Curriculum Manager - Teaching Expertise

Tim Lomas, principal adviser, CfBT/Lincolnshire School Improvement Service, looks at ways of continuing to improve the profile and teaching of history in schools. read more

Headteacher Martin Ainsworth extols the benefits to his school of taking part in the Blueprint Drug Education Research Programme. read more

The Manifesto for Education Outside the Classroom promotes high-quality outdoor learning experiences to support cognitive skills and aid personal development – gardening fits the bill, says Dr Susan Johnson

Amid the usual cries of the dumbing down of standards, schools were praised for another increase in this year’s overall exam results. read more

Careful planning and clear outcomes made for a successful citizenship INSET event. read more

Tips to run more efficient and effective meetings. read more

Enterprise education has entered the Ofsted schedule as a subject to be inspected in all schools. But do you know exactly what it involves? read more

Young people spend only 15% of their time in school. The University of the First Age (UFA) fills the rest of the waking day with learning opportunities and makes teachers and learners of us all. UFA’s Felicity Martin discusses how UFA has raised confidence, achievement and potential. read more

Working as a Teaching and Learning Fellowship as part of the University of the First Age. read more

In this article, Alistair Smith explains how two schools, Stamford High School and Melcombe Primary School, have introduced whole-school learning models based on Accelerated Learning. The impact of planning, delivering and evaluating learning has led to a significant cultural shift at both schools. read more

Achieving inclusion — becoming an inclusive pyramid. read more

Identifying students who are underachieving is easy. The challenge is doing something about it. read more

Students are responding positively to the RSA’s Opening Minds initiative with improvements in motivation, confidence and attitudes. Teachers are also reaping the benefits. RSA Head of Education Lesley James brings you up to date with developments and new resources. read more

Prime Minister Tony Blair has stressed the urgency for the UK to invest in ‘human capital’ if its citizens are to survive in the global economy – but as he holds the public pursestrings, schools will be looking for cash investment from him if this need is to be made a reality. read more

To help entrench lifelong learning in the common psyche, this website from ContinYou displays the programmes it is developing to build learning communities throughout the UK. The aim is to give communities, and the individuals within them, access to new learning opportunities, and by so doing to change lives. It is based on the premise that learning is about much more than just that which goes on in schools.

Most schools are not making the teaching of literacy and numeracy a high enough priority, according to Ofsted inspectors. read more

Curriculum managers need to do more to secure more effective observation of teaching staff to bring about improvements in learning. read more

Mounting dissent about Government plans to restructure the school system has threatened to prevent the latest education White Paper from going ahead unchanged. read more

Being able to secure effective and imaginative use of information and communications technology (ICT) in classrooms throughout your school is not just a matter of having a good ICT policy in place.

Too many schools are not providing bilingual students with enough of the right support to help them succeed in their learning, according to the findings of a new report from Ofsted. read more

As the dust started to settle on the new White Paper ‘Higher standards, better schools for all’, discontentment with the content began to mount. read more

Too many schools are dragging their heels on widening the vocational options available in their Key Stage 4 curriculum. read more

As curriculum managers are well aware, bullying can have sustained and insidious effects on the whole school — contributing to poor attendance, lower achievement, a less conducive learning environment for all and a generally less pleasant school experience for students and teachers alike. read more

Inclusion has become one of the must hotly-debated topics in education — there are almost as many different takes on it as there are schools. Brahm Norwich, Professor of Educational Psychology and Special Educational Needs at the University of Exeter, helps you to unpick what inclusion means to your school and shows you how to develop strategies that will allow you to achieve this approach in practice. read more

From how to assess your current provision and engage employers, to how to match students with placements, prepare them and then debrief them after the event — Jenny Asher, Development Manager for the National Education Business Partnership Network, guides us through the core issues to consider to provide work placements that provide first-class learning opportunities that will have a lifelong impact. read more

Work-related learning is enhanced by work-based learning. Peter Newton, 13-19 Director, King Richard School, Portsmouth discusses partnering the curriculum with the world of work

Latest reforms have been stalled further as rebel MPs set out a suite of compromise moves in an attempt to diffuse the areas provoking greatest dissent. read more

Curriculum managers need to be aware of the safety issues relating to new technologies so that they can provide maximum safeguards across the school. read more

If you are looking for a resource portal for enhancing your gifted and talented (G&T) provision, then this site is a good starting point. It brings together materials from the key G&T organisations all under one roof, and covers the core G&T issues, including identification, enrichment, extension, acceleration and differentiation.

Federations are a well established practice now — so what has been learned so far about how to create a successful alliance that brings about sizeable improvements in teaching and learning among all the partners? We learn from DfES guidance and NCSL research about what factors contribute to success

Building a federation to support standards — working in partnership with schools in challenging circumstances. read more

Staff are to be given new powers to tackle unacceptable behaviour, if the new Education Bill secures a smooth passage through Parliament. read more

As curriculum managers seek new ways to engage students as partners in learning, a new website that invites pupils to rate their teachers has received mixed reactions. read more

Access to vocational education has been found to be a key factor in reducing disaffection – but only if fully integrated into the curriculum and delivered as a mainstream option available to all. read more

The STAR workshops were designed by performers Martha and Eve to bring out students’ creativity in music, drama and discussion read more

In their report Serious Play: an Evaluation of Arts Activities in Pupil Referral Units and Learning Support Units, Wilkin, Gulliver and Kinder (2005) review the work of seven arts projects (four PRU based and three LSU based) that have taken place in recent years. read more

Since 2001, when in the words of our Head Teacher, Patrick Hazlewood, we were to ‘…throw out the National Curriculum…’, our school has focussed on discovering how we might best serve our students in order to make them independent, adaptable and confident learners able to meet the demands of the 21st century. read more

David Leat reflects on the contribution of cognitive acceleration through science education (CASE) and the way in which initiatives such as this can contribute to thinking communities

We must listen to the pupil voice if pupils are going to feel valued as members of the school community, argues Anne Clarke, Principal of Benton Park School Technology College. read more

AL has become something of a catch-all phrase these days, synonymous with brain-based or mind-friendly learning. Susan Norman goes beyond the buzz-word to bring you the facts read more

With around 95% of state schools no longer offering Latin, access is the critical issue for survival of the subject. Will Griffiths, director of the Cambridge School Classics Project (CSCP), looks at a DfES initiative to address this and highlights the competitive advantage that offering Latin can give schools. read more

Latin is a highly valued part of the curriculum at Benton Park School. Principal Anne Clarke explains why. read more

Research carried out earlier this year to assess the use of data in schools highlights its importance in many areas, including facilitating more effective allocation of staff and resources and monitoring the effectiveness of initiatives and strategies. read more

Schools are being more effective at using data to improve teaching and learning (T&L), but many are being held back by lack of time to update and analyse the data. read more

Are you truly providing every opportunity you can to allow your most able students to thrive, while also not disadvantaging others? Michele Paule outlines action you can take to ensure you identify these students and then are able to shape the best provision for them. read more

All current research on student achievement challenges the traditionally held mythology that the bright will always do well in whatever circumstances and that ‘borderline’ pupils fare better at the top of secondary modern schools rather than ‘struggling’ in grammar schools – a view entrenched in the attitudes of able students at The Thomas Aveling, a high school.

Teachers are failing to make effective use of computers in the classroom — the verdict of recent research on school ICT use has revealed the poor impact that the £1bn ICT investment from the Government has had so far. read more

Curriculum managers constantly need to be looking for new and more effective approaches to improving teaching and learning (T&L) in their school. This website aims to help you do just that by giving you access to a range of curriculum projects aimed at pioneering new ways to manage and deliver teaching and learning. read more

Research reveals the positive impact vocational courses are having on students – in terms of their achievement, their confidence in their ability, their attitudes towards school and towards carrying on with their education

School sport partnerships are continuing to be successful in increasing the amount of time pupils spend taking part in PE and sport