Small schools curriculum support model
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 129 No 4, 7 June 2024, page 10.
The QTU has been working to get additional support for the implementation of version 9 of the Australian Curriculum (ACV9) for the past two years. In particular, we have been greatly concerned about the capacity of small, regional, rural and remote schools to undertake this work, given the challenges they may face with staffing, remoteness, challenging local contexts, a lack of access to colleagues, and often the level of curriculum development experience of their staff. Here QTU members Craig Brims and Sarah Goddard outline the curriculum writing model they developed to address the ACV9 implementation concerns of their small school cluster.
During Semester two of 2023, the Department of Education (DoE) released the first of the Curriculum Assessment and Alignment Planners (CAAPs), which specifically mentioned schools being “best placed” to create curriculum cycles appropriate to the local context. Clearly the expectation was that this was to be undertaken school-by-school.
At this time, our small school cluster began contemplating the implementation in 2024 of Version 9 of the Australian Curriculum in English. The workload implications and the complexity of adjusting curriculum and assessments to suit multi-age contexts were immense, given that most 1-2 teacher schools would need to adjust and modify curriculum across seven year levels (eight if they have a state delivered kindergarten (SDK) program).
The schools in our cluster were aware of the impact this could have on wellbeing, given that most small schools do not have a HOD-C allocation and operate with a base level 0.1FTE for curriculum coordination. Many of the schools have staff with less teaching and leadership experience. Currently, our cluster “pools” its curriculum coordination time to enable Sarah to assist with the workload and coordination of curriculum.
As a consequence of the concerns we had about the sustainability of each small school undertaking this work independently of each other, we developed a curriculum writing model. This model involved releasing experienced teaching principals and teachers from Level 1 and 2 schools for a minimum of 1-2 weeks, with their roles backfilled by aspiring education leaders from the “Take the Lead” program.
Providing these staff members with time to develop a cycle of English specifically written for kindergarten to year 6, in conjunction with DoE’s curriculum team, would allow the resources to be developed by those with experience in multi-age curriculum, ensuring that they can be used by small schools across the state.
At the start of 2024, we contacted Lin Esders, the QTU’s Professional Issues Officer, to highlight how we felt this curriculum work could be undertaken with a system focus, rather than a school-by-school approach. This led to an initial meeting early in Term 1 with department representatives, at which we outlined both our concerns about workload and our curriculum support solution.
We outlined that working collaboratively would allow the following considerations to be front and centre when developing the unit/cycle of work:
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linkage of kindergarten learning possibilities to the unit
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development of 1-2 common tasks with increasing complexity to support a multi-age setting
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meaningful embedding of First Nations perspectives
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use of a wide range of texts to suit a range of year levels, i.e. K-2, 3-6
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development of tasks with cross curricular links – specifically to other learning areas that would be taken into consideration in the development of other learning area units, i.e. HASS, science etc.
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clearly identified concepts of learning associated with the unit
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development of modelled responses showing links to the achievement standard and marking guides.
During Term 1, there was ongoing engagement with DoE’s curriculum team, and we provided feedback about curriculum issues. This resulted in some changes to the Curriculum Gateway, including the labelling of added files as “NEW” and “UPDATED FILE” for two weeks, along with version numbers in the footer of the document. Feedback provided to DoE included the resources we needed, what was no longer needed, and what was missing.
These meetings have opened significant dialogue with the department about support for teaching principals and small-school teachers across the state. Plans have unfolded for a “writers in residence” small-school curriculum writing pilot program, which will begin in Term 3, engaging staff from the Darling Downs South West and other regions with a high proportion of small rural and remote schools.
We are looking forward to participating in this pilot and are enthusiastic about how this work can support small school teachers and principals across Queensland.