The 40/40/40 Rule of Curriculum Planning
This brilliant rule came to me courtesy of Teacher Tapp, which I read instead of Twitter.
Here’s how the idea works.
What do students need to know for the next 40 days, 40 months, 40 years? The answers to those questions will help you decide:
What goes on a knowledge organiser.
What written assessments you will create.
What will be necessary to remember at GCSE, even if the topic is studied at KS3.
What will students need to know to fully participate in their lives after school, even if they never study your subject again.
3 and 4 above are what I would call our moral purpose as teachers. I believe it is something which most schemes of work ignore.
Here’s an example. Imagine you are studying Romeo and Juliet in year 9, not for the GCSE, when you will study a different Shakespeare play.
40 days (What they need to know for this unit)
The characters and plot.
Some pertinent facts about the Elizabethan context which will help explain Shakespeare’s ideas and the themes of the play.
Perhaps 20 top quotes, related to the characters and themes.
40 months (What they be assessed on in this unit, and what they will still need to know at GCSE)
The top 15 quotes you can use in an essay about the characters or themes.
The thesis statement and conclusion which best fits the essay.
The sequence of your points to build an argument.
Which evidence to look at from more than one perspective.
The significance of the imagery in those quotes.
The conventions of love poetry.
Iambic pentameter.
Patriarchal expectations of women, men, fathers, mothers and daughters.
Elizabethan views of Catholics.
How the architecture of the Globe and status of different audience members affects how actors might perform the play.
40 Years (What knowledge and skills will benefit them for life either as skills or cultural capital)
The top 10 quotes which will come up again and again in your reading of broadsheets and novels, and the multi media cultural references coming your way.
The vocabulary necessary to write and talk about literature.
The ingredients essential in any thesis statement.
The ingredients essential in any conclusion.
How to structure an essay on any subject, not just Romeo and Juliet, and not just literature.
The conventions of Elizabethan love poetry.
Iambic pentameter.
Patriarchal expectations of women, men, fathers, mothers and daughters.
Elizabethan views of Catholics.
How the architecture of the Globe and the status of different audience members affects how actors might perform the play.
Imagine your curriculum. What do your students learn about Shakespeare and writing a coherent essay?
How many of my list of 10 will students know and remember after they finish their GCSEs at your school? (Does your curriculum have something even more valuable in their stead?)
My experience is that this last part - the 40 year knowledge and skills - is driven out of our curriculum by the GCSE exam.
Students can gain a grade 9 in their GCSE without knowing 8 of those 10. It is why the English curriculum has no hinterland. It is why fewer and fewer students want to explore it at A level.