Effective Leadership of Curriculum and Assessment

9th May 2024

The first of the two half-day courses is for primary and secondary headteachers, senior and middle leaders in schools who design and implement curriculum and assessment. It is also intended for those who advise on curriculum, education advisers, LA advisers, MAT CEOs. If you are interested, please book your place here.

Designing a curriculum means establishing the Intent (Values and Vision), Implementation (Pedagogy and Assessment) and Impact (Pupils’ Progress and Learning Standards). To do this, we identify what works best in the context of each school and its pupil profile.

What will I learn from this course?

This course focuses on Intent and Implementation. We outline curriculum mapping, sequencing, and assessment within the context of challenges faced by schools; students’ learning gaps and mental well- being. Through a focus on case studies using a variety of adaptive teaching strategies and techniques, including digital tools, we look at how schools strengthen pupils’ ‘knowledge and skills recall’, so they can achieve their full academic potential. Strengthening primary and secondary schools’ formative assessment systems through ‘powerful teacher feedback’ for pupils is key. This enables pupils to take responsibility for their own learning and to move away from right/wrong answers towards cognitive process and self-reflection.

Most importantly, we examine how schools fully integrate skills into the knowledge- led curriculum, thereby ensuring that all pupils develop oracy, critical and conceptual thinking, problem solving and reasoning skills in line with the NI CCEA, Welsh Curriculum, and the National Curriculum.

How will we arrive at this?

A practical handbook with template, including a curriculum template, accompanies the course. This is a unique cross nation collaboration as English and Welsh Primary and secondary school leaders contribute to the workshop through practical case studies. They showcase how they make the theoretical concepts underlying curriculum mapping, such as ‘sequencing’ and ‘interleaving’ work for them. We illustrate how we can construct a knowledge and skills- based approach to learning that benefits all primary and secondary pupils. We will also hear from school pupils about how they evidence their progress over time, resulting from the impact of teacher feedback.

Best practice in teaching/ learning /assessment and Interactive resources, as well as digital learner profiles are discussed through “break out group chats”. Our aim: to ensure the curriculum is diverse, inclusive, and equitable, all pupil groups’ needs are met, with ample opportunity for students’ cultural capital.

Who is leading this course?

The course leader is Meena Kumari Wood, author of the popular ‘Secondary Curriculum Transformed; Enabling All to Achieve’ (Wood and Haddon, Routledge 2021). The book has led to a series of training webinars in UK, Northern Ireland, Dubai and India and features on the core reading list for the MEd in Educational Leadership (University of Birmingham). She has hosted educational webinars and published articles and blogs for SchoolsWeek, Teach Secondary, Chartered College, Edge Foundation and RSA and is currently writing a third book on inspection and school improvement. In addition, she is a keynote speaker at Edu-Conferences, including, Education and Training Inspectorate(NI) British Schools in the Middle East, (BSME), RSA, Foundation of Educational Development (FED) and for Mary Myatt&Co.

Meena Wood was a former HMI Ofsted, Local Authority Adviser, Principal of an Adult College, and Principal of a Secondary Academy and is now Honorary Fellow of Education Leadership Academy (University of Birmingham) and KHDA inspector (Emirates).

Meena is a widely experienced International Educational Consultant, Author, and Trainer. In the UK working with academies and MATs, including Alternative Provision providers, conducting reviews of curriculum and assessment, the quality of education, peer reviews, instructional coaching, inspection, and governance. In addition, she supports British and International Schools in the Middle East (Dubai).

Pre-course reading

A copy of the book ‘Secondary Curriculum Transformed’ will be provided as part of the course materials. It is highly recommended that course participants are familiar with it, as we refer to appendices and models within the book. The relevant parts will be signposted for participants before the course.

Book your place via Eventbrite here