The Competency curriculum

Schools are asking 'is it possible to timetable and what impact will it have on other areas of the school'?

In recent weeks MIST Services has received a number of enquiries with regard to introducing a competency curriculum in year 7. It is seen as an essential step in easing the transition from primary school, motivating learners and raising achievement overall. Typically schools are planning to devote approximately 30% of curriculum time to this style of learning. All schools ask 'is it possible to timetable and what impact will it have on other areas of the school'?

Schools will define what they want to include in their competency teams in different ways to reflect their aims, needs and aspirations. The example below is to be implemented in Academy that will open its doors in September 2010:

In this model the competency curriculum will utilise 9 out of 25 periods in the week. The whole of the year group will be on together. The year group will also come together as a whole for Personalised learning for 1 period a week. For everything else a learner will be in one of 3 pathways depending on their ability.

Organising the blocks
Organised in this way you essentially have a block requiring 7 staff for 9 periods in the week. In many ways it is no different from a double option block in KS4. It is unusual to have blocks of this size lower down in the school and because of the size of the block and its cross-discipline nature it will be more difficult to timetable than a traditional Y7 curriculum and hence needs to be put on the timetable early on in the scheduling process.

Within these 9 periods staff will be free to organise their time in whatever way is considered best for the learners. Although the periods are all 60 minutes in duration this should not confine anything. Because there will always be a language teacher in the team there will be the flexibility to organise the language teaching into bursts of 20 or 30 minute sessions if this is seen as the right thing to be doing. DT will be offered at set times within the block and there will be pairs of classes to allow for rotations etc.

Impact on staff
The Principal is a visionary and a realist. An experienced primary specialist is to be recruited to co-ordinate this significant part of the curriculum and this person will be a member of the leadership team. There is no prescription as to what times in the day or the week the competency curriculum should occur. It could be a whole day, 2 half-days, a double period on each of 4 days and a single on another or any combination that suits the overall timetable for the school.

A structure such as this is likely to challenge the skills of the timetabler but it should certainly not be beyond the capability of most. It should certainly provoke some interesting debate about the composition of staff 'teams' and may well challenge some traditional subject specialist teams. At the very least it should get people really thinking about what they are trying to achieve and why it is being done. Potentially it offers the opportunity for some very exciting teaching experiences that will help in the overall goal of looking at every learner as an individual and raising confidence, aspirations and achievement.

Is your school going to introduce a competency curriculum?
If your school is looking to introduce a competency based curriculum for a year group or several year groups and would like to discuss anything further please contact MIST Services. MIST Services works with many schools, colleges and Academies each academic year, ultimately being exposed to literally hundreds of curriculums and timetabling problems.