identify a focus area as early as possible so that you are able to consider this as the module unfolds. The key is to identify an area of student need and a curriculum focus. Once you’ve identified the need, you will draw on data from your school and on reading from all five Units of the module to identify where the curriculum gaps are. You will need to focus on a single area so that you can present detailed development plans – this might be a single topic for one year group. Finally, you propose detailed development plans: this might mean rewriting a scheme of work, or bringing in a new programme, or identifying new teaching approaches that the staff will use, or devising a new policy on assessment practice. As you start thinking about the student need you want to focus on, please take care that the students themselves are central – not staff, resourcing etc. The initial needs can be very specific (introducing a programme of study to teach the host country’s culture) or a little more general (improve the language proficiency of EAL learners). One way of determining needs is to identify any discrepancy between the current and the preferred situation. Where are students not doing as well as you would wish? Academic needs are often the easiest to work with but behaviour and pastoral foci are also possible, as long as you have an area of curriculum provision where these can be addressed. Working with colleagues in your department or age phase may be useful in providing a consensus about the perceived urgency of specific needs. look at the text in the MMR by Diamond (2008): Designing and assessing courses and curricula: A practical guide. You need to have the appropriate manager’s approval for the work you intend to take out –ect your grade but will undoubtedly make a difference to how much satisfaction you get from You should then be in a position to start thinking about the following. If you can’t answer yes to any of these questions, it may be worth dropping me a line to ensure that the project is going to be feasible before you do too much work. • Can you identify a definite target group/focus – subject / age / grade / topic? Yes. Literacy/7-8 years old/ Year 3/Writing • Can you identify the key stakeholders / key influences? • Do you have the appropriate management support to work in this area? The school’s head of Literacy • Are there any important voices who will not welcome your work here? Yes, some staff members (Year 3 teacher) • Is there funding/time/staff expertise available for any possible development? • Is there evidence that this curriculum could be improved? Yes, some of the children’s writing pieces/Students’ writing levels taken from baseline assessments and end of term one assessments • Can you access outcome data that you can us​‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‌‌‌‍​e to show how well the curriculum is working and where there are gaps? Yes, I am assigned to plan Literacy every week following the school chosen curriculum and books. • Is there some form of assessment at present – and if not, will you be able to show that a change is needed and/or that a change once implemented has been successful? The head of English refused the modified writing assessment design, which required the children to plan their writing in advance – the time allocated was only 50 minutes, which she also refused to extend. I have tried to follow the talk for writing technique and have made a few changes to my class timetable. I have assigned one of the handwriting sessions and one of the support sessions to be an extra writing session instead of once/week. • Is there a body of recent research literature that addresses this area? Include at least 15 supporting readings around how to improve writing in primary: how to improve planning/ provide more writing sessions in the timetable/ How can reading affect the students’ level of writing? • Are there clear links back to the content of the 5 Units of this module? If you can answer yes to all these questions, you are in a good position to get started. —————————————————-