has been thought and said’ as a birthright inheritance, the entitlement to which assures a place in a democratic society stabilised by this shared heritage; against a forward-looking notion that knowledge is problematic in as much as some knowledge is more powerful than others and entitlement to this form of knowledge allows the individual to transcend their situation as a dynamic for social justice. From a learner perspective the former represents a canon of essential knowledge to be acquired together with efficiency in its recall and application whereas the latter focuses learning on an active engagement with knowledge and the disciplinary tools for knowledge creation and validation.
That schools struggle with this shift is understandable given the recent past. The long tail of high stakes accountability is proving difficult to shake especially where school and trust management practices continue to prioritise the easy confidence of test data. Within the powerful knowledge paradigm itself, the principle that everyday, personal knowledge has no place in a curriculum of specialised knowledge creates problems for those subjects beyond maths and science that rely to a greater extent on the exercise of judgement or emotional response for knowledge creation. Furthermore, the recent evolution of powerful knowledge, the coherent curriculum, requires some knowledge of curriculum theory and is complex in comparison to the low challenge presented by a traditional curriculum of essential knowledge.
The return to a focus on entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum has ushered in new thinking around the nature of subject provision beyond the examination syllabus and opened the space for theoretically-driven developments in our understanding of knowledge-rich curricula. Unshackled from standardised assessment, the curriculum is maturing into something principled if a little more complex than previously understood. It is this complexity that we have been unpicking in our termly subject lead network meetings. What have we learned so far?
Getting the content right is imperative given the overwhelming amount of historical or geographical objects in the world. This challenge is two-fold: firstly, arriving at an arrangement of the content that is helpful to subject leads, obvious to teachers and supportive of learning; secondly, managing the extent of content within the constraints of time through selection that does not compromise subject values or the school’s vision for its pupils. These two challenges are best addressed through attending to the subject concepts: start with the conceptual framework that will be the locker room for the content you choose to include. Think of it as a well-organised fridge with shelves and drawers for dairy, meat, salads, etc.
The components of that framework should deal with two types of knowledge: substantive knowledge, the content to be learned, the facts; and disciplinary knowledge, the procedures, skills, dispositions that define the way enquiry in the subject is conducted. Substantive knowledge consists of two elements: substantive content, the objects of study, and substantive concepts, the categories by which those objects can be organised and given meaning. Disciplinary knowledge also has a framework of disciplinary concepts that are used to organise procedural knowledge – skills, tools, applications – into a process of enquiry. This constitutes the bare bones of a curriculum designed for coherence. In Part Two, these two conceptual frameworks will be discussed in detail along with some key lessons from the past year for subject leaders busy conducting audits, reviews or revisions.
McPhail G (2021) The search for deep learning: a curriculum coherence model. Journal of Curriculum Studies 53(4): 420–434.
Rata E (2019) Knowledge‐rich teaching: A model of curriculum design coherence. British Educational Research Journal45(4): 681–697.
edutaytion 