When I speak to schools about their curriculum, one question I am often asked is around how to ensure that whatever is taught is progressive. Now this can look slightly different in different subject areas, but ultimately it comes down to understanding what is being taught and how the first pieces of knowledge support the next pieces of knowledge and the next and so on. I think there is a tendency to overcomplicate things when it comes to developing a progression across a subject, and the best thing to do is always to keep it simple.
First things first, though; we need to understand the knowledge that we want to teach.
Substantive versus disciplinary knowledge
Again, something that schools are really developing their understanding of is the difference between the substantive and disciplinary knowledge that children need to learn. This is crucial in subjects like history, geography and science, but plays a role in all subjects.
Substantive knowledge is the key content that applies to the specific unit of learning.
Disciplinary knowledge is the knowledge of how to do things within that specific subject discipline. For example, use a timeline effectively or assess the reliability of a piece of evidence.
They are two separate things, but when you put them together, you end up with learning that hopefully encourages children to be a historian or a geographer or an artist!
To show this, here’s an example unit overview from the Learning Challenge Curriculum. The substantive knowledge is in question format setting out the components or lessons, and the disciplinary knowledge specific to that year group is at the bottom, showing how the children can become historians.
(Taken from The Learning Challenge Curriculum)
Progression of substantive knowledge
So how do we create a progression? Well, from a substantive knowledge point of view, the progression comes in how these unit specific pieces of knowledge can be used by the children to develop an understanding of new knowledge in subsequent units. An example would be in geography, where children may learn about the difference between hot and cold places in Y1. They might then build on this knowledge in Year 2 by learning about a particular hot country, such as Kenya. There might be further links in Year 4 when the children move from understanding the features of hot and cold places, to investigating different biomes and their features, linking to places they have studied. This knowledge may then further link to Year 5 learning about South America and rainforests, and then to climate change and settlements in Year 6.
(Taken from The Learning Challenge Curriculum)
We could take this a step further and consider concepts that thread through our curriculum within the selected substantive knowledge in each unit. These are concepts which become ‘golden threads’ such as climate or trade. Every time the children encounter one of these threads (concepts) they can think back to what they have learned within that concept and apply it to their new learning.
(Taken from Golden Threads in Geography)
Although within a unit of learning the key knowledge may seem standalone because it is relevant just to that unit, we can continuously make links between these pieces of knowledge, where appropriate, to support children’s knowledge progression. For this purpose, when we are talking about progression, we are thinking about the sequence of units across a particular subject and how we can make links between them. To ensure your curriculum is progressive in its substantive knowledge, your choice of units and their order should be intentional, not random. They should create a narrative through the subject, so that a subject leader can tell the story of how each block of knowledge builds on to the next, both within a learning unit and between and across them.
Progression of disciplinary knowledge
Disciplinary knowledge is slightly different in its progression. Disciplinary knowledge is specific to the subject area, not the unit of learning. This means that it will develop and be used by the children in every unit they learn about across the year, for example, drawing a basic map in Year 1. We can organise disciplinary knowledge across different aspects of the subject. For example, in geography, we might consider the knowledge within the area of map work, fieldwork, and sketching and collecting data.
(Taken from The Learning Challenge Curriculum)
The basic principle is that children’s knowledge of planning, drawing and using maps will develop year by year. In this sense, developing a progression within the disciplinary knowledge side of things is more straightforward, as the children’s knowledge of data collection will grow each year. The important thing for us as educators is to plan this progression carefully so that we have reasonable but high expectations of what disciplinary knowledge looks like for different year groups.
How does this work in other subjects?
I’ve talked a lot about history and geography, and science works similarly. The substantive side being set out in the National Curriculum in terms of the key knowledge that children are required to learn, such as the knowledge of plants between Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3. As far as the disciplinary side of things goes in science, this is shown clearly in the working scientifically area of the National Curriculum.
Art and DT are slightly different. This is because a vast amount of the knowledge children learn in these subjects could be considered disciplinary knowledge. Again, this is about developing a progression so that children build this disciplinary knowledge across each year group in a range of contexts. The substantive side would come in more with the artists or designers that the children study and some of the vocabulary they may learn that applies within different contexts.
In subjects like computing, we need to consider the key areas of the National Curriculum such as programming, coding or debugging and think about what this looks like within each year group. Similarly, in PE, if the children learn gymnastics every year, how does this look different as they progress through their schooling? What new knowledge and skills do they learn each year? And how do they link that to prior learning from previous years?
What about mixed-age planning?
This is a challenge which, unless you have ever experienced it, is difficult to understand just how things will work. There isn’t a simple answer, and it works in different ways depending on the school and the split of the year groups. It is more straightforward if your school follows a traditional Year 1/2, Year 3/4 and Year 5/6 mix. This means that you can consider things progressively by phase, as seen in some National Curriculum areas.
Ultimately, there are some simple steps you can follow that will set you on the right track, and then it's about piecing things together carefully based on the makeup of your classes:
1. Consider the substantive knowledge as discussed earlier. The biggest difference that you will need to account for is that every other year, children may experience units in the opposite order. What this means is that you must understand how the substantive knowledge will build in both directions. If we use the hot and cold countries and the study of Kenya as an example; in a Year 1/2 class, if they study hot and cold places first, then the link happens in the same way as first described above. The following year, the links are the other way around – the children will first experience what Kenya is and that one of its features is that it has quite a hot climate. Then when they look at hot and cold countries, they can make the link to other hot countries and then make comparisons with colder countries. The art is to ensure that leaders and teachers understand how these links change in alternate years.
2. Disciplinary knowledge doesn’t change. Whether you are teaching single-age or mixed-age classes, to be a historian or an artist or a musician in Year 3 requires the same knowledge. Where the challenge comes is how you ensure that during a topic on the Romans, you ensure that Year 3 children are learning about the unit using the Year 3 disciplinary knowledge and the Year 4 children are doing the same with the Year 4 knowledge. You can see an example of how the Learning Challenge Curriculum sets this out in a mixed age unit overview:
(Taken from The Learning Challenge Curriculum)
3. Consider the golden threads that run through your curriculum. Use these to ensure that children make learning links and can see how learning in one unit may link to another.
So, to bring this back together, progression is all about thinking carefully about how one thing leads to another, one piece of knowledge to the next. It is the basic building block of your curriculum, and it should be where you start rather than be an afterthought. The three key things I would always look at are your substantive knowledge, then your disciplinary knowledge, and finally your golden threads. There are lots of other elements you can consider too that would supplement this, such as vocabulary, but that’s a blog for another day!
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