The TTRB – from a subject specialist perspective David Lambert

Background The curriculum in school is under intense pressure resulting in rapid and significant forces to change: –Skills based curriculum (eg RSA Opening Minds) –Personalisation and learning processes (eg learning to learn, and ICTs) –From centralised to localised innovation –Closing the attainment gap –League tables

Response? We may welcome some of this! –Localisation and flexibility –Social justice But question some of the possible outcomes –Of a skills and process led curriculum? –Following the negative backwash of league tables: –Curriculum hierarchies –Teaching to the test

Some tensions and doubts The values basis of the curriculum –What are its aims and purposes –Any notion of a national entitlement? The implications of current shifts on subjects –How are subjects understood? (has a restricted view taken hold?) –The basis of new appetites for integration

twas ever thus? … Long standing tensions between geographers and geographical educationists about the balance of: – subject content – educational processes – social purposes (good causes) (Marsden, B. (1997) On taking the geography out of geographical education, Geography, 82, 3, p ) … take note of what is happening at grass-roots level in schools and in major educational agencies and pressure groups … professionals are increasingly taking things into their own hands (White J 2008 IPPR)

Rethinking subjects

The role of subjects Geography – not as an end in itself but a resource in the service of educational aims Geography - defined not as a collection of facts but as the state of the art conceptual frameworks of the subject [p 242] That is, a distinctive disciplined enquiry

Supporting subject specialist tutors, mentors and teachers Subject resource links Example: geography (GA-led) - GeogEd - Bibliography - Thinkpieces