Adam Boxer hands out four golden nuggets to help you build an effective scheme of work
I am very fortunate in that I get to talk to a lot of heads of department and science teachers across England. Almost all of them have been busy building and improving their resources, mostly for key stage 3, and often from scratch. This work is crucially important, but is also tremendously difficult.
There are a few common themes I’ve noticed, and a number of emerging trends that I think are mistakes when building a scheme of work. With teacher workload a vital consideration, it is crucial we get this right. Here are some suggested solutions for the highest-frequency issues as I see them.
1. Spend time on the things that matter
Science teachers across the country are being asked to write intent statements for their science curriculums: why do we teach science and what is the point of our curriculum? Worthy though these questions are, England’s National Curriculum already answers them, and similar documentation exists for the Curriculum for Wales and Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). And Ofsted has tried to direct leaders away from such activities. Furthermore, I think many of these discussions don’t result in much practical difference: the resources, lesson activities or core content don’t change accordingly.
Science teachers across the country are being asked to write intent statements for their science curriculums: why do we teach science and what is the point of our curriculum? Worthy though these questions are, England’s National Curriculum already answers them, and similar documentation exists for the Curriculum for Wales and Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). And Ofsted has tried to direct leaders away from such activities. Furthermore, I think many of these discussions don’t result in much practical difference: the resources, lesson activities or core content don’t change accordingly.
Perhaps the issue here is one of time and opportunity cost. Yes, have these discussions, but don’t let them drag on or take significant amounts of time away from department activities that can make a bigger difference in the classroom.
2. Teach once, revisit often
Pick a lesson that is taught roughly halfway through year 7, for example. It might be something to do with friction, ribosomes or common acids and alkalis. Next, go through the rest of the curriculum up till the end of year 9, looking to see where that content is revisited. If it comes up once in an end of year exam, and not again, it’s almost guaranteed your students will forget it. Without regular and sustained retrieval practice, your students are guaranteed to forget what you have taught them.
Pick a lesson that is taught roughly halfway through year 7, for example. It might be something to do with friction, ribosomes or common acids and alkalis. Next, go through the rest of the curriculum up till the end of year 9, looking to see where that content is revisited. If it comes up once in an end of year exam, and not again, it’s almost guaranteed your students will forget it. Without regular and sustained retrieval practice, your students are guaranteed to forget what you have taught them.
Instead, schedule multiple opportunities into your teaching calendar to actively revisit and retrieve everything you teach.
3. Be militant and organised
Science curriculums have a magnetic habit of accumulating documents and files. Teachers rewrite a worksheet, and save it in the folder with their initials. Teachers download a worksheet from an online provider, and save it in the folder. Teachers tweak a slide deck, and save it in the folder. Leaders write curriculum maps, overviews, short-term plans, long-term plans and more. All these files build up and can become difficult for teachers to navigate. Which resource should I use? Which slide should I use? Do I need to read all these files before I can teach this course?
No, you don’t. Be militant with folder curation. Don’t allow things to build up, and ensure there is one high-quality resource per topic for everyone. Teachers might want to tailor it for their own groups, and that’s fine, but then it should be saved elsewhere. As a leader, actively cut down on the number of policy documents you have. For policy documents, think about the most important things you want people to read, get it onto no more than one side of an A4 and leave it at that.
4. Be specific about what needs to be taught
A lot of time is spent making resources, but less time tends to be spent agreeing precisely what content the resources should communicate. A teacher might receive a lesson topic like oxidation reactions, but exactly what needs to be taught in that lesson is not specified. This leads to variation of teaching, with some teachers electing to teach oxidation of metals, some choosing to focus on rusting, some teaching naming conventions and some looking at combustion reactions.
Instead, be hyper-specific about what is to be taught. Teachers should be able to teach the content how they want, but the content itself shouldn’t vary too much between teachers. If it does, you can’t meaningfully assess a cohort or collaborate on resources, nor give each other advice and tips about how to teach particular units.
Devoting care and attention to your curriculum is one of the most important things you can do as a teacher. Your curriculum is the very substance of the education you offer, and everything you do in the classroom springs from it. That doesn’t mean that all activities are equal, or that spending time on curriculum is good in and of itself. All too often we can spend time on things that are, at best, a waste of time and, at worst, actively damaging. Focusing on these four simple points may help you improve your students’ understanding of science, and you’ll see the job of curriculum improvement as an opportunity, not a chore.
Adam Boxer
Adam is lead practitioner at The Totteridge Academy, London.
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