In our recent report series What we teach matters, we described how effective curriculum design and implementation can support school performance. In schools and systems, many leaders are working to develop a greater understanding of the current state of curriculum design and implementation so they can take further steps to support effective practice, including addressing issues relating to curriculum quality, depth vs breadth and the rigour of implementation. For this blog, I am circulating an article I recently wrote for the Australian Financial Review informed by our research and work with systems. The article highlights how businesses can better support Australian schools by focusing their efforts on the quality of curriculum resources schools have access to. The piece was written for an Australian audience, but I hope it is of interest to people in other countries as it highlights issues we commonly encounter across many systems. My next blog post will return to the tangible steps system leaders can take to develop and implement system reform focused on quality curriculum and continuous improvement in the teaching and learning of the curriculum. But for now, I hope you enjoy this piece from the Australian Financial Review

Systemic assessments of student learning that isolate skills like “finding the main idea” encourage teachers to place an unhelpful emphasis on the teaching of these “skills”.

Strong curriculum combined with teacher and school leader development can drive powerful school and system improvement.