How I designed my curriculum (primary)

Written by: Sarah Dennis -HL/TA Chadsmead Primary Academy
Member of the NATRE executive

I used my locally agreed syllabus non-statutory units to design a curriculum, and I then designed a bespoke curriculum for my setting.

My tips: Designing and resources a curriculum is a huge job.  When I wrote mine the NATRE enhanced curriculum didn’t exist.  If I was unhappy with my curriculum now, I would get this award-winning curriculum Primary RE Curriculum – NATRE 

If you don’t like what you have you have got be brave!

But if you like some of what you have or want to create your own curriculum. Here is what I did….

My curriculum design rules (self-inflicted)

• 1.No religious or non-religious worldviews in individual lessons without having big units to introduce the key beliefs, lived experiences and thoughts first.
• 2.Ignore half term blocks.  If I needed 10 weeks for a unit or 3 weeks it did not matter. 39 lessons per year.
• 3.Ignore when festivals are and plan to be near them but not let that dictate when lessons are.
• 4.Teach Judaism before Christianity to put Jesus’ religion in context.
• 5.Key stage 1 pupils have a good understanding of Christianity that is age appropriate.
• 6.More oracy, less writing. Knowledge does not have to be written.
• 7.A narrative curriculum with knowledge built upon and linked.
• 8.A multi-disciplinary approach embedded.
• 9.Using real people from our community as much as possible.

The process I went through to design my school’s curriculum following my own rules:

• I liked parts of my original curriculum but not all.
• I put units and lesson objectives on post it notes and moved them around into an order that linked forwards and backwards. 
• I deleted all lessons that did not link to believes, lived experiences or deep thoughts. 
• I used the Norfolk locally agreed syllabus to link each lesson to Theology, Human and Social Sciences or Philosophy.
• I created whole year booklets for Key Stage 1 with all the scaffolds in the book.
• I created blank or pictorial knowledge organisers for the children to annotate.

I then looked at each year group and gave it a theme:

• EYFS 2-year cycle:  First year Puddles the cat and Reverent Freddie Fisher units.  Second year:  Heaps of hats and Islamic units from Books at press: Welcome to Books at Press
• Year 1: Introduction to Judaism, Christianity and Islam using personal dolls and suitcases with linked items and The Belonging and Believing books from Gill Vaisey. My School purchased individual unit plans from REToday:Schemes of Work for teaching RE to all key stages
• Year 2:  Stories from Abrahamic faiths using the Whoosh Bible and my story box and loads of oracy.
• Year 3:  How people live using Picturing Islam and Understanding Muslims, Understanding Islam Understanding Muslims Understanding Islam series and introducing Hindu Dharma.
• Year 4:  Moses then linking to foods moving on to new worldviews of Humanism using Understanding Humanism and Buddhism.
• Year 5:  Inspiring people, anti-racist RE, Anti-Racist RE – NATRE  multidisciplinary sacred texts and how places of worship reflect our community.
• Year 6:  How beliefs lead to actions.