Year 11 timetable; subject communities; an invitation to review curriculum in another school.
As a teacher, improving subject expertise and outcomes are never far from your thinking.
This week’s highlights all provide you with a route to achieving them.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the three day weekend.
We - schools - Are In Beta - always learning (when we think about how we improve subject expertise)
This week
📆 Reorganising the Year 11 timetable: 5 reasons why.
📚 Subject communities: Stenhouse and Beyond.
🔎 An invitation to review curriculum in another school.
📆 Reorganising the Year 11 timetable: 5 reasons why.
As exam season approaches, you're probably thinking about how you can use every single moment effectively to help your students get the best results possible.
Last year, Mike Hoad (VP Curriculum,Walton Academy) shared their entire process for how they reorganise the Year 11 timetable to add to the marginal gains come exam results time.
Here are 5 reasons why they do it:
Study leave has died a death
The number of exams student have to sit has increased
Students can struggle to decide where and how to priortise revsion
Teachers may not know who will be in front of them from one day to the next
You end up with dead time in the timetable when exams in different subjects are completely.
In the session Mike gives a full demonstration of how they use an excel file they’ve spent the last 7 years developing to reorganise their year 11 timetable.
Whether you’re a senior or middle leader…
📚 Subject Communities: Stenhouse and Beyond
Who is Stenhouse?
In the 70’s, Lawrence Stenhouse argued a number of things including:
🤝 Everyone should be involved in making the curriculum.
✨ Subject communities are important for students because they help build a sense of belonging, knowledge, and creativity.
👩🏽🏫 Teachers should use a more participatory approach to curriculum development.
📊Assessment should be part of the learning process and give helpful feedback to students to help them improve.
Sounds good. But how do achieve it? What persistent problems can this approach create? And how do you overcome them?
Join Director of Curriculum and Education, Inspiration Trust, Matt Carnaby (who’s advised the DfE, Ofqual and Oak National to name a few) to learn:
What and why subject communities?
How do subject communities create an ecosystem for curriculum and teacher development?
Persistent problems and what we've learnt.
📆 Thurs 15th June
🕔 5pm
🔎 An invitation to review curriculum in another school
We're helping a member school to find (school based) subject specialists (across all subjects and phases), who want to work together to review their curriculum in depth.
They're looking to build a network of like-minded subject leaders, who are keen to provide (and keep developing) an expert eye on their subject areas.
They’re running a Curriculum Review Day at their school (after the exams this summer).
The day will involve you:
🏫 being in the department
📝 reviewing curriculum documents
👩🏽🏫 conducting learning walks and
💬 talking to teachers.
If you are, or know, an experienced subject leader who is confident reviewing curriculum…
On a personal note.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
The traffic on the A3015 was awful. It was hot. I had no air conditioning. Time was running out. I was going to miss the start of my meeting.
A meeting I was conflicted about going to.
One one hand, it meant I was going to lose precious contact time with my students.
On the other, it presented the opportunity to form a connection with a fellow HoD in a really successful Science department at a local school.
“It’s useless. I’m going to turn back”, I thought. “I don’t even know how far away I am.” (this was pre Sat Nav 🤣).
Then I saw the sign for the school car park.
I was late. But I was there.
Boy, am I glad I didn’t turn around.
What I learned talking to the Head of Science in the time we had left was worth its weight in gold: systems and processes, resources, people development advice and more.
Why am I telling you this?
Despite the fact subject specific support is widely considered to be the most effective, this was the only introduction my SLT was able to make for me in my time as a Head of Science.
It undoubtedly limited my development and my ability to deliver the best for my team and my students.
We Are In Beta exists to change that - I hope you find this week’s highlights useful in finding your own subject specific connections.
Don’t forget, we also have about 300 subject specific talks and 1000+ resources shared by brilliant subject experts inside our Curriculum Thinking Week conferences.
Thanks for reading.
@NiallAlcock and the We Are In Beta team.
Sent this by a friend?
📱 Get 16,345 school leaders and teachers in your pocket - download We Are In Beta app
🚀 Looking for a new role? Get updates about specific jobs you’re looking for before anyone else.
🆕 New here? Catch up with previous editions, podcasts and webinars via the archive.