If you ask a teacher 'What's the single most important feature you consider when deciding whether or not to use a new learning resource?’ the likely answer will be 'How well it supports the curriculum.'
Despite this, organisations continue to spend time and effort developing resources for school-age learners that have little direct relevance to the curriculum. How does this happen, and why are teachers so obsessed with the curriculum?
It is easy to assume that because something is intrinsically interesting or significant, it will be attractive to schools and will probably feature somewhere in the school curriculum. But if you don’t take the trouble to find out, and target your resources appropriately, you run the risk that uptake of your resource will be small.
In England, teachers are measured by the progress their pupils make against national targets in standardised curriculum tests at the ages of 7, 11, 14 and 16. The system is a bit more flexible in the other parts of the UK (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), but here too the overriding expectation of teachers is that they will deliver the curriculum effectively, and their pupils' exam results at 16 are a key measure of their effectiveness.
Teachers struggle to deliver against this expectation, and generally have little time for anything that does not directly support curriculum delivery. This doesn’t mean that teachers are blinkered or curriculum-obsessed. They are pragmatists, exercising their professional judgement in what they consider to be the best interests of their pupils.
The implication for anyone developing educational resources is clear: only resources that have explicit, demonstrable links to the curriculum are likely to gain favour with teachers and actually to be used with pupils. So how can you find the areas where your organisation has the greatest relevance to the curriculum?
Our Curriculum database is a searchable tool that allows any organisation quickly to identify their main links to key subjects in the National Curriculum within a maritime context. Our Scotland page outlines the situation in Scottish education. And our Literacy pages show you how to create resources that support skills-based aspects of the curriculum.