1. INTRODUCTION The audience This handbook is intended to provide guidance for educators interested in exploring the potential of personalisation to transform curriculum design and teaching practices. It is aimed primarily at educational leaders involved in curriculum and teaching innovation. This includes headteachers of primary and secondary schools, curriculum managers responding to recent changes to the National Curriculum, classroom teachers responsible for developing new practices, and local authorities. It should also be relevant to teacher training agencies and departments, and to trainees preparing to enter the teaching workforce. It responds to some recent educational policies (for example, the new Key Stage 3 National Curriculum introduced in 2008), and anticipates others (reform of the Key Stage 4 National Curriculum and the recommendations of the Rose Review of the primary curriculum), and relates to the conclusions of a House of Commons inquiry into the National Curriculum produced in 2009.
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The handbook is not a step-by-step guide to ‘doing’ innovation in school, nor a set of classroom resources. It should be used for schools to devise aims and objectives for curriculum and teaching innovations, and to inform the decision-making process during long-term curriculum planning. It can be read and used by all educators interested in educational change, and it aims to draw together key considerations from a range of curriculum and teaching initiatives from across the UK1. It is hoped that as more and more schools begin to innovate with their curriculum, and to innovate with teaching and learning, that a rich body of evidence and case studies will emerge that can be shared in an ethos of collaborative collegiality. It is hoped this handbook can contribute to the momentum for exciting, challenging and transformational change in schools.