On my travels I encounter multiple situations where teachers are teaching the same curriculum content from school to school and I’m often struck by how varied the delivery approaches can be. The variation can be in the specifics of the way the curriculum is delivered and, more crudely, in the extent to which there is a clear system in place at all. In fact, I’d say the gap between the most and least impressive is huge.
Some students embark on units of learning that are planned and resourced in such a way that feels secure, rich, well-organised and coherent such that a new teacher could come in and pick things up; a student could miss a fortnight due to ill health and know exactly what they’d missed; students can continue their study in a supported manner at home and, most importantly, lessons are supported by planned resources of the highest quality, with teacher inputs, practice tasks, homework tasks and assessments all linked in a straight-forward manner. Sometimes this all comes a published scheme but usually it’s a combination of elements that link; sometimes schools make their own excellent workbooks and study resources.
