It is important that secondary school teachers know about the other subjects that are taught in their schools in order to provide a coherent curriculum experience for students. Over the past decade the school curriculum in England has been a place of intense focus for teachers, senior leaders, inspectors and politicians.
Statements of curriculum intent have been produced across the country (Fearn, 2019); countless curriculum conversations have taken place between subject leaders and curriculum leaders (Myatt & Tomsett, 2022) and many curriculum subjects have undergone a shift in focus, with more emphasis being placed on knowledge, particularly since examination reforms in 2015/16. But while vertical conversations about curriculum are encouraged, how much time is given to teachers of one subject to help understand recent changes in other curriculum subjects?
As part of a larger project on beginning teachers’ experiences of science/religion encounters in the classroom, we held focus groups for 50 pre-service teachers of science and RE and used the responses to design a survey completed by more than 160 beginning teachers and more than 100 experienced teachers. We explored their perspectives on the purpose of each subject and the Curriculum Journal recently published our findings (see Woolley et al., 2022).
