The New National Curriculum – a Progress Update and Supporting Materials

A month on from the publication of the new National Curriculum and we’ve been extremely busy here at EducationCity.com. All Activities for English, Mathematics, Science and French have been mapped to the new curriculum objectives, with Spanish to follow by the end of October. Once complete, we’ll crack on with Topic Tools, putting us in a great position to be finished well before September 2014 and ready to showcase to you at Bett 2014.

 

What’s more, our producers and educational consultants have been hard at work planning and developing new resources to fill the identified gaps that the new curriculum has created. Already, several new Activities, Topic Tools and Learn Screens are live on our product with many more planned before schools are required to start teaching the new curriculum.

 

We have been working closely with a group of schools to find out more about how they intend to implement the new curriculum, their plans for assessment and how we can help with the process. We have several new and exciting developments that will be announced at the Bett Show in January 2014.

 

Now the new term is well underway we are sure many schools are already taking a look at the new curriculum and starting to plan its implementation. Schools may find the following information and links of great use when searching for resources to help them with this process:

 

The National Centre for Excellence in Teaching Mathematics (NCETM) has a range of support available for schools to prepare for the mathematics programmes of study. 

 

The National STEM Centre has developed new materials for teaching the primary science programmes of study. The National Science Learning Centre has a wide range of resources available and more materials to support teaching of the new science curriculum will be available soon.

 

The government is providing an additional £2 million funding for the creation of new master computer teachers and this network is currently being developed across the country. Find out more…

 

In addition the DfE have facilitated a series of ‘expert subject groups’ made up of members of teaching schools, subject associations and Higher Education Institutions. They have been looking at the challenges posed by the new curriculum, the materials currently out there to support teachers, and the key gaps in materials. These groups have started to produce their own guidance for schools as they prepare to deliver the new curriculum. The computing and geography expert groups have already published their work.

 

In addition, the National College for Teaching and Leadership has worked with a number of Head Teachers to produce an online tool to help schools to prepare for curriculum change. This includes sections on assessing your own curriculum and sharing views on what makes a great curriculum. Find out more…

 

We will continue to keep our schools updated on the new resources and support we will be providing and any other information we think will be helpful to schools at this challenging time.