Building a great curriculum in further education and skills

On this episode, we're talking to two further education and skills leads from Ofsted about the FES curriculum and what it means for students and teachers. And have you seen this report we've published into FES curriculums for business, both classroom-based and work-based?

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-education-and-skills-report-business-education

Anna Trethewey: So, today we’re talking about what high-quality education looks like in the further education and skills sector, with two FES Senior His Majesty's Inspectors – Dr Richard Beynon and Dr Becca Clare, from the FES policy team.

Richard, could you say, succinctly, what high-quality education is in FES?

 

RICHARD BEYNON: Yes, I’ll try. As with all education, the curriculum is the key. High-quality education means good curriculum design, coupled with effective teaching. And good curriculum design means selecting the content that is the most important and useful in a given subject, and then teaching the content in an order that helps learners to understand it. In maths, for instance, that means, probably, teaching learners to calculate area before volume. That doesn’t change, whether it’s further education or education for children.

The evidence shows that it’s really important to think about the key building blocks of a curriculum – what foundations need to be laid first so that learners can make connections and build secure knowledge? What we learn isn’t retained in isolation.

Instead, what we learn is connected in our memory to all kinds of other things we have learned before, and forms connections to things we learn later.

Sometimes we refer to knowledge as ‘sticky’ – that’s because some kinds of knowledge enable other components to ‘stick’ to them and this helps to expand our expertise in a given area. Think about the really fundamental knowledge in any subject – it’s probably like this. In English, for instance, if we know what a noun is, we can build on that to learn about sentence construction, proper nouns, collective nouns, abstract nouns. In maths, if we understand about division, we can go on to learn about fractions, peRebecca Clareentages, proportion, ratio and so on. In carpentry and joinery, if we learn about the properties of wood – how and why some wood is soft or hard, how different kinds of wood absoRichard Beynon moisture, structural defects such as knots – we can work out which kinds of wood are suitable in which situations.

 

 

REBECCA CLARE: So, the curriculum content that is selected and put in place early in the curriculum really makes a difference to what learners can learn next. We often explain this by using the image of a Jenga tower – what are the knowledge and skills that really need to be at the base of the tower? What do they support? What happens if that component is missing – what can the learners not learn, if they don’t understand division, or sentence structure, or the properties of wood, or basic sociological concepts like class and gender, or – in beauty therapy or health or sports - anatomy and physiology. The key thing is to select the really key content that learners need if they are to develop expertise in that subject. What are the foundation stones? What content needs to be in place to enable further content to be learned?

And in terms of teaching methods, it involves using methods that help learners really to embed the knowledge and skills they’re learning. I can remember – just – when I was at school, and quite often, as soon as I’d sat an exam, I’d forget the stuff I’d learned – because I’d only learned it for the exam. A really good education isn’t about just teaching to the test, though of course exam results matter. But it’s about teaching learners so that they can remember what they learn long term. Then, if they learn it well, they can use what they learn in their lives and jobs, they can add to it, evaluate it, critique it, apply it in all kinds of situations. It’s the opposite of the jug and mug approach, really. Sure, learners need to remember what they are taught – but it’s not about filling up memory just for exams – it’s about real learning, to enhance real jobs and lives.

 

RICHARD BEYNON: and that is likely also to involve a curriculum that helps learners learn about how knowledge is produced and evaluated – so, not just learning about atoms, but learning about scientific method. Not just learning about theories of leadership, but learning about how such theories are produced, tested, revised. What counts as knowledge in a given subject or job? Why? What are the rules of the game? Knowing the rules helps learners develop real expertise at work and in further study. It also helps them, incidentally, to know how to tell the difference between a warranted conclusion and an unwarranted one, high-quality information and fake news, a valid conclusion and a conspiracy theory.

 

Anna Trethewey: Thanks. So, what else can we say about curriculum design? What should be included?

 

REBECCA CLARE: One thing to think about is: is the curriculum broad and ambitious? A high-quality curriculum is knowledge- and skills-rich. It focuses on the content learners need if they are to increase their expertise in a given subject. What do learners need to know if they are to go on to become expert joiners, bricklayers, mathematicians, hairdressers, chefs and engineers? What content needs to be in place now, at the level the learners are studying, to provide a foundation for later development of increasing expertise? Of course, some learners may choose not to go further, but that should be their choice, not the teacher’s. A good curriculum opens more doors; it’s up to the learner to choose which doors to go through and which to close. If the curriculum itself closes doors because it misses out key knowledge and skills, learners’ options are limited. This is the opposite of an ambitious curriculum.

 

RICHARD BEYNON: and in terms of teaching, learners need several things. First, it’s usually best if the teaching methods really focus clearly on the curriculum to be learned, if there is plenty of time allocated to the subject, if teachers use methods that evidence shows encourage recall and support understanding (methods like very clear explanations for and spaced repetition of the most crucial content, expert demonstrations of skills in the classroom and at work, use of case studies, explaining how new fits with old, reducing distractions), that usually has a positive impact. Teaching is an evidence-based profession – there is a good deal of reseaRebecca Clareh about what works. Of course, there’s room for innovation too, but really good teachers are familiar with the evidence and have expertise in what is sometimes called pedagogical content knowledge … that means, they know how to make a subject accessible to learners. We’ve all met experts who really know their subject but can’t teach it for toffee… well, an expert teacher not only knows their subject, but they know how to teach it in ways that help learners to understand it too.

 

REBECCA CLARE: Yes, and that means having really high expectations of what learners can do. You know, Amanda Spielman talks about the fact that social justice is at the heart of high-quality education, built around a rich curriculum. Amanda’s view is that the best way to tackle inequality and the lack of social mobility is through high-quality education – given we are all educators, that’s presumably a view we share. Knowledge is power. The more knowledge and skills we have, the more options we are likely to have and the more control we have over our own careers and lives. Of course, other things contribute – but, in our role, we are concerned with the transformative power of education. A really high-quality education – which means a really high-quality curriculum, taught well – should be available to all. Our job is to help ensure it is.

 

Anna Trethewey: knowledge is power, and life transforming. What about skills? Is there a divide between knowledge and skills?

 

REBECCA CLARE: we can think of skills, actually, as a kind of knowledge – it’s sometimes called know-how, or procedural knowledge. Think about the skill of planing a piece of wood, or playing the guitar, or changing a tyre. And lots of skills – think about giving a facial massage, for example – are actually really very complex composites, made up of a whole collection of individual parts that learners have to master before they can do the skill. So, beauty students have to learn about facial anatomy and physiology, contraindications, beauty products, client care, massage strokes, and more, before they can give an expert facial massage. This is crucial – in FES, learners and apprentices are learning really very complex material – learning the theoretical knowledge (like anatomy and physiology) AND, often, a skill such as different massage strokes … and then, they need judgement to know which knowledge and skills to apply in which situation. That really is the development of expertise – knowing how to work out the products and techniques to use for different clients, knowing which wood to use for garden furniture and which for bookcases, knowing how to make decisions that result in profitable, thriving businesses, how to diagnose and remedy faults in cars and software. So, there are different layers of curriculum content, and it's not possible or sensible to say that the theory is more important than the skill. They go together. I think it’s also interesting to think about what some people call ‘muscle memory’, or embodied cognition … think about learning to play an instrument, or dance, or knead bread.

 

RICHARD BEYNON: and, of course, there is the need to think about, in apprenticeships particularly, the knowledge that is learned on the job too – the workplace knowledge, sometimes tacit, that needs to be passed on, the sequence of things that are learned in the classroom and on the job. We’ve seen really good examples of education providers working with employers to plan a curriculum that helps learners and apprentices make great progress and do really well at work – for example, by ensuring that the apprentice chef has learned about food hygiene before they start working in the kitchen.

 

Anna Trethewey: Of course, parts of FES have such strong links to work and the economy, and to making sure learners and apprentices have the right skills for the economy.

 

REBECCA CLARE: Yes, and the right knowledge and skills for their own careers and lives. Education is about an enriched, empowered life, holding conversations and holding jobs.

 

Anna Trethewey: So, a high-quality curriculum often has a line of sight to work.

 

REBECCA CLARE: yes, to broad careers especially. A really good curriculum prepares a learner to be a master carpenter/joiner who can turn their hand to a wide variety of different jobs and employers and self-employment. It doesn’t just prepare them to perform a narrow range of tasks for one housebuilder, for instance.

 

Anna Trethewey: Got it. And I guess that’s one of the reasons why it’s important to include really fundamental principles and theoretical knowledge, rather than what used to be called a competency-based approach?

 

RICHARD BEYNON: Yes. If learners just learn competences, or just learn by imitation, without understanding the reasons and theory underneath what they’re doing, they have a narrow understanding. They can perform a technique, but they might not understand why they are doing certain things and what the effects will be. They almost certainly won’t be able to judge for themselves what is the right thing to do – they won’t have the expertise.

 

Anna Trethewey: so, is there one approach to curriculum design in each subject that is best?

 

REBECCA CLARE: There are usually multiple effective ways of planning the curriculum. Some subjects, like learning to read, probably require a more consistent approach – it makes sense to start novice readers of any age with phonics, rather than handing them pieces of text. But, think about a subject like music, where there might be a number of different starting points – learning stave notation, or listening to plainsong, or finding out about the history and context of the development of jazz and blues, for instance. Similarly in sociology – would you start with teaching Marxist theory? Or stratification? Or the key social institutions? Or crime and deviance?

The important thing is that curriculum choices make sense and help learners to make good progress. For example, if I am teaching English and I want students to analyse a political speech before I’ve taught anything about rhetoric, the students may well make less progress – that is, they would understand less about the speech – than if they’d studied some rhetoric first. I might also need to pre-teach some of the political concepts in the speech.

 

RICHARD BEYNON: When we’re inspecting, we have conversations with teachers and curriculum leaders about the components they choose, and the order in which they teach them. We want to understand teachers’ decisions. We also find out about the impact on learners – can they in fact analyse the political speech well? Can they read music, or explain the origins of jazz and blues? It’s no use asking a learner to debate something if they have no knowledge of the topic; it’s no use expecting learners to cook a souffle if they don’t know how to crack an egg. So, logical sequencing to enable the learner to progress through the curriculum is crucial.

 

REBECCA CLARE: and if learners and apprentices aren’t making much progress, then we need to think about why that is. Is it because the curriculum design has gone wrong? Or is it because it hasn’t been taught in ways that help learners learn?

 

Anna Trethewey: is that different for adult learners? Do they need different ways of teaching?

 

REBECCA CLARE: The novice / expert distinction is key, not the age difference. An adult just starting out on a new curriculum is a novice, and novices need clear exposition, plenty of practice, tasks that enable them to learn the curriculum, and corrections of misconceptions. However, there is evidence that novices and experts learn in slightly different ways. Once a learner has developed expertise in a subject, they may well benefit from more group work and debate and discussion, as there is less risk of sharing misconceptions and more chance of sharing knowledge. Bear in mind that an expert is an expert in a particular curriculum. A learner might have a PhD in maths but be a novice on an art curriculum. And the effect applies regardless of age – group work and debates and independent learning are more likely to work with learners of any age who have mastered some of the curriculum and who have knowledge to share and build on.

 

Anna Trethewey: What does success look like for learners in FES?

 

RICHARD BEYNON: It means, first and foremost, that they have learned and can use more of the curriculum. Chefs understand the fundamental principles of cooking and can apply them to a wide range of dishes in lots of different ciRebecca Clareumstances. Sociologists understand sociological theory and reseaRebecca Clareh methods and can apply both to a wide range of topics. If learners learn more, remember more, understand more and can use more of the curriculum over time, that’s likely to be reflected in achievement rates, promotions, good grades, good jobs and so on.

 

Anna Trethewey: Is there not always a positive correlation between making progress through the curriculum and passing exams?

 

RICHARD BEYNON: Almost always, but not always. For example, very occasionally we see high grades that are a result of learners being on a course that is too easy for them. But usually, the best way to exam success is to learn and understand more of a high-quality curriculum – it’s usually win-win – learners develop expertise, and this is reflected in exam results and other things, like more responsibilities and promotion at work.

 

REBECCA CLARE: Success is relative to the curriculum too. For instance, in adult and community learning and on programmes for learners who have high needs, learners may not be on courses that have exams. Success might mean increased independence or reduced isolation or greater involvement with the community. You can see, though, the common theme – it’s empowering learners and apprentices, whatever the context.

 

Anna Trethewey: Thank you Richard and Rebecca – empowerment is probably a good point to finish on!