Simplicitus The Interconnected Primary Curriculum Effective Subject Leadership

Primary curriculum design has been in sharp focus in recent years. After leading on curriculum design and effective subject leadership for 24 years across multiple schools, Emma has written the handbook for both the complex thinking which underpins primary curriculum design and provided the practical models to make it work. There is much advice out there for primary schools but much is often dominated by voices not trained or experienced in primary practice. Emma outlines the unique considerations needed for designing and implementing a rich, high-quality curriculum which serves our youngest learners – a blend of academic thinking, educational research, the wisdom of decades of primary experience and a true love of the unique nature of primary. Primary curriculum design is a unique knowledge domain of its own and Emma explains and explores how this knowledge and the thinking around it needs to be championed and implemented through both academic and child development lenses. Rooted in experience, underpinned by successful approaches implemented in hundreds of schools – curriculum design in primary is complex and nuanced but it can also be 'Simplicitus'.

Emma Turner outlines the unique considerations needed for designing and implementing a rich, high-quality primary curriculum which serves our youngest learners - a blend of academic thinking, educational research, the wisdom of decades of primary experience and a true love of the unique nature of primary.

Simplicitus Altius is the companion book to Simplicitus: The Interconnected Primary Curriculum and Effective Subject Leadership. Building on the initial ideas from Simplicitus, this book now explores further challenges in effective curriculum design within primary including reading and its place in curriculum design, child development and movement, how to get started with writing your curriculum, how to produce usable, useful and workable documentation, planning for mixed age classes, and a complete evaluation section to get to the heart of your curriculum offer. Rooted in decades of experience and research, and packed full of exemplar materials and workable proformas, Altius unpicks and presents efficient solutions to some of the perennial issues faced by primary when designing a curriculum. The approaches contained within Simplicitus and Altius have been used successfully by hundreds of schools and thousands of primary colleagues both nationally and internationally to help design and evaluate their curriculum offer. Primary curriculum design can be challenging but it need not be difficult. It can be Simplicitus.

There’s plenty to do when planning the curriculum in primary schools. If it feels daunting, then one of the most helpful things is to talk to other people about how they have developed the curriculum for their particular subject or key stage. This is what John Tomsett and Mary Myatt have done. After the secondary ‘Huh: Curriculum conversations between subject and senior leaders’ was published, they were flooded with requests to produce a primary version. They enlisted the help of renowned primary specialists, Rachel Higginson, Lekha Sharma and Emma Turner to have conversations with primary teachers and key stage co-ordinators who are doing great curriculum development work. Each chapter provides insights into the importance of individual subjects and the unique contribution each makes to pupils’ cognitive and personal development. The subject chapters discuss the steps colleagues take to ensure that there is a coherent thread across the year groups, as the discrete subjects deliver, collectively, the primary curriculum. These conversations show how the craft of creating a rich, challenging curriculum for every subject is not a quick fix. This is a nuanced piece of work, and there are many ways of approaching it. Each chapter also contains links to subject associations and helpful resources. Primary Huh has been written for subject leaders and key stage co-ordinators; it has also been written for senior leaders, as they prepare to have supportive conversations with their colleagues who are responsible for curriculum development. Primary Huh is offered as a prompt rather than the last word. Informed debate is, as they say, the fuel of curriculum development. And why have John and Mary called it ‘Huh’? Well, John discovered that Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration, and they thought that was a pretty good metaphor for their work on the curriculum!

Huh is the Egyptian god of endlessness, creativity, fertility and regeneration. He is the deity Mary Myatt and John Tomsett have adopted as their god of the school curriculum. Their first book in the Huh series focused upon how school practitioners design the Key Stage 3 curriculum. Its popularity prompted calls from many quarters for a similar book on the primary curriculum. Supported by their primary colleagues, Rachel Higginson, Lekha Sharma & Emma Turner, Mary and John interviewed over 30 primary practitioners about how they design the primary curriculum. Considering the diverse nature of primary schools in this country, it’s not surprising that they were soon confronted with numerous context-dependent curriculum complexities. Designing the curriculum for small primary schools, for instance, means solving the conundrum of teaching the same subject at the same time to three different year groups in one class. The conversations confirmed that shaping a primary school curriculum is a tricky business! The wisdom gleaned from the genuine experts Mary and John interviewed was limitless. The material was so important it meant that they had too much for a single volume. Twenty-one of those thirty-plus conversations comprise the book Primary Huh, which focused upon the curriculum of each individual subject from EYFS to Year 6. In this companion book, Primary Huh 2, Mary and John give a platform to practitioners who lead on the broader issues of primary curriculum design, including, amongst other things: shaping the curriculum for mixed-age classes; designing and implementing a cross-MAT curriculum; building the “cradle to career” curriculum; timetabling; assessment; transition, and diversity. Primary Huh 2 is riven through with authentic voices grappling with the endless challenge of providing our children with a rich, challenging, ambitious, beautiful curriculum.

The A-Z of Primary Maths is a compendium of great ideas for teaching mathematics, organised around the 26 letters of the English alphabet. 'Maths foundations must be built in our primary schools. We need to create space for children to play with numbers, to explore patterns, to solve problems, and to laugh and chat in maths lessons. It's this start that will build a lifelong love of and confidence in maths' - Kate Frood.

The beginnings of all things are small, but the possibilities for our primary pupils are infinite. Many books explore the wonders of science and education research but few are rooted in the reality of the primary classroom, what it is really like to run a primary classroom, and to spend each day in the fascinating company of our youngest learners. Initium looks with care and specific attention at the needs of our youngest learners, the development of age and stage appropriate practice and pedagogy, alongside the joys and realities of working within the primary phase. Primary is a unique stage of a child's development and requires a specific and distinctive approach to how we structure teaching and learning. What works at age 16 or 14 won't necessarily work with a classroom of 6-year-olds. Informed by science and rooted in over 25 years of primary expertise, Initium is research-informed practice for the primary specialist.

The narrative around leadership needs to change. After reading scores of leadership books in an attempt to find a voice which resonated, Emma Turner (a primary teacher of 22 years with over a decade of school leadership experience including being part of one of the first all female Co-Headships from 2009, and mum of three small children) realised that the bulk of leadership advice out there did not take into account trying to balance parenting three children as well as working in a leadership post. This book takes a practical, humorous and unique perspective on the leadership narrative by looking at leadership through the eyes of what we notice about toddlers. Packed with real examples of what works as well as reassurance that leadership is extremely do-able for many of us, this book aims to demystify some of the leadership behaviours; encourage us all to believe we can be leaders; and to, 'Be More Toddler'.