Product reviews for A Curriculum of Hope

Teachers weary of the strictures impose upon them by the National Curriculum will likely find much to admire in Debra Kidd's fourth book. Stating at the outset that any strong curriculum will call for five key pillars of practice -coherence, credibility, creativity, compassion and community -she proceeds to guide readers through a series of botanically-themed chapters that make the case for a curriculums that go beyond simply being knowledge-rich. At primary, that means building on younger pupils' prior knowledge and embracing Mantle of the Expert; at secondary, improving GCSE results by dramatically improving KS3 provision and utilising curriculums that are still knowledge-rich, but which also do far more to nurture human development and help young people come to terms with who they are. Yes, there's plenty of 'progressivism' grounded here, if you want to call it that, but it's at all y a clear-eyed, informed awareness of times what's actually achievable and workable in practice.