Time to Shake Up the Primary Curriculum

A step-by-step guide to creating a global, diverse and inclusive school

Sarah

Wordlaw

Bloomsbury Education

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY EDUCATION and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published in Great Britain, 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Text copyright © Sarah Wordlaw, 2023

Sarah Wordlaw has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work

Material from Department for Education and Ofsted reports used in this publication are approved under an Open Government Licence: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/ open-government-licence/version/3/

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ISBN: PB: 978-1-8019-9119-3; ePDF: 978-1-8019-9121-6; ePub: 978-1-8019-9122-3

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This book is dedicated to my dad, who taught me to rise up.

Acknowledgements ix

Foreword x

Introduction xii

How to use this book xviii

Part 1 Analysing the current curriculum 1

1 Where are you now? Auditing your current curriculum 3

2 Where do you want to be? Setting whole-school intent for new curriculum and key research 17

Part 2 Shaping the curriculum 27

3 Literacy: Book choices with different voices 29

4 History: Making the unseen seen 55

5 Geography: A global view, representative and varied 77

6 The arts: Art and design, music and drama 95

7 STEM: Science, maths and technology 119

8 Physical education 137

9 SMSC: Collective worship, assemblies and charity work 151

Part 3 Remapping the curriculum

169

10 Mapmaker, mapmaker, make me a map… A practical guide to mapping out curriculum 171

11 Learning environments: Inside, outside and dress code 181

12 Implementation and monitoring impact of your wonderful new curriculum 191

A final word 201

Appendices: Curriculum maps 203

Further reading 245

Bibliography 249

Index 257