Pilots and Trials

Key Stage 3 Regional Pilot

Belmont House Special School

The following information is a transcript of an interview conducted with the pilot school at the end of the first year of the pilot.

 

As Belmont House Special School has a very small teaching staff thus planning was very much collaborative amongst the whole staff as well as individual planning being done in the teachers own time. They described their approach to planning as a "whole department approach".

 

After examination of several approaches it was decided a 'thematic approach' would be used for the implementation of the revised curriculum. This involved dissolving subject boundaries as one teacher may teach several subjects within the school.

 

An audit was conducted of the current teaching programme; this was completed by the team using days given by CCEA. The themes chosen were based on the 12 key elements of the big picture; these were renamed, for example the key element of sustainable development was called 'Keep it clean, keep it green'.

 

The whole staff met on several instances and examined the cornerstones of the revised curriculum and how these were going to be addressed within each subject area. Two elements of Thinking Skills and Personal Capabilities would be addressed in the Year 8 programme of work; self management and working with others.

 

Where possible, the team planned to address all aspects of Assessment for Learning but the main emphasis would be on shared/negotiated success criteria.

 

The materials provided by CCEA such as overviews and 6 week plans were used to plan how every subject area would be delivered inline with the key elements. Teachers brainstormed and shared ideas to complete a list of skills that would be consistent across all departments. The method of mind mapping was used collectively as a group to map out how each subject would contribute to each theme. The interviewees indicated this was an opportunity for sharing of ideas and identification of possible overlap between subject areas.

 

It was decided all schemes of work for Year 8 would be rewritten. Each member of staff individually planned out their schemes of work for the Year 8 programme and these are currently being completed. A lot of this individual planning has been happening in the teachers own spare time.

 

The delivery of Learning for Life & Work will be discrete in the timetable on a modular basis. Where the opportunity for infusion arises, certain elements may be infused through subjects. Interviewees said this would happen more in term one than the remaining two terms.

 

Some challenges were met by the team during planning, these included adaptation of information into manageable chunks for the staff, the meaning of the revised curriculum for the classroom and attempting to envisage an approach to use within the classroom.

 

It is important to note that the interviewees emphasised the planning specific to their school may not have been as pressurised as other schools due to the type of school and the less emphasis it has on examinations.