Good morning,

“We need to improve the curriculum” sounds like a perfectly reasonable school priority. Until you ask the obvious next question: where do you actually start?

There are subjects to strengthen, teachers to develop, resources to improve and competing priorities everywhere. Trying to tackle all of it at once is tempting, but probably impossible.

For the second episode of our curriculum mini-series, I’m joined by Emma Lennard, Juli Ryzop and Elliot Morgan to explore what strategic curriculum thinking looks like at school level. It is a wide-ranging conversation about making good decisions when time, capacity and attention are all finite.

If Reid’s episode considered how a coherent curriculum is built, this one asks what happens when schools have to do something meaningful with it.

Hope you enjoy!

Primary Knowledge Curriculum

Bishop, R.S. (1990), ‘Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors’

Rosenshine, B. (2012), ‘Principles of Instruction: Research-Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know’

Allen, R. & Sims, S. (2018), The Teacher Gap

Ofsted (2024), Strong Foundations in the First Years of School

Education Endowment Foundation (2026), The EEF Guide to Inclusive Teaching

This autumn, we’re taking our mathematics professional development programme on the road with a full programme of sessions for teachers in Primary and Secondary.

Too often, when pupils begin to struggle with mathematics, the response is to make the mathematics easier, move more slowly or provide something different. In the short term that can feel supportive. Over time, it can leave pupils further and further behind.

We think there is another way.

Across four sessions, we’ll explore how stronger subject and pedagogical content knowledge can help teachers make better instructional decisions within normal classroom teaching, so that pupils can develop genuine mathematical understanding without lowering ambition.

We’ll be visiting Dublin, Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow over the coming months, with the first programmes beginning in November

You can find dates, venues, prices and booking information here https://alta-education.com/cpd-tour-26-27/

We’d love to see you there.

Our new three-part mini-series exploring curriculum is well underway! Over the last few weeks, we’ve be exploring everything from the decisions that shape its design to the work required to make it live in classrooms.

TDaPE Club members can listen to all three episodes right now, with each episode then released between now and next Saturday

Thinking Deeply about Primary Education is coming to Edinburgh.

Join us for a day of thoughtful, practical professional learning, bringing together teachers, leaders and some brilliant voices from across education to explore the ideas that matter most in classrooms and schools.

If you enjoy the podcast, this is the chance to be part of those conversations in person.

Tickets are available now: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thinking-deeply-about-primary-education-conference-edinburgh-tickets-1994538692922

A huge thank you to everyone who shared last week’s episode. TDaPE continues to grow through those small recommendations from one teacher or leader to another, and every share helps these conversations reach people who might otherwise never come across them. If this week’s episode makes you think of someone, I’d be very grateful if you passed it on.

That’s all from me for now. As always, I’d love to know what you made of the conversation, so feel free to leave a comment wherever you listen or simply reply to this email.

Until next time, thanks for listening.