The Role of Curriculum Principles in Effective Curriculum Design

Part 2 | Balancing curriculum consistency with subject nuance

Welcome to the second installment of our blog series on the role of curriculum principles in effective curriculum design. If you missed Part 1, you can catch up here, where we explore what curriculum principles are, why they matter, and how they can be meaningfully implemented in practice.

In this post, I want to explore the differences between general (or generic) curriculum principles and specific curriculum principles, and how each can be used to balance curriculum consistency with subject-specific nuances.

General Curriculum Principles: Providing Consistency Across the School

The curriculum principles shared in the previous post—and again below—could be described as general or generic principles. These are overarching guidelines that a school, local authority (LA), or trust might adopt and embed across all subjects and phases. They reflect the core values and priorities of the institution and its pupils, helping to shape the learning experience in a unified way.

These general principles provide consistency across the entire school. For example, whether principles ensure a focus on knowledge or diversity, every curriculum leader is responsible for ensuring that these key features are explicit in their subject curriculum. This consistency ensures alignment across the pupil experience, creating a cohesive curriculum journey.

However, as valuable as these general principles are, they may overlook the very specific nature of individual subjects and phases. This brings us to the need for specific curriculum principles—those that address the unique characteristics of each subject and phase.

The Need for Specific Curriculum Principles

To ensure the same rigorous approach to curriculum design or selection is applied not only across the school, but also within individual subjects and phases, we must consider the importance of specific principles. In a school context, these should be tailored to the distinctive needs of subjects and phases.

For instance, a subject like mathematics has unique requirements, such as the consistent use of a minimal agreed set of representations (such as bar models or number lines) across the curriculum. These nuances may not be fully addressed by the broader, general curriculum principles, which is why it’s essential to establish specific principles for each subject. These specific subject principles can offer clarity and consistency across the teaching of a subject.

Subject Principles Example

To illustrate this idea, let’s take a look at Oak’s subject principles for maths. These principles help guide the design or selection of the maths curriculum, ensuring that it remains both rigorous and tailored to the specific needs of the subject whilst establishing a coherent approach to the teaching of maths.

You can read more about Oak’s maths principles here.

Getting Involved: What Principles Guide Your Curriculum Design or Selection?

Now, I’d love to hear from you. Does your school or trust have curriculum principles? Are they general, specific, or a combination of both? How do these principles guide your curriculum design or selection? Leave a comment below — I’m excited to learn about the different principles shaping curriculum across different schools and trusts.

Coming Up in Part 3

In part three of this series, I’ll dive deeper into specific principles. I’ll share more examples, including those for Initial Teacher Training (ITT), and discuss what phase-specific principles might look like. Stay tuned!