Ella McSorley, Four Dwellings High School

Four Dwellings High School
Curriculum Reform

Our Local Context:
• Mixed comprehensive:
(725 on role) without 6th form
• Most learners (about 70%) come
from the most deprived areas of
the city
• 60% fsm
• 32% A*-C (20% Eng and Maths)
• Current Y8 - 65% substantially
below chronological reading age
• High number of fixed
term/permanent exclusions

More specifically:
Many learners lack clear aspirations
and direction. Many have poor functional skills
and under-developed social and emotional
skills. Many come from families who are
mistrustful of school
and education, and
similarly lack in the
core skills.

Our Core Aims in Curriculum
Reform:
To tackle the issues which were preventing
access to the curriculum
To encourage and develop pupil motivation
and enjoyment
To impact on attainment and progress
To create a sustainable and collaborative
approach to curriculum innovation

National Context: The Big Picture
National Curriculum now:
• joined together; cohesive
• based on core aims focused on learner
• framed by three key questions
• available on a comprehensive website…
so that teachers, schools, parents, learners
and interested stakeholders can see the entire
educational experience a learner may
experience

The Big Picture

Core Aims:
‘to create a world class curriculum’ to develop:
Successful Learners who make progress and achieve
Confident Individuals who lead safe and healthy lives
Responsible Citizens who make a positive contribution to
society

How is it different?
• much more flexible: we can create our own local picture -
to allow for a truly personalised curriculum
• ECM and the five outcomes permeate document
• subjects not seen separately but part of a whole
educational experience
• focus on processes and skills development rather than
simply subject content

Four Dwellings’ Curriculum Reform:
It’s small steps slowly…

Focus on:
Y7
Transition
Skills’ development and acquisition
Collaboration
Creativity

Key Question 1:
What are we trying to achieve?

Focus on Learner from outset:
What do we want our learners to be/to
become by the end of key stage 3? Key stage
4? What are our learners like now?
This focused us on the learning and allowed to
consider skills/processes as opposed to a focus
on the teacher and subject. For us it was clear:
a focus on skills; functional and personal,
learning and thinking was necessary.

Not that surprising:
The list of qualities from both learners and
teachers, not dissimilar to the list employers
also looking for: in addition to functional core
skills, teacher and learners were looking for pupils
who could:
• use their initiative
• articulate their thoughts
• work as part of a team
• think creatively, problem solve
• contribute to the school positively
• manage and organise themselves

PLT Skills
The teaching of social skills and PLT skills
needed to be made explicit: it always was
there, but…
Cohesive?
Planned out?
Monitored and assessed?
Progress tracked?

PLT Chart

Common Language
We also knew it was necessary to give
our students a language for talking about
their learning and progress; under-developed
vocabulary and poor literacy skills were
hampering work
and progress.

Key Question 2:
How do we organise the learning?

The Basics:
Y7 pupils have one day per fortnight where
they are timetabled with their skills teacher
(one of the core writing team members) for an
entire day.
During this day they develop their functional
and PLT skills through activities as diverse as
making a radio broadcast, or planning a school
trip for the year group.

Structure:
• Only Y7 in pilot phase
• Transition carefully planned and
delivered
• All subjects involved in delivery of skills
• Monthly PLT focus, termly functional skills
focus
• One day per fortnight where skills explicitly
delivered
• Followed up with assemblies, tutor time,
plasma screen, website, posters around
school
• All teachers refer to skills in LO across
curriculum

Skills Days
Transition: about building on primary
experience, developing understanding of skills,
getting to know teacher, one another and
school, team and tutor group building via
outward bound
September: Reflective Learning - essential
to begin with this to consider how, why we
learn and to think of ways of improving
learning. How to Thrive and Survive at Four
Dwellings High School - boardgame

Skills Days
October: Team Work
• Radio News Broadcast
• Desert Island Survival
November: Independent Enquiry
• Murder Mystery - ‘The Identification’
• Educational Trip Bid Presentation

Skills Days
December: Creative Thinking
Homelessness
January: Effective Participation
•Values
• Designing and setting up a charity

Benefits of skills days
• Not tied to time constraints: activities are
given the time needed
• Consistency - same teacher delivering all 5
lessons
• Tangible outcomes to each day
• Emphasis on ENJOY and achieve
• Development and progress of skills apparent
through length of time teacher spends with
class

The Process
• Whole staff consultation/Pupil Consultation
• Staff training day: led by learners, ‘blue-sky’ thinking, crosscurricular
writing teams began here
• Volunteers for new curriculum writing team
• Learning and Teaching group decide on logistics and
structure
• Pupil writing teams
• Case study school for QCA
• Develop materials and present to SMT
• Materials trialled with Y7
• Pupils and teachers at launch of National Curriculum
• Skills curriculum began in September and first term
evaluated in December
• Spring term skills days planned by cross-curricular groups

Impact: Key Question 3:
How well are we achieving our aims?

Two main strands to this:
For staff:
• Focus on entire educational experience
• Re-engagement in discussions about Learning and
Teaching
• Shift away from focus on content, syllabus and
subject to the learners, skills and processes (link to
new NC)
• Shift away from dealing with behaviour to teaching
how to behave
• Greater autonomy, creativity
• CPD - collaborative planning, writing and delivery
• More cohesive curriculum: mapped out and shared

Views of The Writing Team
“Many of our pupils struggle to adapt to the
changes and challenges of secondary school. Many
problems stem from pupils' lack of confidence, underdeveloped
basic literacy and numeracy skills, poor
interpersonal skills and a lack of 'team spirit'.
The skills-based curriculum aims to tackle these. One day
per fortnight will be a 'skills' day. The aim is to emphasise
the centrality of these skills and help build each pupil's bank
of skills in order to make each one a better learner. If we
invest this time in Year 7, we believe that the pace and
quality of learning will increase”.
Martin Phillips, History

Views of The Writing Team
“The new curriculum has given me the flexibility to try different
approaches and take on different subjects and strategies
within my lessons which personally excites and stimulates me.
I feel, as writers of the new curriculum, we have dedicated a
lot of our time and taken our role very seriously. Frankly I feel
this enthusiasm will be conveyed to our new learners, thus
increasing their enjoyment.”
Dominic Barnard, ICT

Views of The Writing Team
“ The real reason I joined the team was to make a
difference I think. I wanted to be part of this exciting project
which would encourage independent and creative
thinkers. I have found more and more that pupils want
everything clarifying, they want every idea given to them
instead of just giving something a go and thinking for
themselves. This new curriculum actually gets them to
do this”.
Kerrie Turley, English

Views of The Writing Team
“I think that the new curriculum will facilitate
the cross curricular links that already exist but are not
emphasised, and help the teaching of key skills by reinforcing
them in a range of subject areas!”
Mike Bennet, Geography
“One of my greatest pleasures in teaching in those early days
lay in the process of working with colleagues to plan a
curriculum that would interest, motivate, enthuse and above
all educate the specific group of pupils for whom it was
intended”
Les Stringer, English

Views of the writing team
‘The needs and potential of individual learners have
always been at the centre of everything that we do at Four
Dwellings’
James Hyde, English
‘I think that writing our own curriculum empowers the
teachers, and will ultimately empower the learners, by
giving them the kind of skills they need to succeed in life.’
Ela McSorley, English

Impact for Learners:
1) Involvement in writing and editing materials
gives greater awareness of learning process
1) Students engaged, interested and motivated
2) Trial a success; key factors in this - giving greater
responsibility to learner, allowing time for
development of skills, building in reflection time
each step of the way, focus on process, not
necessarily end result, although each day does
end with tangible outcome
3) Students beginning to appreciate links and
connections across the subjects

Skills Day Trials
Student Evaluations:
‘I was very proud of the fact I co-operated with other
people’
‘I was proud of how much I put my hand up’
the day was….’perfect and fun and we were learning
all the time’
‘Which skills did I use? My brain skills’!!!

Impact: first tangible results
Behaviour: CMIS entries for behavioural
referrals are down; behaviour as a whole
reported by HoY and tutors is improved and
improving
Attendance: is up on the skills days: average
attendance of 95% for skills days, average
attendance of 94% for all other days for Y7

Impact: Attendance
Attendance Sept - Dec
95%
94%
93%
Percentage
92%
91%
90%
89%
88%
87%
Y7 (all) Y7 (skills) Y8 (all) Y9 (all) Y10 (all) Y11 (all)
Year gro

What are we learning?
• It’s a challenge - we are looking at the
skills which need developing!
• much overlap - hard (and not productive) to
isolate skills
• Functional Skills need to be carefully
mapped out (current Y7 cohort first to need
Level 2 in functional skills before they can sit
GCSE in Eng, Maths and ICT)
• need to involve everyone so there is shared
ownership/cohesion

The next steps
• Departments have developed ideas for skills
days following Christmas (writing
team drafted into skills days)
• Map out functional skills
• Involve Y11 more
• Team teach to widen
teaching expertise
• Review progress of groups
and individuals
• Involve rest of KS3? (half
days with Y8)

Viewing the Skills through the Website:

Using Case Studies from the Website:

How will we know we’ve succeeded?
In the short-term:
a) Y7 pupils will be able to work in groups, will
begin to work independently, show selfreliance
and will be able to co-operate and
support their peers
b) Pupils begin to develop their evaluative
skills in lessons and over longer periods
c) Pupils start to adapt the language of skills
(PLT and functional) in their learning
d) Behaviour and attendance improve

Why do it?
A curriculum constructed with learners at its
heart, by teachers and learners, we feel is
having a much greater impact than the former
curriculum, which felt ‘distanced’ and at times
inaccessible.