One of the parts of curriculum design that often doesn’t get enough airtime is empty space. If a curriculum design is 100% full, and designed to fill every possible lesson, minute or moment then that’s a rather crushing conveyor belt curricular model.
If we are to be responsive in our teaching, and sensitive in our planning, then response and thought take time and space. I work with lots of trusts and schools on curriculum planning. Often, they are using a curriculum model or document that has not been produced for their school. Often it is a model curriculum either produced externally and commercially or it has been produced by colleagues within the wider organisation such as a MAT. Neither of these models are bad or indeed wrong to use – many are hugely helpful and have been thoughtfully considered for use in their intended phase and have provided support for colleagues and improved outcomes for pupils. However, often they miss out two things – a sense of place and deliberate space.
When I work with schools, they are often situated in or near fascinating places of interest that are historically or geographically significant. The buildings themselves often have fascinating back stories, founders, or their names have significance. Often the views from classroom windows look out onto settlements or physical features perfect for studying in geography. The local area may have a rich history and have woven into it a thousand fascinating story threads and events which can illuminate what it is like and how it is things have come to be as they are in the heart of the communities the school is serving.
If we are at a crossroads in curriculum design then I advocate for space – space in which we can follow children’s fascinations; where we have opportunities to enhance our curriculum with studies of the people and places on the school’s doorstep that can provide hands on, real life opportunities and enhancements; space in which to respond to children’s early thinking, misconceptions or questions they have about their studies. This space is precious space. This is the curricular liminal space between the statutory and the bespoke. To lean too much towards either is to skew the view, to distort the beauty and potential of the liminal curriculum. We do need to ensure that our children receive a well planned and sequenced curriculum that has been well constructed and has fidelity to the discipline and introduces them to rich and deep knowledge and thought, but not one that is divorced from their place in the world or their response and understanding of its contents. To plan a 100% allocation model with no space is to say that we have a one size fits all conveyor belt curriculum, where learning will happen in neat, pre-determined ways and that the curriculum contents for all should be the same.
The curricular liminal space is where the common and the personal combine. This is where the curriculum for all meets the curriculum for the individual and the school’s unique setting. For a young child, who is yet to conceptualise many of the big ideas in the academic subjects, what better way to complement the common than to reflect in the personal. If we are to always rely on the imagined or presented rather than the directly experienced then this is a trick missed.
So space in anything statutory is important – space in any pre planned curriculum whether commercially produced, locally written by a larger group, or individually produced by a school. A curriculum without space is a rigid and blunt object. Space provides opportunities to respond – to the learning of the children, to events that are happening in the world, to include places, people and events that are important locally to children and our local and global communities. If we have a 100% allocation model then not only is there not response time for extending or exploring what we find from our assessments, but it also pulls down the blinds and shuts the door to anything outside the classroom as if we are to respond to what’s outside, we potentially have to compromise a 100% allocation model by removing something from our carefully crafted curriculum.
Space is an under rated element of curricular design. In the curricular space, as in art, it is where you have the opportunity to focus on the objects. No one can make sense of a cluttered and cramped presentation. Space not only offers time to respond but the time to sit with and appreciate the planned content.
If we are then at a curricular junction, I would advocate and champion space. Space to root and explore each planned unit in enough depth. Space to respond to what we observe about children’s learning. Space (and adequate amounts of it) to include elements of the children’s local area, stories, geography and unique locality. Space to follow their fascinations when we see a class fly and fall in love with a unit or piece of work. Space to appreciate the richness of a planned curriculum, and space to breathe in and enjoy what we have planned. Our current national curriculum does have opportunities to root content in children’s local areas but this is all too often eclipsed when the curricular writing is outsourced or a curriculum used for multiple settings which are unique and different.
Whatever the outcome of our current focus on curriculum, I would always list space as one of my key elements of a successful model, because the liminal space is where the magic can happen.
Thinking Flexibly 