Strip back the layers of high-quality teaching and right at the core you’ll find effective curriculum and lesson planning. It’s the hours of planning that go into a lesson that makes it great, but when this planning is left to individual teachers, problems can occur. Without a cohesive, school-wide approach to curriculum delivery, inconsistencies can emerge, leading to gaps in student learning and increased teacher workload. A whole-school, consistent approach, on the other hand, can ensure every student receives a well-rounded, continuous education and every teacher feels supported. But is it achievable?
Why should we consider a whole-school approach to curriculum delivery?
In 2022, the Grattan Institute undertook two surveys with 7,000 teachers and school leaders across Australia. It found that teachers are struggling to find time for curriculum and lesson planning. 90% of teachers say they don’t have enough time to effectively plan lessons, despite it being at the core of their job. 49% undertake lesson and curriculum planning on their own and 85% don’t have access to a shared bank of high-quality curriculum resources for their classes. Teachers in disadvantaged schools are only half as likely to have a shared resource bank available to them as more advantaged schools.
What’s more, the Grattan Institute interviewed curriculum experts and spoke with schools and found that it takes at least 500 hours to develop one year of sequenced and comprehensive curriculum resources per subject. It’s no wonder that 55% of teachers are not satisfied with curriculum planning at their school. It’s an impossible task and one that is causing significant stress.
But it’s not just teachers who are disadvantaged by this approach. When teachers plan alone, lessons lack continuity and consistency for students. While collaborative planning may happen within year levels, it often doesn’t happen across year levels. So teachers are left to guess what their students have learnt the year before. This often results in gaps where concepts are not taught, or the rehashing of previously learnt content.
Regardless of the quality of the lessons, if there’s no alignment between year levels, students will experience gaps and overlaps in their learning.
What are the benefits of a whole-school curriculum?
According to the Grattan Institute report, there are several benefits of a whole-school curriculum. The report lists five key benefits:
- It boosts learning
Building a solid foundation of knowledge ahead of the final years of schooling takes years of practice. Highly-sequenced, incrementally delivered content that clearly links to and builds upon previous content ensures students are able to truly practise and learn.
- Fewer students miss out
When teachers plan together, collectively defining what will be taught, how it will be taught and how they will assess students, all students receive the same learning opportunities regardless of the class they are in.
- It supports effective teaching
With less time spent planning every lesson, teachers have more time to focus on how to tailor their content and approach for the students in their class. This means that students won’t just receive consistent curriculum across their years of schooling, but individualised instruction to help them master content.
- It enhances teachers’ expertise
A shared vision of effective teaching coupled with shared resources gives teachers more time to focus on refining their practice. Plus, this culture of collaboration fosters more discussions, knowledge sharing and opportunities to learn from one another, adding further to teachers’ toolkits.
- It reduces individual planning load
Without a whole-school approach and high-quality shared resources, teachers can spend countless hours building lessons and trawling the internet for resources. But when planning is done together, individual workload is significantly reduced. The Grattan Institute report found that teachers with access to a quality resource bank for all subjects spent 3 hours less per week planning for lessons. This frees up teacher time to focus on what matters most – without sacrificing the content quality.
What does a whole-school curriculum approach look like?
A whole-school approach to curriculum isn’t only about creating a common set of resources for every subject. It’s more holistic than that. In fact, it starts with a shared vision between teachers and leaders of what effective teaching looks like, how it should be achieved and why it matters to take a whole-school approach.
From there, the team can collaboratively develop or acquire resources and determine an instructional approach. The goal here is to create lessons that are clearly connected from one year to the next, so learning can be truly scaffolded and students have ample opportunity to master concepts as they build their knowledge. This could mean developing a clear sequence for different subject areas and topics (e.g. writing structure will be taught from Year 7-10) then creating the accompanying lessons and classroom materials that are available for all teachers to use. These materials can include slides for each lesson, plus printable resources or even board notes.
Establishing a consistent instructional approach also ensures students become familiar with how content is delivered and can adopt common strategies for learning. This might mean that you agree to adopt an explicit approach to teaching and decide how this approach will look in the classroom. It could be as simple as agreeing to teach students BODMAS (brackets, orders, division, multiplication, addition and subtraction) rather than BIDMAS (where ‘i’ stands for indices). But it can be these little things that when coordinated across the school mean students spend less time on new approaches and more time in practice.
A whole-school approach needs to be supported by a strong leadership structure. Principals will be responsible for establishing this new approach – setting the vision and defining practices and processes. They will also need to define the framework of curriculum leadership roles that will support the approach. There should be curriculum leaders responsible for planning in each subject area. These leaders need to possess the expertise required to sequence learning across year levels, manage the selection and creation of high-quality classroom resources and support teachers to implement them in their classrooms. Principals must also ensure that curriculum leaders have enough time for their role, the autonomy and authority to lead and training to build on their expertise.
The need for training further extends to teachers across the school. To refine teaching consistency and quality, professional learning in the form of regular collaboration or explicit training is needed. This ensures the whole-school approach is set up for success for the get-go and teachers will receive the ongoing support required to continually deliver the approach effectively.
How can you implement consistent curriculum delivery at your school?
Moving towards a whole-school approach makes sense for many reasons, but there’s no doubt it also takes time to set up. The Grattan Institute report outlines a number of practical steps school leaders can take to implement a whole-school curriculum, which can be found here.
As with any change, it can be difficult to not just get started, but keep momentum going. Here are our tips for getting started and keeping things on track.
Break it up
Keep in mind that small steps can be key to a change this big. You can start with one subject, or even one topic within it. Not only will this give you the space to trial different approaches to tackling the work, it could give you the quick wins you need to keep motivation high.
You don’t have to start from scratch
Some educators may feel that it’s best to develop your own resources from scratch, but this isn’t actually the case. Research has found that when teachers are using high-quality, sequenced resources, regardless of who makes them, student learning can increase by approximately one-to- two months each year, maybe more. Independent research has found that the premium, sequenced resources provided by Maths Pathway to teachers can double student learning in one year. These resources are developed to support explicit teaching and include lesson plans, board notes and individual learning modules.
Keep track of the wins
One of the most important parts of making big, sustained change is keeping people motivated. A great way to do this is to keep track of the wins, even the small ones, and take time to call them out and celebrate them. When everyone can see the impact their hard work is having they’re going to want to keep working towards their goals.
Add in time to refine
It’s easy to get caught up moving forward when there’s so much to do, but remember to make time to go back and refine where needed. Through collecting teacher and student feedback and measuring outcomes, you’ll know what areas of the approach need more attention. By making it a priority to go back and refine them, you’ll remove friction points and improve opportunities for success.
A whole-school approach to curriculum delivery, made easy
With great research supporting the change to a whole-school approach, it’s no wonder school leaders across the country are already moving towards coordinated curriculum delivery. Maths Pathway schools, for example, already experience the benefits of a whole-school approach to the maths curriculum. Our evidence-based model equips teachers with the tools, resources and support they need to deliver a guaranteed and viable maths curriculum. It also makes differentiation easy, ensuring every student gets what they need from the curriculum and the opportunity to fill in learning gaps.
The benefits of a whole-school curriculum are extensive, including consistent and high-quality education for all students, reduced teacher workload, enhanced collaboration among staff, and the elimination of learning gaps and unnecessary repetition. The curriculum is at the centre of every school, so prioritising effective planning and high-quality curriculum resources should be on the agenda for every school leader.
