OfSTED Curriculum Workshop 2018

Curriculum Workshop

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What is curriculum and why is the quality of curriculum important?

Curriculum workshops autumn 18

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Session 1: Outline

 How has Ofsted been researching curriculum and preparing for the new framework?

 What is curriculum?

 What is progress?  What is the role of systematic and

cumulative knowledge acquisition pupils’ progress?

Curriculum workshops autumn 18

in

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The importance of knowledge acquisition for progress has been highlighted by HMCI ‘Twelve years of education should give children a lot more than a disposition to learn and some ill-defined skills. Yet the evidence from the first stage of our research this year is that the focus on substance, on the knowledge that we want young people to acquire, is often lost… …If their entire school experience has been designed to push them through mark-scheme hoops, rather than developing a deep body of knowledge, they will struggle in later study.’

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The curriculum: current inspection and towards a 2019 inspection framework

The quality of curriculum is part of the leadership and

management judgement in our current framework. We are clear that in the proposed framework we need to take a rounded view of the quality of education offered by schools and providers. The curriculum will be at the core of the proposed framework, recognising the close connection between curricular content and the way that this content is taught and assessed in order to support children to build their knowledge and to apply that knowledge.

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Curriculum research: our findings so far

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Why the new focus on curriculum?

Lack of curriculum knowledge and expertise

Curriculum being confused with assessment and qualifications

Teaching to the test

Curriculum narrowing Curriculum workshops autumn 18

Social justice issues Slide 7

The next phase of curriculum research is informing the developing framework

 We recently published the second phase of the curriculum

research.  In this phase we tried to learn lessons from schools that are particularly invested in curriculum design, with a view to developing indicators around curriculum intent, implementation and impact.  We aim to use this evidence to turn the common curriculum factors leaders told us about into testable quality indicators, which will inform the draft evaluation criteria for the framework.  We are now testing these indicators in schools to refine them.

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Across the schools we visited we found several factors that may be linked to curriculum quality

Focus on subject disciplines even when topics are taught Considering depth and breadth of curriculum content Seeing the curriculum as the progression model Having a clear purpose for assessment Reviewing and evaluating curriculum design Clear curriculum leadership (often distributed) and ownership Considering local context and filling gaps from pupil backgrounds

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Activity 1: discussion What is meant by ‘curriculum’:

for a school? for a subject? for a lesson?

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At every level the curriculum is the WHAT of education

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Distinguishing curriculum from teaching and assessment

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Is progress… “…learning the training?”

“…what the data shows?”

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“…meeting the standards?”

“…achieving the next level?”

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Activity 2 a) Make a long list of gardening knowledge someone would need to create the garden in the ‘after’ picture on this slide. b) Why would using the assessment levels in your handout be unhelpful as a curriculum?

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Question…

Feedback: How does this advice demonstrate the way confusing curriculum and assessment can lead to problems?



Descriptions of outcomes do not identify the specifics a pupil needs to know to improve.



The writer mistakenly assumes that a description of outcomes provides a plan (or curriculum) of what needs to be known to achieve the outcome.

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Activity 3: Distinguishing curriculum from teaching and assessment Curriculum

Teaching activities

Assessment: An evaluation of Dickens’ description of London Curriculum workshops autumn 18

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A successful evaluation of Dickens’ description of London could draw on…

Knowledge of a similar description and its typical features, e.g. familiarity with archaic language

Knowledge of how to write evaluation questions and any specific exam requirements

Knowledge of the historical context Strong grasp of syntax, SPAG etc.

Class reading of the text Pair discussion of descriptive techniques Exercises to practise correct usage of SPAG Curriculum workshops autumn 18

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The curriculum goes beyond what is assessed

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Ofsted’s working definition of curriculum ‘A framework for setting out the aims of a programme of education, including the knowledge and understanding to be gained at each stage (intent)…

…for translating that framework over time into a structure and narrative, within an institutional context (implementation)… …and for evaluating what knowledge and understanding pupils have gained against expectations (impact).’

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The curriculum isn’t…  …just the subject or qualification offer  …the same as teaching activities: the curriculum is WHAT is taught and not how it is taught  …about devising extra or more elaborate or creative activities  …vague – it is a specific plan of what children need to know in total, and in each subject.

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Examples of the sorts of questions inspectors might ask about curriculum quality Intent: How far do leaders consider what children need to learn and the order to teach it?

Implementation: Is the curriculum for each subject designed, over time, to maximise the likelihood that children will remember and connect the steps they have been taught?

Impact How well are children learning the content outlined in the curriculum?

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The curriculum and progress

A brief explanation from cognitive psychology

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What is progress?

What does it mean to ‘get better’ at languages, mathematics, history or English?

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‘Learning is defined as an alteration in long-term memory. If nothing has altered in long-term memory nothing has been learned.’ Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive load theory (Vol. 1). Springer Science & Business Media.

This session will explore the following view of progress suggested by the evidence from research in cognitive psychology: Progress means knowing more and remembering more.

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Activity 4

 Individually, review the passage on page 4 of the handout from a book called ‘Mountains of the Mind’

by Robert Macfarlane.

 How might knowledge acquired through schooling help an adult reader to comprehend this passage?

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Activity 4: You may have considered:

 A geographical knowledge of polar regions.  A cultural knowledge of aristocratic stereotypes.  Historical knowledge of the world before the technological developments of today.  Biological knowledge about the human body and its reaction to extreme cold.  Literary knowledge of how landscape is admired by romantics.  A very rich knowledge of vocabulary.  Knowledge of similar literary forms.

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The importance of knowledge: vocabulary

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Vocabulary relates to social class…

Findings of the Hart and Risley landmark study:  Over four years, researchers recorded that an average child in a professional family accumulated experience of almost 45 million words; in a working-class family, 26 million words; and in a family receiving welfare, 13 million words.

Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). ‘Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children’. Paul H Brookes Publishing.

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Vocabulary size relates to academic success

 The reason is clear: vocabulary size is a convenient proxy for a whole range of educational attainment abilities — not just skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking but also general knowledge of science, history and the arts.  If we want to reduce economic inequality, a good place to start is the subject classroom.

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Such correlations between vocabulary size and life chances are as firm as any correlations in educational research.

Simply put: knowing more words makes you smarter!

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Schooling is crucial for increasing the breadth of children’s vocabulary

 Around 90% of vocabulary is only really encountered when  

reading and is not used in speech.

Much fiction does not give access to the more academic vocabulary and syntax used for high-level GCSE, A level and beyond.

Academic texts provide exposure to complex vocabulary and ideas that must be grasped in order to achieve academic success.

Stanovich, K. E. (1993). ‘Does reading make you smarter? Literacy and the development of verbal intelligence.’ Advances in child development and behavior, vol. 24, pp. 133 –180.

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What would it take for education to counter the 30 million word experience gap, identified by Hart and Risley, that predicts the educational trajectory of children when they are four years old?

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Summary What have we learned so far about the features of a highquality curriculum?

 A high-quality curriculum is based on proactive thinking.  A high-quality curriculum will result from considering the sequence of content necessary for children to make progress.  A high-quality curriculum will provide children with the knowledge they need for subsequent learning, e.g. knowledge of vocabulary.

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Who recognises this booklet?

It contained passages with challenging subject themes, syntax and vocabulary.

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Activity 5

 What might a Year 6 pupil struggle to comprehend in the passage you have been assigned?

 What knowledge that can be acquired

through schooling would help them to comprehend this passage?

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So what did you come up with on your tables?

The Lost Queen: Ancestors Struggle for the throne Rival families Family symbols Monument - All from history study

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The Way of the Dodo: First sighted Extinct predators - All from science Paradise – from RE

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What can we learn from this exercise?

 What we know allows us to read.  In other words, it is our prior knowledge that enables us to comprehend new material. Knowledge is highly ‘transferable’ between contexts.

 Knowledge learned across the curriculum facilitates comprehension.

This is why simple vocabulary tests are highly predictive of future academic performance.

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A school decides to add the Romans to the curriculum‌

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A well-designed curriculum might deliberately stress the concepts below: wealthy

Latin

citizen

slave

worship

trade

BC and AD

wealthy city

climate

public hygiene

sacrifice

calendar

assassination

taxes

myths

gods

peninsula

rebellion

elect

senate

baths

legion

conquer

province

economy

republic

good road

law

social class

peace and prosperity

crossing the Alps empire

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landowner

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These words are taken from the ‘Dodo’ passage in the key stage 2 reading test: species

anatomy

process

unusual species

extinct

team of scientists

scientist

animal

recording

prey

predator

reptile

flightless relative

wildlife

unique wildlife

feature

freshwater

natural world

‘newly discovered animals’

‘a variety of unusual species’

‘unique wildlife wiped out’

‘impact on natural world’

‘birds’ ability to survive’

‘helping scientists find out more’

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Components: The building blocks that together, when known, allow successful performance of a complex task Composite: a task that requires several building blocks or components Slide 41

Why is a focus on curriculum necessary?

1. Because knowledge allows comprehension, i.e. understanding 2. Because knowledge is generative (and thus sticky) 3. Because skills are dependent on relevant knowledge 4. Because knowledge empowers Curriculum workshops autumn 18

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What happens when pupils don’t learn the knowledge they need?

Knowledge deficits accumulate when layered on top of one another in a curriculum sequence.

This accumulation of dysfluency (gaps) limits and may even prevent acquisition of complex skills that depend on them.

This problem is called ‘cumulative dysfluency’.

Fisher, W. W., Piazza, C. C., & Roane, H. S. (Eds). (2011). Handbook of applied behavior analysis. Guilford Press. 43

How can we check progress over time?

We can see if useful, well-chosen knowledge is building over time and enabling progress through a carefully sequenced curriculum.

This means building knowledge of:  vocabulary  events, people and places  concepts  procedures. …which have been carefully selected because they are the most ‘powerful’ (useful or transferable) knowledge.

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Whose knowledge?

In some subjects, like history, the selection of content can be controversial, with heated debate over content choices.

School leaders should be choosing the curriculum content with thought and care.

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The importance of pupils’ knowledge of schemata (expanding and interconnected webs of concepts)

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Knowledge does not sit as isolated ‘information’ in pupils’ minds.

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Understanding deepens as Experts in every field depend on structures of rich and detailed structures of knowledge stored knowledge stored in their long in long-term term memory. memory become increasingly complex Curriculum workshops autumn 18

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Why is a focus on curriculum necessary?

1. Because knowledge allows comprehension, i.e. understanding 2. Because knowledge is generative (and thus sticky) 3. Because skills are dependent on relevant knowledge 4. Because knowledge empowers Curriculum workshops autumn 18

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Knowledge is generative (sticky)...

Connection of old knowledge to new knowledge

Hooks/old learning

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Knowledge stored in long-term memory frees up space to think...

‘Because experts already know a great deal one might suppose they would learn very little when they look something up, whereas the novice, with so much to learn, would learn more... But in fact it’s the expert who learns more that is new, and learns it much faster… because the human mind is able to assimilate only three or four new items before further elements evaporate from working memory... Experts... need pay attention to only one or two novel features that can be easily integrated into their prior knowledge.’

Hirsch, Why Knowledge Matters (2016)

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Why is a focus on curriculum necessary?

1. Because knowledge allows comprehension, i.e. understanding 2. Because knowledge is generative (sticky) 3. Because skills are dependent on specific knowledge 4. Because knowledge empowers Curriculum workshops autumn 18

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Skill: the capacity to perform Examples of desirable cognitive skills: analysis evaluation problem-solving creativity independence.

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Skill a falseProgress Skills and knowledge: binary (capacity to perform)

Progress Knowledge Skills

Progress Knowledge

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Activity 6 A treasure hunter was going to explore a cave up on a hill near a beach. He suspected there might be many paths inside the cave, so he was afraid he might get lost. Obviously, he did not have a map of the cave; all he had with him were some common items such as a torch and a bag.

What could he do to make sure he did not get lost trying to get back out of the cave later?

Willingham, D. T. (2007). Critical thinking. American Educator, 31(3), 8–19.

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Activity 7

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Things you may have considered…

Perhaps your evaluation skills would actually pick you up some GCSE marks if you reasoned that:

 I know light gates or motion sensors connected to data

loggers would remove the error created by human reaction time would give a significantly more accurate value.

And some might really be able to show off:

 I know human reaction time is the most significant

weakness. The percentage of uncertainty in measuring the distance is insignificant (0.4%), whereas the percentage of error in measuring the time is approximately 20%.

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Which is more important‌ the cake or the ingredients?

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Experts in every field depend on rich and detailed structures of Experts in every field depend on rich knowledge stored in their long and detailed structures of knowledge term memory. stored in their long-term memory.

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Skills are dependent on specific knowledge Since the 1940s we have known from researchers that human skills tend to be domain-specific and do not transfer readily from one domain to another.

If people are very skilled in one area this won’t make them skilled in another area or domain.

Willingham, D. T. (2007). ‘Critical thinking’. American Educator, 31(3), 8–19.

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Why is a focus on curriculum necessary?

1. Because knowledge allows comprehension, i.e. understanding 2. Because knowledge is generative (sticky) 3. Because skills are dependent on specific knowledge 4. Because knowledge empowers

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Social justice requires that we provide an education which gives the less privileged access to the knowledge they need to succeed.

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In summary, a high-quality curriculum:

is based on proactive thinking will be the product of clear consideration of the sequence of content necessary for children to make progress will provide children with the knowledge they need for subsequent learning – transferable knowledge builds deeper understanding and the capacity for skilful performance.

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Any questions?

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Ofsted on the web and on social media www.gov.uk/ofsted https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk www.linkedin.com/company/ofsted www.youtube.com/ofstednews

www.slideshare.net/ofstednews www.twitter.com/ofstednews

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