Please consider this - once upon a time the church, police, govt, royal family and military were each seen as beyond criticism. Now it would be acceptable to cite institutonal corruption, sexism, ineptitude etc in a courtcase or tribunal against any of these. This is both a moment of progress but still of course alarming. The only institutuion left that 'cannot be criticised' and is presented as more or less perfect is Ofsted - maybe that will change soon too. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
This is a question investigated by Policy Exchange in two reports, “Watching the watchmen” (2014) and “The Watchmen Revisited” (2020). It is essential that schools are held accountable and that rigorous evaluation strategies are in place, but the time has come to review the current “banging on the chicken shed” approach. If nothing else, the tragic suicide of Headteacher Ruth Perry on Jan 8th following a damning Ofsted report demands that we look at both the effectiveness of Ofsted and the pressures it places on teachers.
Do you think the curriculum map(s) should be a collaborative, departmental effort or the work of the subject leader which is then disseminated? With curriculum maps, in your opinion would you expect one per key stage or one per year group. Or perhaps one document which flows through all key stages ?
Morning Eliza. Personally, I always think that such documents are best produced collaboratively. That said, the HoD should obviously take the lead and the lion’s share of the workload as it will probably be a contractual requirement for him/her to be responsible for curriculum development within the department/subject area. As far as maps are concerned, my personal view would be to divide them up termly, but I don’t think it really matters if they are designed termly, yearly or per Key Stage - I think that should be a School decision to ensure consistency. Remember they are maps, showing the way, and not detailed, content heavy documents. However you divide them, remember the key is to show links and progression - term to term, KS to KS, topic to topic.
The list of questions are very useful. Thank you!
Hi Eliza, I'm so pleased you think so! Please feel free to share this video to Facebook and friends as I am trying to help!
Please consider this - once upon a time the church, police, govt, royal family and military were each seen as beyond criticism. Now it would be acceptable to cite institutonal corruption, sexism, ineptitude etc in a courtcase or tribunal against any of these. This is both a moment of progress but still of course alarming. The only institutuion left that 'cannot be criticised' and is presented as more or less perfect is Ofsted - maybe that will change soon too. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
This is a question investigated by Policy Exchange in two reports, “Watching the watchmen” (2014) and “The Watchmen Revisited” (2020). It is essential that schools are held accountable and that rigorous evaluation strategies are in place, but the time has come to review the current “banging on the chicken shed” approach. If nothing else, the tragic suicide of Headteacher Ruth Perry on Jan 8th following a damning Ofsted report demands that we look at both the effectiveness of Ofsted and the pressures it places on teachers.
Do you think the curriculum map(s) should be a collaborative, departmental effort or the work of the subject leader which is then disseminated?
With curriculum maps, in your opinion would you expect one per key stage or one per year group. Or perhaps one document which flows through all key stages ?
Morning Eliza. Personally, I always think that such documents are best produced collaboratively. That said, the HoD should obviously take the lead and the lion’s share of the workload as it will probably be a contractual requirement for him/her to be responsible for curriculum development within the department/subject area.
As far as maps are concerned, my personal view would be to divide them up termly, but I don’t think it really matters if they are designed termly, yearly or per Key Stage - I think that should be a School decision to ensure consistency. Remember they are maps, showing the way, and not detailed, content heavy documents. However you divide them, remember the key is to show links and progression - term to term, KS to KS, topic to topic.