Engaging Places is working with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) to bring together a network of teachers and learning providers from across England to look at how buildings and places can help make the curriculum real and relevant to young people’s learning.
The first Engaging Places and QCA network workshop November 2008 © Engaging Places
What has changed?
We are faced with a time of tremendous change in teaching and learning. The revised key stage 3 curriculum was launched in September 2008 with a new emphasis on giving teachers greater flexibility to:
- link subjects across the curriculum
- timetable in innovative ways
- engage learners in further creative and cultural activities inside and outside the classroom.
The Learning Outside the Classroom initiative and the related Ofsted research encourage teachers to make the most of the world beyond the classroom, and to use their school grounds and local area to make learning relevant to all learners.
These new approaches bring new challenges. Engaging Places is working with QCA and schools across the country to find practical ways to help teachers unlock the learning potential of buildings and places that surround schools.
Places provide an accessible and cost-effective way of turning the curriculum into a compelling learning experience. Teachers will benefit from help in discovering how best to use places for learning within time and cost constraints, and the value this approach can bring to their subject.
At the first Engaging Places and QCA network, brainstorming session © Engaging Places
Engaging Places workshops
Engaging Places workshops are designed to give teachers the skills and confidence to integrate buildings and places into the curriculum. Engaging Places and QCA have invited schools and learning providers from three regions in England to take part in a workshop programme, based on the QCA’s curriculum network initiative.
The workshops and the network will:
- support ideas for innovation in teaching and learning
- challenge thinking in relation to curriculum planning and learners' experiences
- offer support, listen, learn and make connections across the realm of big-picture curriculum planning.
The first workshop
Teachers and learning providers from Yorkshire and the Humber, the South East and London took part in the first Engaging Places workshop in November 2008. The group comprised representatives from around 20 primary and secondary schools and 15 cultural and academic organisations.
QCA explained the process of disciplined innovation within the curriculum, and led activities to help participants identify the following within their curriculum planning:
- the difference you want to make to your learners
- how you can best organise learning when you're using the built environment to achieve your aims, and
- how to evaluate the impact of your curriculum changes.
Leading heritage and built environment organisations taking part included English Heritage, Brighton and Hove Museums Service, and the Geographical Association and representatives of higher education institutions including the Institute of Education and Canterbury Christ Church College.
The next two stages of the workshop programme involve:
- regional workshops in January 2009 at Hampton Court Palace, Leeds Town Hall, and the Lightbox Gallery in Woking
- a final event in March 2009 at the Victoria and Albert Museum for all participants to share ideas, reflect on the programme and assess its success.
Materials and plans © Peter Atkinson Photography
Outcomes of the workshops
At the first workshop in November 2008, teachers and learning providers worked in partnership to develop a unique curriculum journey for their learners that encompassed learning within or through buildings and places.
During and in between subsequent workshops, these partnerships will meet to develop and employ their curriculum journey. They will showcase their projects at the final event in March 2009.
The curriculum journey process will be captured by each participant in a curriculum diary. The Engaging Places team will be following one curriculum journey to document the process on film. Curriculum diaries and the film footage will be used to create exemplars for all teachers and learning providers to use in their curriculum planning, and will be featured on the Engaging Places website in due course.
Future of the Engaging Places network
Engaging Places hopes to extend these partnerships over the next three years to develop a nation-wide network. This network, alongside QCA, will endeavour to use the built environment to develop and improve the curriculum for the benefit of every young person.
For more information about the network please email engagingplaces@cabe.org.uk.
