We all want an English curriculum that inspires, challenges and supports every pupil.
But let’s be honest – the solution isn’t a commercially published scheme with every lesson scripted, detached from your context, with no room for teachers to personalise it. If it were that simple, we wouldn’t need teachers. Or leaders.
2006 research found that the biggest in-school factor influencing pupil outcomes is the teacher. The second is leadership. In short, the adults in schools make the difference.
Leadership means offering the right blend of support and direction. It’s not leadership to hand colleagues a blank sheet of paper and ask them to ‘be creative’. In English, that can lead to confusion, inconsistency and chaos. There’s too much at stake.
What schools need are frameworks that provide clarity – not scripts that remove professional judgement (and not so much freedom that it becomes overwhelming).
Striking the right balance
Every school is different. But some fundamentals apply universally. You need clear structures that support great teaching – without reducing teachers to delivery robots, clicking through slides they didn’t write and don’t believe in. Because where’s the joy in that? For the teacher or the child?
What makes a curriculum strong?
It starts with clarity:
- What are pupils learning, and why?
- How does it connect to what came before, and what comes next?
- Is spoken language, reading and writing meaningfully integrated?
- Is there a real sense of progression?
It sounds simple, but it isn’t. For a subject leader and their team, this can take hundreds of hours – and that pressure has an impact on capacity and wellbeing.
Moreover, when it comes to assessment, you need a model that supports teaching, rather than distracting from it. Something simple but meaningful; tailored but not time-consuming.
Then there’s the inspiration factor. What will spark curiosity and challenge in your pupils? Is it shared novels – and if so, how will you make that work logistically? Will teachers be writing their own model texts? Do they have the subject knowledge, time and tools to do that brilliantly?
At Leading English, we’ve done much of the heavy lifting for you. Let’s talk about how we can help your school.
