When we set out our stall at the beginning of this book, we had some pretty bold aims:
Our curriculum is skills based and knowledge rich; we cover less because we believe that our children should have the opportunity to study areas of the curriculum in greater depth. We want our children to produce exceptional outcomes whilst developing their independence, curiosity and creativity. We want to produce collaborators, innovators, leaders and, more than anything else, young people who understand what it means to be human.
These are the words that sit at the top of my school’s curriculum policy and they were written as a statement of intent. But a curriculum isn’t just a document, or at least it shouldn’t be. Choosing to work differently is a commitment to action. There are plenty of people out there who dismiss the aim of developing creative thinking, independence and curiosity as a hopeless waste of time, but these people underestimate the determination that dedicated individuals like us have to show that it can and does work. We have to think hard about it, and we have to work hard at it, but there is another way.