Here are the Physics books I've done so far, they're not quite perfected yet but I'll update this page with newer versions when I get a chance. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B1EnIwSSbgTgbDQ1ZXRoT1U5ZXc Please do let me know if you spot any typos or whatever, they've already benefited loads from people doing this. There are some mistakes in the answers... Continue Reading →
Do you dream about curriculum? I do. I dream and I can see the web of knowledge, and it's the most beautiful thing. I can see how we touch the universe through our subjects, and my heart soars. Wherever I look, I see core, hinterland, narrative, organisation, memory, and sequences. If you're going for a... Continue Reading →
Since we are moving into a new era of curriculum focus in education, and rightly so, there are a growing number of brilliant blogs, books and articles that anyone seeking to take an informed approach to curriculum should read.A number of people have expressed an interest in a centralised directory of these so this is... Continue Reading →
A while ago I said that science has a unique claim to truth. I was wrong. After reading Christine Counsell's article "Taking Curriculum Seriously" I have come to realise that all human endeavour, and therefore the subjects we teach in our schools, are a search for truth, and that the reason we have so many... Continue Reading →
The second subject character matrix (SCM) in the series is concerned with the structure of the knowledge of a subject. There are two axes: vertical or clustered organisation; and extended or localised links. These axes draw on Bernstein's horizontal and vertical structures and Maton's semantic density respectively. In a knowledge-centred approach (the best way overall),... Continue Reading →
This post is part of the "Curriculum in Science" symposium curated by Adam Boxer (@adamboxer1). Read Adam's introduction here. Curriculum is a hard thing to talk about. It’s interesting to think about why this is. I think that the best way to understand what we mean by “curriculum” is to begin at the end. What... Continue Reading →
Attempts at thinking about curriculum across a school have often meant a push from leadership for generic models, consistency, and conformity. All lessons must contain x. All books must show evidence of y. All departments to submit z for quality assurance. Our subjects are forced into uniform shapes convenient for leadership, but they are damaged, and their... Continue Reading →
The universe is unimaginably vast, yet life is only present on one planet that we know of. Evolution has brought about the human brain; human culture has emerged from brains in plural and their interactions in, and over, time. Human culture: our stories, music, art, our glimpses at the logic of the universe through maths... Continue Reading →
A quick post to share a couple of thoughts and some resources. I think we have been mixing up two, equally important but different things when we've talked about knowledge organisers in science, or at least I have. Sharing the structure of the knowledge, its organisation, is a really important thing to do with students,... Continue Reading →
I'm a big fan of the new energy model, though it took me a lot of time and discussion to get my head round it. What we really need is a Shed Load Of Practice questions. These are surprisingly hard to make. I've taken my inspiration from the only HT exam question available, as far as... Continue Reading →
