Nursery World - Inspection - The handbook for schools

In the first of a two-part series looking at the new Ofsted handbooks, lead teacher for Bristol Early Years Kate Irvine examines what’s in the schools version

Curriculum’, ‘sequencing’, ‘intent, implementation, impact’, and ‘knowing and remembering more’ are the new inspection buzzwords. They can feel intimidating and be misleading. But if we think of them like an over-complicated description for a well-known dish – like saying tomato sugo with basil compote when you mean tomato sauce – things begin to seem more relatable. These new terms do fit with the EYFS and the observation, assessment and planning cycle when the child is kept at the centre of the curriculum. The key is being able to articulate it well.

The detail

The requirement for ‘sequencing’ the curriculum is not a new idea but the way it is expressed in the schools handbook is problematic. It says the curriculum should be ‘planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before and towards its clearly defined end points’. Yet we know young children do not always learn in linear ways and following children’s interests can often lead to higher levels of learning in multiple areas than might have been planned for.

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