Developing the Curriculum for Wales at Ysgol Penglais
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Information about the school
Ysgol Penglais is an English medium school based in Aberystwyth, serving a wide area in North and mid-Ceredigion. There are around 1100 students at the school with 12.8% of students eligible for free school meals and 34.8% on the ALN register. There are two special units on site: the Learning Support Centre for students with high levels of needs and the Hearing Resource Centre. Around 10% of pupils speak Welsh as a first language and 34 other languages are spoken at the school.
During the last five years, the school has been on a journey of improvement. This was underpinned by the school’s new vision, which starts with the aim of being a ‘happy, ambitious and high achieving school where everyone is respected and valued’. This inclusive and ambitious vision incorporates the need to work as a whole community and for everyone to be the best that they can be, so that pupils can be successful citizens of their communities, Wales and the world. Professional learning has been a crucial aspect of the journey with a strong focus on teaching and learning. This has led to a very open culture where good practice is continually shared. The work done in the first two years in developing staff and pedagogy put the school in good stead to focus on developing the Curriculum for Wales. Research has been a very important aspect of this work, with all developments based on research and professional enquiry. More recent work on developing a leadership model where individual departments or faculties are given the responsibility for driving their own improvement has further advanced a culture of a self-improving school where trust and accountability go hand in hand.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
The Curriculum for Wales has provided an opportunity to develop a curriculum that builds clearly on the school’s vision and values, and provides all students with the opportunities to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding towards the four purposes. The school has focused strongly on improving the standards of teaching and learning over the past three years through a culture shift towards valuing the importance of lifelong learning, leadership and success for staff and students. This has created an open culture with a focus on professional learning where staff feel safe to develop their practice and trial and evaluate different approaches. Professional learning has been supported by providing time for teachers to undertake pedagogical research, supporting staff to apply and evaluate new pedagogy, and sharing practice in briefings and faculty meetings. Coaching has played a role in refining instructional techniques, improving personalised support for ALN students, and embedding strategies that develop reading, writing and oracy across subjects. These factors have provided an important platform on which to develop the ‘Penglais Curriculum’.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
The ‘Penglais Curriculum’ journey began with the ‘Why?’. Time was given to faculties to explore the Curriculum for Wales documents, evaluate current curriculum provision and refine departmental approaches to reflect the four purposes in their subjects. A Curriculum and Assessment Research Group was formed to carry out research into curriculum theory and practice and look at potential curriculum and assessment models; this provided the expertise for the high-level curriculum work to come. The group carried out extensive stakeholder work to evaluate current provision and to establish five pillars for the new Penglais Curriculum: Knowledge, Creative Culture, Communication, Well-being and Inclusivity.
The ‘What?’ of the curriculum was addressed with a focus on identifying the threshold concepts, threshold knowledge, threshold skills and threshold experiences that subjects wanted to deliver at Key Stage 3. These ‘thresholds’ set out the key learning that pupils should acquire before studying GCSEs. Detailed reference was made to the what matters statements and progression steps, and leaders were encouraged to use the resources available from their subject professional associations to identify new knowledge. An understanding of the importance of depth of learning and achieving ‘mastery’ was explored in professional development meetings; this was important to avoid content overload, and focus on deep learning that builds powerful and long lasting schema (knowledge that will stick). Work on the importance and value of interdisciplinary links within AoLEs was introduced; colleagues in different subjects within AoLEs shared their threshold concepts, knowledge and skills, and identified where purposeful and authentic links could be made. These links could be supported by retrieving and connecting across subjects, developing a shared enquiry or developing post mastery creativity and problem solving. Faculties developed and trialled the use of interdisciplinary links such as the shared enquiry (Humanities), connections across subjects (Languages and Social Sciences) and creativity and problem solving (Science & Technology and Mathematics).
The ‘How?’ of the new curriculum involved research into curriculum narratives and ways to sequence a curriculum. At this point we also reviewed the importance of spacing and interleaving to maximise memory and learning. All subjects developed a curriculum narrative and mapped the Key Stage 3 curriculum using threshold concepts, knowledge, skills and experiences, whilst also referencing what matters statements and progression steps. Interdisciplinary links identified in the previous stage were also added to the map. Maps have been shared to enable a better understanding of curriculum in all AoLE and further develop purposeful interdisciplinary links. In order to develop a continuum of learning, links to the Key Stage 2 curriculum in subject skills and vocabulary will be developed together with opportunities for secondary teaching staff to experience Year 6 lessons in primary schools. Pedagogy to support the new curriculum such as the development of ‘elaboration’ (‘priming’ and ‘tethering’) has been introduced and will be part of the professional development programme as the new curriculum progresses.
What impact has this work had on provision and learners’ standards?
Throughout the school’s development of the curriculum, improving teaching has remained a central focus. School leaders understand that without high-quality teaching, curricular developments would likely have minimal impact. Over recent years, there have been substantial improvements in the quality of teaching.
Faculties and departments have embraced the opportunity of a new ‘Penglais Curriculum’ to evaluate current provision and research, trial and evaluate new learning experiences. In Design & Technology the Year 7 programme of learning has been re-designed to allow for fewer projects and a greater focus on practical experiences and mastering skills. A local design company has provided an architecture brief that provides students with a real life context to apply their skills. The outcomes have shown a marked improvement in the quality of product design and application. Students have also become far more independent in the development of their designs as they have the mastery and knowledge of the skills required. Students have also been more motivated with their product design as they have a ‘client’ to make for. In Humanities the Year 7 shared enquiry between History and Geography has developed the conceptual links between the two subjects when addressing ‘Why do we live where we do?’.
This has enabled students to bring together the threshold concepts of Place (site, settlement) and Space (migration) in a podcast that explains why people have settled in Aberystwyth. Students were highly motivated to complete the podcast and they will be used by Year 6 students in transition activities. In English the choice to use a more challenging novel in Year 9 – ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe has culminated in a final exhibition piece where students tell a different story of Wales; this builds on the understanding gained from the novel of the danger of a single story. The exhibition pieces have been highly individualized and show a greater understanding and appreciation of Cynefin as a place of multiple belongings. There are opportunities here to develop interdisciplinary links with Languages and Humanities. In Maths the re-introduction of methods to develop pupils’ metacognitive skills has impacted on students’ ability to shift from concrete to abstract thinking, develop their verbal reasoning and express ideas concisely and logically. In these lessons writing assists thinking and is not an end in itself.
How have you shared your good practice?
Within school, all faculties have presented their curriculum development work in briefings. County network meetings have been used to share practice between schools in Ceredigion. Recent on site meetings with representatives from primary feeder schools have enabled professional conversations regarding approach and progress with the new curriculum.