CURRICULUM DEPTH 

Let’s take the analogy that a good curriculum is like a swimming pool; we want our pupils to be confident enough to swim both widths and lengths across its breadth. We want them to see connections between subjects and understand that each subject has links that support others.  

We also, however, want our pupils to be confident enough to put their heads under the water and eventually dive down to deeper depths across the breadth of the curriculum.  

A curriculum that has depth, that isn’t just a paddling pool of shallow facts and figures, requires opportunities for pupils to find out more, use inference, make connections and seek solutions.  

A curriculum with depth requires the following:- 

1. Coherence 

In order to help pupils make sense of what they are learning, a coherent curriculum is essential. We, as teachers, simply don’t have enough time to teach all the concepts and skills required unless they find effective ways to connect the individual pieces of learning together to make a coherent whole. 

In my experience, it’s important to start with the opposite of coherence – a series of disconnected activities with neither context nor real purpose. It is human nature to search for meaning: “Why am I doing this?” “What is this for?” “How will this be useful to me?” I know I’ve asked those questions about a whole range of things and if your pupils don’t see coherence, they’ll start to ask them too. 

Purpose is vital. For example, a seasonal theme that explores cultural identities, by examining how Christmas is celebrated in other countries, uses a cross-curricular approach that gives coherence, as well as encouraging pupils to build connections between their own experiences and cultures with those studied.  

Curriculum depth stems from the substance and significance of the learning. 

2. Meaning and Relevance 

Another way for pupils to feel confident enough to explore subjects, ideas and information more deeply is to give relevance and meaning to what is being taught. Here is an example from my teaching practice that worked really well to show this: 

Learning about the weather in KS1 

Scenario 1 

Pupils colour worksheets on different weather scenes e.g. rain, snow. 

It is, of course, important that pupils are made aware of all different types of weather across the world. This is important knowledge for understanding the world in a more global context. This is the first dip of the head under the surface. 

To make learning about the weather more relevant and meaningful, however, pupils can take what they have learnt from their ‘shallow paddle’ and start to make more purposeful connections by: 

Scenario 2 

Pupils create a weather diary based on their first-hand observations. They compare their findings with the predictions from the day before i.e. weather forecast and look for differences. They then produce some simple statistics about the reliability (or not!) of the weather forecast e.g. four days out of five the weather forecast was accurate. 

3. High-Order Thinking 

Higher order thinking is not the process of encouraging pupils to think about concepts or ideas that are beyond their years or on topics that haven’t yet covered to ‘find out what they know’. Higher- order thinking encourages pupils to do something with the knowledge they already have. Pupils have opportunity to connect facts and concepts and interpret them in a variety of ways.  

Development of higher-order thinking can be done through questions such as: 

• Why does a honeybee die after it stings? 

• Why might you build a village in this location? 

• Can you be friends with someone that is different to you? 

Once again, we are donning our goggles and taking a dive down into curriculum depth. I shared three important aspects of what is required for curriculum depth. In this part, we will explore another three. It is by embedding these six key aspects that curriculum depth can be fully realised. This is not to say that depth of learning cannot go any deeper once we have included all these things in a curriculum, but it certainly ensures that pupils, as mentioned, are able to use inference, make connections and seek clear solutions.  

Interleaving – integration of subjects 

A significant amount of research has been done on the concept of interleaving, which is the mixing together of different topics or subjects with the intention of improving the recall and retention of knowledge.  

“Teaching topics in this way will aid retention in the long term, helping pupils to transfer what they have learnt to new situations.” – Sean Kang 2016.  

The integration of subjects across a topic or theme encourages the brain to work hard to recall prior knowledge and allows pupils to return to what they have previously learnt and see it in different ways.  

When implementing interleaving within a topic or theme, I’ve really noticed that a narrative flow begins to build so that the learning journey becomes more like a story with a clear beginning, middle and end. Just like a story narrative that can be remembered and recalled, so can the learning of a particular theme through interleaved subjects, thus developing a stronger long-term memory.  

Opportunities for enquiry 

In Part One, I mentioned high-order thinking as an important aspect of curriculum depth. We can tie this together with the need for opportunities for enquiry within the curriculum to encourage deeper understanding. Opportunities can come in the form of teacher-led or child-led enquiry. When using questioning as a tool for higher-order thinking, I’ve come to learn that it is important that pupils have the chance to give a broad range of answers that spark curiosity and relevance, leading the pupils to want to find out more. 

A child-led approach to developing enquiry can come through the concept of ‘Mantle of the Expert’. It uses “imaginary contexts to generate purposeful and engaging activities for learning.” (Mantle of the Expert). Children become ‘experts’ in a particular area or field and are given a scenario where they need to use their knowledge and skills in order to complete an assignment given by a client.  

The authenticity of end products and goals 

It is still important as teachers and educators to have clear goals and outcomes that help us to recognise the depth of knowledge and understanding our pupils have at the end of a topic, year group, key stage and/or at the culmination of their time in school. We need the outcomes to be clear, relevant and have authenticity.  

At the end of a topic, for example, we may want our pupils to produce a piece of work where they can demonstrate what they have learnt. We need to think about why we are asking them to produce it and what relevance it has to their learning. We can refer back to meaning and relevance from Part One; if pupils understand why they are being taught something, the outcomes will be far more authentic than if they are learning about something abstract, with little context.  

Schools are often asked to produce ‘end goals’ for subjects, year completion or key stages. It is important to ask yourself when writing these, ‘Why am I writing this goal?’ ‘What do I want it to tell me?’ and ‘How will I use them effectively?’ Ultimately, we want to know how far we have delved into the curriculum, and return to the surface with authentic, relevant and meaningful knowledge.