The Importance of Knowledge Acquisition for Progress

Curriculum Workshop
Curriculum workshops autumn 18 Slide 1

What is curriculum and
why is the quality of curriculum
important?

Session 1: Outline
How has Ofsted been researching curriculum and preparing
for the new framework?
What is curriculum?
What is progress?
What is the role of systematic and
cumulative knowledge acquisition in
pupils’ progress?

The importance of knowledge acquisition
for progress has been highlighted by HMCI
‘Twelve years of education should give children a lot more
than a disposition to learn and some ill-defined skills. Yet the
evidence from the first stage of our research this year is that
the focus on substance, on the knowledge that we
want young people to acquire, is often lost…
…If their entire school experience has been
designed to push them through mark-scheme
hoops, rather than developing a deep body of
knowledge, they will struggle in later study.’

The curriculum: current inspection and
towards a 2019 inspection framework
The quality of curriculum is part of the leadership and
management judgement in our current framework.
We are clear that in the proposed framework we need to take
a rounded view of the quality of education offered by
schools and providers.
The curriculum will be at the core of the proposed
framework, recognising the close connection between
curricular content and the way that this content is taught
and assessed in order to support children to build their
knowledge and to apply that knowledge.
Slide 5Curriculum workshops autumn 18

Curriculum research: our findings so far

Why the new focus on curriculum?
Lack of curriculum knowledge and expertise
Curriculum being confused with assessment and qualifications
Teaching to the test
Curriculum narrowing Social justice issues

The next phase of curriculum research is
informing the developing framework
We recently published the second phase of the curriculum
research.
In this phase we tried to learn lessons from schools that are
particularly invested in curriculum design, with a view to
developing indicators around curriculum intent, implementation
and impact.
We aim to use this evidence to turn the common curriculum
factors leaders told us about into testable quality indicators,
which will inform the draft evaluation criteria for the
framework.
We are now testing these indicators in schools to refine them.

Across the schools we visited we found several
factors that may be linked to curriculum quality
Focus on subject disciplines even when topics are taught
Considering depth and breadth of curriculum content
Seeing the curriculum as the progression model
Having a clear purpose for assessment
Reviewing and evaluating curriculum design
Clear curriculum leadership (often distributed) and ownership
Considering local context and filling gaps from pupil
backgrounds

Activity 1: discussion
What is meant by ‘curriculum’:
for a school?
for a subject?
for a lesson?

At every level the curriculum is the WHAT
of education

Distinguishing curriculum from teaching
and assessment

“…learning
the training?”
“…meeting the
standards?”
“…achieving the
next level?”
“…what the
data shows?”
Is progress…

Activity 2
a) Make a long list of gardening knowledge someone would need
to create the garden in the ‘after’ picture on this slide.
b) Why would using the assessment levels in your handout be
unhelpful as a curriculum?

Question…
Feedback: How does this advice demonstrate the way confusing
curriculum and assessment can lead to problems?
 Descriptions of outcomes do not identify the specifics a
pupil needs to know to improve.
 The writer mistakenly assumes that a description of
outcomes provides a plan (or curriculum) of what needs to
be known to achieve the outcome.

Activity 3: Distinguishing curriculum from
teaching and assessment
Assessment:
An evaluation of Dickens’
description of London
Curriculum Teaching activities

A successful evaluation of Dickens’ description
of London could draw on…
Knowledge of how
to write evaluation
questions and any
specific exam
requirements
Knowledge of a
similar description
and its typical
features, e.g.
familiarity with
archaic language
Knowledge of the
historical context
Strong grasp of
syntax, SPAG etc.
Class reading of the text
Pair discussion of descriptive techniques
Exercises to practise correct usage of SPAG

The curriculum goes beyond what is
assessed

Ofsted’s working definition of curriculum
‘A framework for setting out the aims of a programme of
education, including the knowledge and understanding to be
gained at each stage (intent)…
…for translating that framework over time into a structure and
narrative, within an institutional context (implementation)…
…and for evaluating what knowledge and understanding
pupils have gained against expectations (impact).’

The curriculum isn’t…
 …just the subject or qualification offer
 …the same as teaching activities: the curriculum is WHAT is
taught and not how it is taught
 …about devising extra or more elaborate or creative activities
 …vague – it is a specific plan of what children need to know in
total, and in each subject.

Examples of the sorts of questions inspectors
might ask about curriculum quality
Intent:
How far do leaders consider what children need to learn and the order
to teach it?
Implementation:
Is the curriculum for each subject designed, over time, to maximise the
likelihood that children will remember and connect the steps they have
been taught?
Impact
How well are children learning the content outlined in the curriculum?

The curriculum and progress
A brief explanation from cognitive psychology

What is progress?
What does it mean to ‘get better’ at
languages, mathematics, history or English?

This session will explore the following view of progress
suggested by the evidence from research in cognitive
psychology:
Progress means knowing more and remembering more.
‘Learning is defined as an alteration in long-term memory. If
nothing has altered in long-term memory nothing has been
learned.’
Sweller, J., Ayres, P., & Kalyuga, S. (2011). Cognitive load theory (Vol. 1). Springer Science & Business
Media.

Activity 4
 Individually, review the passage on page 4 of the handout
from a book called ‘Mountains of the Mind’
by Robert Macfarlane.
 How might knowledge acquired through
schooling help an adult reader to
comprehend this passage?

Activity 4: You may have considered:
Curriculum workshops autumn 18
A geographical knowledge of polar regions.
A cultural knowledge of aristocratic stereotypes.
Historical knowledge of the world before the technological
developments of today.
Biological knowledge about the human body and its reaction to
extreme cold.
Literary knowledge of how landscape is admired by romantics.
A very rich knowledge of vocabulary.
Knowledge of similar literary forms.
Slide 26

The importance of knowledge: vocabulary

Vocabulary relates to social class…
Findings of the Hart and Risley landmark study:
 Over four years, researchers recorded that an average child
in a professional family accumulated experience of almost
45 million words; in a working-class family, 26 million
words; and in a family receiving welfare, 13 million words.
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). ‘Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young
American children’. Paul H Brookes Publishing.

Vocabulary size relates to academic success
The reason is clear: vocabulary size is a convenient proxy
for a whole range of educational attainment abilities —
not just skills in reading, writing, listening,
and speaking but also general
knowledge of science, history
and the arts.
If we want to reduce economic inequality, a good
place to start is the subject classroom.
Slide 29

30
Such correlations between vocabulary
size and life chances are as firm as
any correlations in educational
research.
Simply put: knowing more
words makes you smarter!

Schooling is crucial for increasing the
breadth of children’s vocabulary
 Around 90% of vocabulary is only really encountered when
reading and is not used in speech.
 Much fiction does not give access to the more academic
vocabulary and syntax used for high-level GCSE, A level and
beyond.
 Academic texts provide exposure to complex vocabulary
and ideas that must be grasped in order to achieve
academic success.
Stanovich, K. E. (1993). ‘Does reading make you smarter? Literacy and the development of
verbal intelligence.’ Advances in child development and behavior, vol. 24, pp. 133 –180.

32
What would it take for education to counter the 30
million word experience gap, identified by Hart and
Risley, that predicts the educational trajectory of
children when they are four years old?

Summary
What have we learned so far about the features of a high-
quality curriculum?
A high-quality curriculum is based on proactive thinking.
A high-quality curriculum will result from considering the
sequence of content necessary for children to make
progress.
A high-quality curriculum will provide children with the
knowledge they need for subsequent learning, e.g.
knowledge of vocabulary.

Who recognises this
booklet?
It contained passages with
challenging subject
themes, syntax and
vocabulary.

Activity 5
What might a Year 6 pupil struggle to comprehend in the
passage you have been assigned?
What knowledge that can be acquired
through schooling would help them to
comprehend this passage?

The Way of the Dodo:
First sighted
Extinct predators
- All from science
Paradise – from RE
The Lost Queen:
Ancestors
Struggle for the throne
Rival families
Family symbols
Monument
- All from history study
So what did you come up with on your tables?
Slide 36

What can we learn from this exercise?
What we know allows us to read.
In other words, it is our prior knowledge that enables us
to comprehend new material. Knowledge is highly
‘transferable’ between contexts.
Knowledge learned across the curriculum facilitates
comprehension.
This is why simple vocabulary tests are highly predictive of
future academic performance.
Slide 37

A school decides to
add the Romans to
the curriculum…
38

peninsula rebellion
province economy
slave worship
public
hygiene
sacrifice
Latin citizen
wealthy
city
climate
law
wealthy
landowner
trade BC and AD
republic good road
social class
peace and
prosperity
myths gods
legion conquer
assassination taxes
senate baths
crossing
the Alps
calendar
empire elect
A well-designed curriculum might deliberately
stress the concepts below:

These words are taken from the ‘Dodo’ passage in the
key stage 2 reading test:
Slide 40
extinct team of
scientists
predator reptile
process
unusual
species
recording prey
species anatomy
scientist animal
freshwater
natural
world
‘impact on
natural
world’
‘birds’
ability to
survive’
unique
wildlife
feature
‘a variety of
unusual
species’
‘unique
wildlife
wiped out’
flightless
relative
wildlife
‘helping
scientists find
out more’
‘newly
discovered
animals’

Components: The building blocks that together, when known, allow
successful performance of a complex task
Composite: a task that requires several building blocks or
components

Why is a focus on curriculum necessary?
1. Because knowledge allows comprehension, i.e.
understanding
2. Because knowledge is generative (and thus
sticky)
3. Because skills are dependent on relevant
knowledge
4. Because knowledge empowers

Knowledge deficits
accumulate when layered on top
of one another in a curriculum
sequence.
This accumulation of dysfluency
(gaps) limits and may even
prevent acquisition of complex
skills that depend on them.
This problem is called
‘cumulative dysfluency’.
What happens when pupils don’t learn the knowledge
they need?
Fisher, W. W., Piazza, C. C., & Roane, H. S. (Eds). (2011). Handbook of applied behavior analysis. Guilford Press. 43

How can we check progress over time?
We can see if useful, well-chosen knowledge is building over
time and enabling progress through a carefully sequenced
curriculum.
This means building knowledge of:
 vocabulary
 events, people and places
 concepts
 procedures.
…which have been carefully selected because they are the
most ‘powerful’ (useful or transferable) knowledge.

45
Whose knowledge?
In some subjects, like history, the selection of content can be
controversial, with heated debate over content choices.
School leaders should be choosing the curriculum content
with thought and care.

The importance of pupils’ knowledge of schemata
(expanding and interconnected webs of concepts)

47
Knowledge does not sit as isolated ‘information’
in pupils’ minds.

Experts in every field depend on
rich and detailed structures of
knowledge stored in their long
term memory.
Understanding
deepens as
structures of
knowledge stored
in long-term
memory become
increasingly
complex

1. Because knowledge allows comprehension, i.e.
understanding
2. Because knowledge is generative (and thus
sticky)
3. Because skills are dependent on relevant
knowledge

Connection of old knowledge to new knowledge
Knowledge is generative (sticky)...
Hooks/old learning
Slide 50

Knowledge stored in long-term memory
frees up space to think...
‘Because experts already know a great deal one might suppose
they would learn very little when they look something up, whereas
the novice, with so much to learn, would learn more... But in fact
it’s the expert who learns more that is new, and learns it much
faster… because the human mind is able to assimilate only three or
four new items before further elements evaporate from working
memory... Experts... need pay attention to only one or two novel
features that can be easily integrated into their prior knowledge.’
Hirsch, Why Knowledge Matters (2016)

1. Because knowledge allows comprehension,
i.e. understanding
2. Because knowledge is generative (sticky)
3. Because skills are dependent on specific
knowledge

Skill: the capacity to perform
Examples of desirable cognitive skills:
analysis
evaluation
problem-solving
creativity
independence.
Slide 53

Skills and knowledge: a false binary
54
Skills Knowledge
Progress Progress
ProgressSkill
(capacity to
perform)
Knowledge

A treasure hunter was going to explore a cave up on a hill
near a beach. He suspected there might be many paths inside
the cave, so he was afraid he might get lost. Obviously, he did
not have a map of the cave; all he had with him were some
common items such as a torch and a bag.
What could he do to make sure he did not get
lost trying to get back out of the cave later?
Willingham, D. T. (2007). Critical thinking. American Educator, 31(3), 8–19.
Activity 6

Things you may have considered…
Perhaps your evaluation skills would actually pick you up some
GCSE marks if you reasoned that:
 I know light gates or motion sensors connected to data
loggers would remove the error created by human reaction
time would give a significantly more accurate value.
And some might really be able to show off:
 I know human reaction time is the most significant
weakness. The percentage of uncertainty in measuring the
distance is insignificant (0.4%), whereas the percentage of
error in measuring the time is approximately 20%.
Things you may have considered…

58
Which is more important… the cake or the ingredients?

Experts in every field depend on
rich and detailed structures of
knowledge stored in their long
term memory.
Experts in every field depend on rich
and detailed structures of knowledge
stored in their long-term memory.

Skills are dependent on specific knowledge
Since the 1940s we have known from researchers that human
skills tend to be domain-specific and do not transfer readily
from one domain to another.
If people are very skilled in one area this won’t make them
skilled in another area or domain.
Willingham, D. T. (2007). ‘Critical thinking’. American Educator, 31(3), 8–19.

1. Because knowledge allows comprehension,
i.e. understanding
2. Because knowledge is generative (sticky)
3. Because skills are dependent on specific
knowledge

Social justice requires that we
provide an education which
gives the less privileged
access to the knowledge
they need to succeed.
62

is based on proactive thinking
will be the product of clear consideration of the
sequence of content necessary for children to make
progress
will provide children with the knowledge they need
for subsequent learning – transferable knowledge
builds deeper understanding and the capacity for
skilful performance.
Slide 63
In summary, a high-quality curriculum:

Any questions?

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The Importance of Knowledge Acquisition for Progress

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