Curriculum making - written 2010 ish

1. Last week, I was making a shepherd’s pie, following a recipe in a cookbook. I came to the in‐
struction “Chop one red onion finely”, and went to the fridge. There was no red onion, so I
picked up my car keys and went to get fish and chips instead…
... Of course, I didn’t... I changed the recipe from the one in the cookbook. I used – get this –
a shallot instead, and I chopped it coarsely... I also substituted balsamic vinegar for Worces‐
tershire sauce, a bouillon cube for Oxo, red Leicester for Cheddar cheese and some passata
for tomato puree... Guess what, it still turned out to be a shepherd’s pie... and quite a tasty
one...
OK, so what has this got to do with your PGCE placement ? Well... in your first few weeks of
your placement you will, if you’re lucky be handed some schemes of work which will vary
tremendously in the level of detail, mapping of PLTS, timings, resource lists, assessment out‐
comes, literacy mapping, differentiation opportunities, and a long list of other things. This
may well be tied closely to a particular textbook as the key resource to be handed out and
opened to a particular page. (I hope this doesn’t happen too often when you get to your
school...) This is the ‘recipe’ that you may be asked to follow... I would say that, at the earli‐
est opportunity you should “vary the recipe” to suit your tastes. If the students are happily
discussing the results of their group work, don’t call a halt just because the lesson plan says
you should... go with the flow... vary the tasks. Discuss your reasons for doing this with your
mentor, and reflect on the results... No apologies for using the diagram below, which is geo‐
graphical in context, but can of course be used in any subject. It is what we call “living geog‐
raphy” or “curriculum making”..
Chop one red onion‐teachers as ‘curriculum
makers’, your approach to planning and teaching.
by Alan Parkinson
82

2. 83
Curriculum making is defined as: “the creation of interesting, engaging and challenging educa‐
tional experiences which draw upon teacher knowledge and skills, the experiences of students
and the valuable subject resource that is geography.” The missing ingredient in the lesson
plans that you have been given may well be the students’ experiences. These can feed into the
lesson planning if they are allowed to. Also think about the opportunities that have been pro‐
vided for students to think geographically. One thing that we have seen time and time again
when reading through submissions for our Quality Mark, is that exciting lessons lead to a dra‐
matic reduction in negative classroom behaviours. As you gain confidence, you might try going
a little further away from the recipe. You might also discover that the original recipe was the
best, and your slight changes didn’t actually improve the end result. Some recipes are ‘classic’
after all... At the end of the lesson, the students will have hopefully progressed a little further
in their development as geographers and can begin to articulate this. A final helpful aspect of
using my analogy... As I was cooking the pie, I tasted it, and I thought it was quite good... The
true test came, of course, when the people I was making it for tasted it. You might have what
you think is the best lesson ever, but it needs to be tested with some consumers with ‘discern‐
ing’ tastes. Think about this as being your ‘formative assessment’.
A final pie‐related metaphor... if all you had to eat was shepherd’s pie every day, you’d get a bit
fed up of it. Don’t overuse any particular technique, resource or pedagogical approach. The
phrase ‘death by worksheet’ is just as likely to have been replaced with ‘death by
mystery/YouTube clip/IWB drag and drop’ etc.
So whether your teaching style is a bit Heston Blumenthal (experimental, wacky, creative ??),
Delia Smith (insert appropriate metaphors here) or Jamie Oliver (ditto) have fun, keep tasting
as you go, and remember that you don’t have to buy the most expensive ingredients to end up
with a tasty meal. Bon appétit !
References
http://www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk/curriculum‐making/introduction/ ‐ Curriculum making
http://geography.org.uk/projects/makinggeographyhappen/ ‐ some recipes to follow http://livinggeography.blogspot.com
– the author’s main blog... http://geography.org.uk/Journals/Journals.asp?articleID=719 – an article for ‘Geography’ writ‐
ten by the author on food as a context for learning....
Alan Parkinson Secondary Curriculum Development Leader Geographical Association http://www.geography.org.uk