Curriculum

Basic curriculum principles:  

•   Deficits in basic skills must be successfully addressed to allow all pupils to fully engage the curriculum.
• The core EBacc subjects, Music, RE and PE are an essential platform for life and further study and are hence mandatory.
• All pupils, regardless of perceived ability, are capable of mastering this curriculum, and substituting vocational alternatives in 11-16 education conveys the wrong message.
• Optional subjects are offered in the extended school programme
• Covering subjects in depth allows for a more structured approach to the curriculum, and hence higher retention.  The use of narrative in the humanities provides effective scaffolding for extending knowledge.
• Higher-order skills are domain-specific and can only be built on a firm foundation of knowledge and understanding in each subject.
• Quality-first teaching is an essential ingredient of good delivery.
• Competition is the surest means of engaging pupils’ interest in academic subjects which are difficult to relate directly to their own experience.

 

Rationale for the Phoenix curriculum:

Phoenix will have little chance of addressing the needs of our expected intake unless we focus relentlessly on key areas.  Inevitably, this will mean sacrificing breadth for depth, especially with our less-able pupils and those with poor basic skills. One of the problems that has beset maintained schools over the last generation is that schools have been charged with additional responsibilities without proper consideration as to whether staff have enough time to discharge them all satisfactorily.  It would seem that policy makers fail to understand that teachers and pupils have a finite amount of time and attention, and that overly-ambitious goals lead to a tick-box mentality.

For this reason only mandatory subjects will be taught during normal school hours.  These will be English, Maths, Science, History/Geography, MFL (probably German or French and possibly Spanish), PE, RE, and Music.  The core curriculum provides a basic foundation upon which all other subjects can be built; they provide the knowledge, understanding and intellectual tools which are central to civilisation, culture and technology.  PE, which includes callisthenics during registration and morning and afternoon breaks, promotes mental alertness and well-being—and a focus for competition internally and externally.  RE provides an understanding of the world’s great religions and their crucial role in shaping the growth of civilisation.  A strong Music curriculum can help bring pupils out of themselves and take pride in standing on a stage in front their friends, their community and the world at large.  With the help of the Manchester School of Music and the Huddersfield Choral Society (and perhaps some local brass bands) we hope that our pupils will become our best ambassadors.

Our concept of a balanced curriculum is that pupils should have maximum opportunities to develop mentally, physically and socially.  Their ability to operate in abstract realms and the world of ideas should be balanced against confronting the physical world in sport and adventurous activities.  They should have opportunities to excel as individuals and as part of a team.  They should be given every opportunity to compete against their peers, and to co-operate at every level.  They should take pride in their culture, and at the same time understand and respect others—and finding the common ground that makes us all British.  This principle, which is absolutely central to our ethos, will be a major factor in the design of our humanities curriculum.

 

Basic skills:

  Considering the crucial role that mastery of basic skills plays in pupil outcomes—both in terms of success in finding stable and remunerative employment and in terms of academic achievement—we believe it must have first priority.  Schools such as Mossbourne Academy have demonstrated that tackling deficits in Year 7 pays huge dividends in terms of exam results.  The perceived need to differentiate lessons for pupils with poor basic skills places heavy demands on teachers’ time.

Basic skills, as considered in the National Curriculum, consist of a combination of purely mechanical skills such as decoding, spelling and arithmetic, and higher order skills such as comprehension, composition and mathematical reasoning.  This has the unfortunate effect of conflating two quite different problems requiring radically different approaches to teaching and learning.  This has been recognised by the Rose Review, which correctly identifies failures at the mechanical level as the first problem to be addressed. [1]

In the course of our canvassing we have encountered schools which have taken the Rose Review on board, and this no doubt accounts (at least in part) for the dramatic differences in the percentage of pupils identified as SEN in central Oldham primary schools.  The lowest is 7.1%, and the highest is 42.6%.

The success of the synthetic phonics approach to teaching decoding skills led to the concept of quality first teaching, which emphasises sharply focused and highly-interactive lessons.  Synthetic phonics utilises a multi-sensory approach for teaching the arbitrary and ultimately meaningless relationship between letters and sounds.  For pupils with learning difficulties, basic correspondences must be learnt to the point where the presentation of a letter (or letter combination) produces an instant and automatic response of the appropriate sound.  This enables pupils to retain the sounds for long enough to ‘blend’ them into words.  Skills must be built systematically, progressing from regularly-spelt three-letter words to more complex and irregular spelling patterns.

However, the problem of reading failure is not just a matter of the methodology employed by the teacher.  Rather, it is a matter of the amount of practice that some children need in order to develop automatic responses to arbitrary correspondences.  Massed practice needs to be followed by distributed practice.   Pupils with poor decoding skills will be taught by our Instructors using our Sound Foundations decoding series, which has been independently evaluated by LA officials in Southampton and Gloucestershire. [2]   Sound Foundations materials provide enough over-learning to ensure that pupils achieve mastery at each level before progressing to more difficult and less common spelling patterns.  The decoding programmes consist of a single consumable book which is used one-on-one for 10 minutes per day with each pupil.  They completely eliminate the need for lesson-planning (a major consideration in SEN), and are simple enough to be used successfully by parents and peers who have minimal supervision and training.    The Sound Foundations writing programme ( Apples and Pears)– which can be used with groups of up to ten pupils—will almost certainly be used with the majority of year 7 pupils.

To address higher-order literacy skills, we will use Renaissance Learning’s Accelerated Reader, which is designed to “assess students’ reading with four types of quizzes: Reading Practice, Vocabulary Practice, Literacy Skills, and Textbook Quizzes” . [3] In the English-speaking world, it is the most widely-used software for improving vocabulary and fluency. (EAL will use their English in a Flash programme.)  We are now developing remedial maths materials similar in structure to our literacy materials, and these will be available by late 2013.

All basic skills teaching will be carried out by Instructors under the overall direction of the Senco, the Head of English and the Head of Maths.  Instructors will be thoroughly trained in the use of the above teaching materials prior to the opening of the school.

 

The academic curriculum:

  The distinguishing feature of the Phoenix curriculum will be our structured approach to learning.  Recent advances in the cognitive sciences have called into question some of the key beliefs around which teaching and learning which have dominated educational thinking in recent years.  In short, higher order skills must be built on a firm foundation of knowledge, lower-order skills and understanding.  Consider this relatively simple maths problem:

You have a round paddling pool which has an inside diameter of 3.5 meters.  It is filled to a depth of .6 meters.  You have a pump which can pump 1600 litres per hour.  How long will it take to empty the pool?

In order to solve this problem, the pupil must be able to draw on an extensive fund of knowledge beyond simple arithmetic.   First, the pupil must know the value of pi and the formula for calculating the area of a circle, and must be capable of handling decimal places.  A rudimentary understanding of solid geometry is required to calculate the volume of a cylinder, and the pupil must understand that the pool is a cylinder and the simple formula for calculating its volume.  Then the volume in cubic meters must be converted to litres.  Next, the concept of a rate must be understood, and the pupil must be capable of making the requisite division to come up with the correct answer (which also entails understanding that the hour has only sixty minutes).

Even though each step in the problem is relatively simple, the relevant knowledge and skills must be capable of being recalled instantly and automatically, or the pupil is likely to become confused.  In order to solve this problem, each of the above sub-skills must have been practised to the point of automaticity.  The pupil who is still a little unsure of handling decimals will almost certainly fail.  Since most primary schools no longer teach traditional algorithms, handling decimal points has become problematic—especially when pupils’ parents cannot be expected to offer useful help with homework because they themselves do not understand what their children are supposed to be doing.  The widespread use of calculators has exacerbated the problem, as children no long get enough practice working out problems manually.  The ease with which any knowledge can be accessed is a function of how often is has been retrieved—this basic principle of psychology is not in dispute. [4]

  What we think of as ‘creative’ processes are in fact merely the synthesis of new information or stimuli with what is already stored in memory.  Pupils who have a meagre store of knowledge will necessarily have less scope for creativity.  Problem-solving depends upon our ability to extend what we already know by analogy.  The notion that pupils no longer need to know facts because they are easily accessed on the internet is profoundly misguided—you can’t find the answers if you don’t know the questions or you don’t understand the context in which they are asked.  This is a crucial point if we are ever to have any hope of our pupils becoming independent learners.

  Stimulating the desire to learn, which is often thought of as being the primary duty of a teacher, is greatly facilitated as pupils learn more.  Graduate students are much more likely to direct their own learning efficiently than are undergraduates, who in turn are more motivated than secondary pupils.  As students develop increasingly complex schemata of knowledge, understanding and skills in different disciplines, they have more and more points of contact with each other, and new information is much more likely to be relevant and hence interesting.

  In short, it is impossible for higher-order skills to function in the absence of knowledge and understanding, and these skills are specific to each academic discipline.  Learning to deconstruct Victorian poetry will not be of much use in learning to solve quadratic equations.  It is true that simply amassing knowledge does not guarantee the development of higher order skills or indeed the motivation to learn, and good teachers understand that challenging assignments are an excellent means of ensuring that knowledge is retained and skills are developed.  Although a good school will foster a spirit of enquiry and a thirst for knowledge, there is very little evidence that higher-order skills can be developed independently of context. [5]

  In order to ensure that our pupils develop a ‘critical mass’ of knowledge, understanding and skills in each subject, we believe that it is crucial to maintain an intense and focused approach to teaching and learning.  This is especially true in reference to our less-able pupils, who would inevitably struggle if they were trying to learn too many subjects at once.  A broad curriculum may be justified for pupils whose continuation in education is not problematic, but we make no such assumptions at Phoenix.  We know that the bulk of our pupils live in a popular culture which is indifferent or even hostile to learning academic subjects or extending one’s mind beyond the here and now, and that we only have one chance of bringing them into the world of ideas and acquainting them with the best that has been thought and said.

  These principles are consistent with those of the Core Knowledge Foundation, which is now being adapted for use in UK primary schools.  The Curriculum Centre, which is sponsored by DfE Director John Nash, is adapting the same principles to the secondary curriculum.  Daisy Christo, a key member of our steering committee, is working full-time at the Curriculum Centre producing teaching materials which will enable schools to implement this curriculum from scratch.  Phoenix will be drawing heavily on this and adapting it to the needs of our own pupils (based upon current recruitment, we expect that around 40% will be Muslim, and virtually all the rest white English).  Since this curriculum is new and is not geared to any existing examinations or qualifications in the humanities, we will have to keep our plans under constant review.  Fortunately, it is well-aligned to the ICGSE in Sciences and Maths, which we will be offering.

However much we want to ensure that our pupils master the curriculum and make good progress towards level 2 awards, we still want to foster the spirit of independent enquiry.  Staff will be encouraged to honour and encourage initiative and achievement beyond the syllabus—teachers will nominate pupils who bring in material or research that enriches the curriculum for special awards.

 

Delivery of the curriculum:

  The military Methods of Instruction syllabus has changed very little since Prof Burkard joined the Territorial Army in 1983.  All knowledge, theory and skills are conveyed by direct instruction, and higher order skills are developed in realistic exercises which enable the learner to develop and apply these skills in new and unexpected situations.  Military Instructors are still trained to design and conduct their own training programmes according to proven principles; for instance, one should always plan the learning environment to minimise possible distractions.  However, once instructors have completed their training, they are told to use their initiative: if they can think of better methods of instruction in any given situation, they are perfectly free to do so.

Direct instruction—which is essentially quality first teaching—is far more than merely lecturing.  It is a highly interactive technique which relies upon continuous formative assessment.  Skills are explained, demonstrated, imitated and practised.  Theory and knowledge are taught in a structured lesson format which begins with a clear statement of the learning objective with an explanation of why it is relevant, a review of previous lessons, presentation of the new material with constant confirmation that it has been understood, the use of visual aids when appropriate, the use of the question technique with a pause of a few seconds before nominating someone to answer, a short oral or written quiz to confirm that all students have understood the material, and a look ahead to the next lesson.  As a rule, one should never expound for more than a minute or two without asking a student a question or to demonstrate a skill.

Narrative will also play a major role in the humanities (and a minor one in STEM subjects). Narrative is an unparalleled vehicle for extending and developing an understanding of new subjects, especially when major themes are discussed in class and pupils are tested for understanding.

In the military, higher order skills are mostly learnt in the field.  Here, instructors must be flexible and creative.  They have to assess the learning environment or the training area and determine how their trainees can be given challenging tasks requiring individual initiative and teamwork that will allow them to utilise their previous training in realistic scenarios.

At Phoenix, these principles can be adapted directly to the teaching of all subjects, even though relatively little academic work can be done in the field.  Our teachers and Instructors will consider what must be learnt, and use the most appropriate means available to motivate their pupils, convey the subject material in such a way as to relate to existing knowledge, present challenges that exercise higher-order skills, and to foster a spirit of intellectual curiosity.  Group and individual competition will be integral to all teaching and learning; the belief that competition demotivates the losers is only true in mixed ability classes where the least able have no chance whatever of winning.

Activity, or time-on-task is the key to making the most of the school day.  This will be greatly enhanced by a blanket ban on mobile phones—this will apply to staff as well as pupils.   This ban has already transformed one Manchester school. [6]   Teachers will always be asking questions, not only using closed questions to confirm that material has been mastered, but open questions to stimulate critical thinking and to allow pupils to bring their own input into the learning process.  As pupils progress, they will be given increasingly challenging assignments for independent study, and they will present short class papers on the results.  Even though we want our pupils to extend their intellectual horizons as far as possible and we will certainly encourage pupils who have interests which lay outside our curriculum, we cannot afford to let this intrude into the teaching of the core curriculum.  Other pupils may not share their interests, and it would be unwise to force them to do so.  In class we will take full advantage of the social element of learning; no one wants to be the only member of their peer group who ‘doesn’t get it’.  And of course our house system will be one of the primary means to ensure that the social dynamic works in favour of inclusion in the community of learners.

One of the central concepts in our ethos is that teachers and Instructors should lead by example.  Everyone in the school will understand this.  Our Instructors will be learning and working towards academic qualifications at the same time that they are assisting in the classroom.  Teachers, whose time will be largely free from administrative and pastoral responsibilities, will be expected to expand their own mental horizons either through self-study or distance learning courses; at least once a year they will write a short essay on what they have learnt, and this will be published internally and posted on the Phoenix website so that pupils will understand that learning is a life-long process.