“The Framework is designed to help practitioners to develop a more integrated approach to learning. The six Areas bring together familiar disciplines and encourage strong and meaningful links across different disciplines. Those individual disciplines will still play an important role, especially as learners progress and begin to specialise.”
(Curriculum guidance introduction)
Whilst the curriculum encourages links, connections and cross curricular planning, there is not one defined or expected way of delivering this through a particular design approach. The guidance is clear on the value and place of disciplines, especially as learners progress and specialise.
The Framework does not require settings and schools to develop a timetable explicitly structured along the lines of the Areas or to organise the setting or school or staffing on that basis; this is stated in the introduction to the guidance.
“The Curriculum for Wales guidance promotes collaboration and cross-disciplinary planning, learning and teaching, both within and across Areas. This will enable learners to build connections across their learning and combine different experiences, knowledge and skills.”
(Introduction to the curriculum guidance)
This guidance has been developed to support approaches which draw together different disciplines in curriculum design. This provides learners with a more coherent learning experience, as they seek to make meaningful connections between the different things they learn.
(Principles of curriculum design)
Integration is taking content areas that were once taught separately and connecting them to create lessons, themes or units that integrate common skills and concepts. Curriculum for Wales affords schools the autonomy to adapt their curriculum design based on their selected learning that meets the needs of the learners. No one approach is favoured and schools may choose to adjust this over time in response to the intended learning.
How can we organise our curriculum?
These approaches could deliver the curriculum vision for a connected and less fragmented learning experience. The guidance does not advocate one specific approach to organising the learning, but recognises that schools may want to use a selection of these to create their curriculum.
Approaches to curriculum organisation include:
Disciplinary
Multidisciplinary
Interdisciplinary
Specialist teaching within disciplines and subjects
Advantages to this approach:
Subjects provide guarantees through their links with disciplines and he production of their knowledge that students have access to the most reliable knowledge that is available in different fields
Subjects provide depth and breadth
Teachers can use their expertise and passion most effectively.
Michael Young, Knowledge and the Future School (2015)
Questions for consideration:
How effective is this approach at making connections within and between AoLEs?
How does this approach develop the cross curricular skills and integral skills?
How does this approach support the transferable skills and knowledge?
Disciplinary model example: Years 3-6
Disciplinary 3-6.pdfDisciplinary model example: Years 7-9
Disciplinary Y7-9.pdfMultidisciplinary
Is one which the same topic is studied from the viewpoint of more than one discipline
Advantages to this approach:
This retains the advantages and challenges of a disciplinary approach
Moves towards enabling learners to connect the learning more effectively and supports the development of transferable skills
Learners gain a more holistic understanding of the world.
Questions for consideration:
How does this approach develop the cross curricular and integral skills?
How can themes be routed in progression?
How can we prevent the application of thematic approaches that fail to provide rich, rigorous and logical learning in all of the connected subjects?
Multidisciplinary model example: Years 3-6
Multidisciplinary Y3-6.pdfMultidisciplinary model example: Years 7-9
Multidisciplinary Y7-9.pdfThe multidisciplinary examples above both demonstrate curriculum integration.
Interdisciplinary
Combines several school subjects into one active project or is organised to cut across subject-matter lines, bringing together various aspects of the curriculum into meaningful association. It addresses a complex problem or focus question that cannot be resolved by using a single disciplinary approach.
Repko (2007) said an interdisciplinary curriculum should
•Address a complex problem or focus question that cannot be resolved by using a single disciplinary approach e.g. a Global Pandemic
•Draw on insights generated by disciplines, inter-disciplines, or schools of thought, including non-disciplinary knowledge formations
•Integrate insights
•Produce an inter-disciplinary understanding of the problem or question (looking through a variety of lenses).
Advantages to this approach:
This approach allows students to learn by making connections between ideas and concepts across different disciplinary boundaries
Students learning in this way are able to apply their knowledge gained in one discipline to another discipline as a way to deepen the learning experience
It enables learners to produce an interdisciplinary understanding of the problem or question by looking through a variety of lenses.
Questions for consideration:
How can we provide the time and space for teachers to undertake collaborative planning?
How could we map across the whole curriculum?
How may it impact the sequence of learning within the different disciplines?
Is this model appropriate for curriculum design across the curriculum?
What does this approach look like across the 3-16 continuum?
Interdisciplinary model example: Years 3-6
Interdisciplinary Y3-6.pdfInterdisciplinary model example: Years 7-9
Interdisciplinary Y7-9.pdfThe interdisciplinary examples above both demonstrate curriculum integration.
Integrated
An organisational approach that draws on the benefits of all of the curriculum models above.
Advantages to this approach:
Reduce the duplication of skills and concepts in the different subject areas
Increase relevance for the learner through real life contexts
Allow the learner to see the big picture and not fragmented parts
Develops skills which can be transferred to other disciplines and contexts in life.
Questions for consideration:
How can we provide the time and the space for teachers to undertake collaborative planning?
Is this integrated approach more suitable in some areas of learning than others?
How can we sequence learning to ensure that key concepts are not missed?
How do we prevent superficial coverage of some key concepts?
How do we ensure a growing depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding?
What does this approach look like across the 3-16 curriculum?
Response and Reflection (considerations provided by the cross regional working group)
•Is the curriculum to be arranged in subjects or in integrated blocks or somewhere in between?
•Is this to be the same for all year groups?
•Will students be always grouped by year?
•Are allocated sessions all to be the same length? (If so, will they vary in multiples of the same session e.g. doubles / triples?).
•Is every week to be the same as every other throughout the year?
•Will all days start and finish at the same time? Will breaks be at the same time?
•Will all students and staff start and finish at the same time?
(Waters and Male, 2013 – The Secondary Curriculum Design Handbook)
Ten Ways to Integrate Curriculum
Integrated curriculum 10 ways.pdfPillars and Lintels: The What's, Why's and How's of Interdisciplinary Learning in STEM Education
pillars_and_lintels.pdf