This report shares the work of four primary teachers from the West Midlands of England involved in a curriculum investigation project funded by the British Curriculum Forum. The project aimed to explore how a curriculum design framework, the ‘Curriculum Design Coherence’ (CDC) model (Rata, 2019; 2020; 2021), could contribute towards enhancing both teachers’ and pupils’ appreciation of the concept of sustainability.

Focused on key stage 2 geography (for pupils aged 7–11), the project investigated why curriculum design might be a significant capability for teachers to develop; what primary geography might contribute towards developing pupils’ knowledge and understanding of sustainability; and the relationship between teachers’ curriculum design knowledge and pupil progress.

Summary

The aim of the project was to investigate whether a curriculum design intervention, the ‘Curriculum Design Coherence’ (CDC) model (Rata, 2019; 2020; 2021), could contribute towards enhancing both teachers’ and pupils’ appreciation of the concept of sustainability. Within the study the word sustainability is defined as ‘meeting the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (Brundtland, 1987). The term ‘climate change’ is used to describe changes to the global climate system driven by anthropogenic enterprises rather than those induced by non-human activity. The study focused on key stage 2 geography (for pupils aged 7–11) and was underpinned by the following three research questions:

• What is meant by the term ‘curriculum design’ and why might this be a significant capability for teachers to develop?
• What might primary geography contribute towards developing pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the concept of sustainability?
• What is the relationship between teachers’ curriculum design knowledge and pupil progress?

Key findings

• A focus on curriculum design as distinct from curriculum making gives teachers a structured time and space to (re)engage with disciplinary structures, strengthening the relationship between school subjects and the disciplines.
• The CDC model gives teachers agency by enabling them to make informed judgements rather than developing a dependency on published schemes.
• The significance of the effortful nature of curriculum design was valued as a key professional capability. This is counter to the promotion of a marketplace of curriculum solutions.
• The use of the CDC model helped the teachers to take a step back and recognise that sustainability is an evaluative concept rather than a key or organising concept within geography itself. An effective, informed and geographical education has a highly significant contribution to make to pupils’ appreciation of the complex concept of sustainability.
• The project has shown that a range of curriculum subjects have a meaningful contribution to make to developing pupils’ appreciation of the complexities surrounding the concept of sustainability.
• The use of mind maps as an evaluative tool within the project demonstrated the relationship between language and meaning, enabled by foregrounding a focus on concept-content-context relations rather than fragmented knowledge.
• Early indications suggest that by using concepts as a specialising and organising framework within curriculum design, teachers’ awareness is raised of the disciplinary purpose of the subsequent sequences of learning.
• Concepts were not specifically taught but used to cohere pupils’ learning, such that, as one teacher put it, ‘we develop pupils’ schema rather than accept a scheme’.

In summary, teachers gain agency by focusing on curriculum design prior to curriculum making. This prioritisation aids coherence for pupil learning in relation to concepts that might otherwise appear even more challenging to grasp.